Help with Terrains, Relief Maps, and Grayscale Images

Help with Terrains, Relief Maps, and Grayscale Images

I am struggling to understand how to turn a grayscale image into a terrain. My ultimate goal is to render a surface that has been imaged with scanning tunneling microscope. The path that I envision is:

Take data --> Convert to grayscale (format?) --> Load into Cheetah3D --> Render

At the moment, I am having difficulty turning the default relief map into my imaged data. A different post suggested "choose Terrain->Import Heightmap - Raw..., then select the desired RAW file;" however, I have been unable to find the "Terrain" menu item.

If it makes a difference, I am using the demo copy of Cheetah3D. I own a much earlier version and will be happy to upgrade as soon as I verify Cheetah3D's suitability for this application.

Many thanks,

Melissa
 
Welcome, Melissa. I think what you may be after is using a displacement modifier on a plane. You can load your image data (jpg, png, tiff) into the properties area for the displacement modifier and change it's settings to show the actual height map. It's actually called a displacement map in this sense and it isn't exactly what you're looking for as far as a height map representation. You may be confusing Cheetah for another tool, as the sequence and options you've described are not right.

However, I've done something like this using the displacement modifier and a fractal image. It generated a terrain of sorts, but wasn't very good.
 
Last edited:
If you simply needed a 3D representation of your scanned image (assuming it was scanned in 3D), then the file type can be any of the following:

  • 3ds
  • .dxf (quite limited yet)
  • .fbx
  • .lwo
  • .obj
  • .sia
  • .stl (binary and ASCII)
  • .jas (binary and ASCII)
I recommend .obj for this one. You can simply take your .obj scanned image and go to File > Import... in Cheetah and get the .obj to open in Cheetah that way.
 
Take data --> Convert to grayscale (format?) --> Load into Cheetah3D --> Render

Hi Melissa,
Yes, you can do that. See the attached image. You can use an 8bits greyscale image with one of these format : .JPG, .BMP, .TIFF. Depending the size and resolution of your image you may have to play with the default sections width or depth parameters (see the properties of the relief object). Try to stay with an image size of 500x500 pixels max for a better resolution.

At the moment, I am having difficulty turning the default relief map into my imaged data. A different post suggested "choose Terrain->Import Heightmap - Raw..., then select the desired RAW file;" however, I have been unable to find the "Terrain" menu item.
As Frank said, there is no "Terrain" menu item in C3D. The post was wrong. "Relief" is the one you need to use.
And all of this will work with the demo version. You just can't save your work.
 

Attachments

  • Image 3.jpg
    Image 3.jpg
    122 KB · Views: 1,167
Thanks everyone, especially Francois, for your help. Following the screen shot and directions posted by Francois, I was able to do almost everything I wanted to do with very little effort. I am sure that I can make things more photogenic with some work, but this has convinced me that Cheetah3D can do what I need (and with a much more intuitive interface than the other packages I have tried). FYI, I attach a rendered image of an etched Si surface. The lateral dimensions are approx. 200 nm x 200 nm.

With thanks,

Melissa
 

Attachments

  • Rendered-Surface.jpg
    Rendered-Surface.jpg
    52.3 KB · Views: 1,404
Melissa,

... I was able to do almost everything I wanted to do with very little effort. ...

You could also use the displacement modifier ( see here ) but the plane is limited to 500 sections ( => 500 pixels for a max. resolution ) while the relief can go up to 1000 (Ok if you have a fast machine)

... I am sure that I can make things more photogenic with some work ...
See here for some ideas. You may want to look at the UV mapper help page as you will need to use a flat mapping type to reproduce such an excellent example

... etched Si surface. The lateral dimensions are approx. 200 nm x 200 nm...
With a plasma etcher ? Is this for semiconductors ?
 
Last edited:
Francois,

The link you posted is excellent! Thanks very much. This was indeed one of the things I was going to try to figure out.

The sample was actually etched in an aqueous solution, not a plasma etcher. We are still trying to understand the chemical origins of this phenomenon, as it "accidentally" popped out of an undergraduate's summer research project.

Thanks again,

Melissa
 
Back
Top