Joel
0
In 2017 I posted a link to a useful site that made it easy to select a real-world terrain and make a grayscale height map that could be loaded into C3D’s Relief Object or Displacement Modifier.
https://www.cheetah3d.com/forum/index.php?threads/12533/
Alas, the site no longer works. Another free site has effectively taken its place, with a similar interface and process.
https://cs.heightmap.skydark.pl/
It starts in San Francisco using Open Street Maps. The outer shaded square is the selected area. I don’t know the significance of the green and blue areas.
Drag the square where you want. Click the i icon to display the longitude and latitude and choose the map area size; this ranges from 17 to 69 km squared. After moving or rescaling the area click the Refresh button to set the longitude and latitude. This also sets the maximum height of any mountain, which is a factor in how the height map’s grayscale range is determined. (I clicked the right-most Base level and Height scale icons to re-do a height map where the mountains were flattened at the top.)
Click the Download PNG height map icon. (1081 X 1081, 16 bit grayscale.)
Click the Layers icon to select a Map Style, like Streets or Satellite. Click the Download Image icon. (2560 X 2560 8 bit RGB) The satellite images tend to have a bright green bias, but they’re still useful for matching the visible surface features with the terrain. There are other settings and options, but this will get you started.
The attached pictures depict a 17.8 X 17.8 km area around Innsbruck Austria. I used a Skylight set at an angle to accentuate the contrast, which may not correspond to actual sunlight.
The Plane is 10.81 X 10.81 with 1081 X 1081 sections. The Displacement Modifier has the Offset increased to 2.0 so the terrain’s height is exaggerated compared to actual proportions. The third picture shows the recently abandoned proposal from the Alpine Rice Growers Association to double Austria’s Gross Domestic Product by terracing the otherwise useless mountains.
https://www.cheetah3d.com/forum/index.php?threads/12533/
Alas, the site no longer works. Another free site has effectively taken its place, with a similar interface and process.
https://cs.heightmap.skydark.pl/
It starts in San Francisco using Open Street Maps. The outer shaded square is the selected area. I don’t know the significance of the green and blue areas.
Drag the square where you want. Click the i icon to display the longitude and latitude and choose the map area size; this ranges from 17 to 69 km squared. After moving or rescaling the area click the Refresh button to set the longitude and latitude. This also sets the maximum height of any mountain, which is a factor in how the height map’s grayscale range is determined. (I clicked the right-most Base level and Height scale icons to re-do a height map where the mountains were flattened at the top.)
Click the Download PNG height map icon. (1081 X 1081, 16 bit grayscale.)
Click the Layers icon to select a Map Style, like Streets or Satellite. Click the Download Image icon. (2560 X 2560 8 bit RGB) The satellite images tend to have a bright green bias, but they’re still useful for matching the visible surface features with the terrain. There are other settings and options, but this will get you started.
The attached pictures depict a 17.8 X 17.8 km area around Innsbruck Austria. I used a Skylight set at an angle to accentuate the contrast, which may not correspond to actual sunlight.
The Plane is 10.81 X 10.81 with 1081 X 1081 sections. The Displacement Modifier has the Offset increased to 2.0 so the terrain’s height is exaggerated compared to actual proportions. The third picture shows the recently abandoned proposal from the Alpine Rice Growers Association to double Austria’s Gross Domestic Product by terracing the otherwise useless mountains.
BTW, the approach to the airport is quite, erm, interesting. I was tempted to briefly abolish my atheism.
