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Landscape Projection with Blender?

Posted by Cliff on from the heightfields-and-polygons dept.

polyp2000 asks: "I am working on a project that requires me to generate 3D terrain maps from bitmapped contour files. I need to then be able to apply a texture over the top of the terrain. I've been looking for a utility that will enable me to convert from bitmap to 3D landscape projection that can be imported into Blender (either VRML or DXF). After googling around I haven't really come up with anything useful. Might seasoned Slashdot readers know of a solution?"

9 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. Height Modeling by glk572 · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.linuxgraphic.org/section3d/blender/page s/didacticiels/paysages/index-ang.html

    Is, I think, exactly what you're looking for, just replace his step of generating the map, with your own to create the image that you need, and out pops your image ready to be textured.

    --
    Well art is art isn't it, but then again water is water; and east is east; and west is west; and if you take cranberries
  2. GMT by Zapper · · Score: 2, Informative
    I'm sure that Generic Mapping Tools will do all that you want and more.

    It may take some time to learn to use it properly though...

    --
    So much to do, so little bandwidth.
    --
    Try Mozilla
  3. povray by krymsin01 · · Score: 3, Informative

    If all you have to do is render it, try povray It's excedingly easy to do what you describe in it. Also, I think there are povray -> blender converters, not sure though.

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    stuff
    1. Re:povray by klaasvakie · · Score: 2, Informative

      I have done what you want before, povray is a excellent tool for this.

      If you go to the blender scripts page you can get a pov->blender converter.

      --
      # ssh -l neo the_matrix; killall -9 agent_smith
  4. Terragen by BigT · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's a Windows app, but Terragen may do what you need. There are several plugins to it that allow you to use various things, such as bitmaps, to generate the terrain. The plugins also output in a variety of formats.

    --
    Is it weird in here, or is it just me?
  5. Re:blender won't work by Vizionary · · Score: 5, Informative
    BTW, the 64k limit was resolved back in v2.32

    Here's an excerpt from the release notes for Blender 2.32...

    "- Blender Meshes now have a limit of 2 Billion faces (instead of 64k). This doesn't break backward or upward compatibility, but will cause .blend files to grow about 30% in size. "

    Also, in case you're interested, they've recently released Blender 2.33a which can be downloaded here.

    There are TONS of new features...

    Enjoy!

  6. what for? by theMerovingian · · Score: 2, Informative


    What is the purpose of creating 3d terrain maps? What type of textures or data do you want to overlay? Is there any economic value to your project? Do you want to be able to do a virtual walkthrough, or just generate static images?

    If you are trying to program a flight simulator, your needs are totally different than if you were trying to do mapping or GIS analysis. Also, you could just be trying to make a pretty picture.

    Pretty picture:
    Use terragen (as mentioned by previous poster)

    Mapping/GIS analysis of geospatial data:
    ArcView (not cheap)

    Architectural rendering:
    Lightwave (not cheap) or RapidSite 3d (not sure if they are still making this one)

    Goofing around with flight sim:
    some game engine

    You might want to take a look at this site:
    Vterrain is a pretty cool place to get started. The community is pretty helpful - some French dude who programs flight sims gave me some pointers in developing a commercial 3d mapping application.

    Finally, if you need a source for terrain maps, check out the USGS's National Elevation Dataset (NED). This is the best thing since sliced bread in the GIS community.

    Good luck...

    --
    "If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
  7. I think I have some expertise here... by XenonOfArcticus · · Score: 4, Informative

    Considering this is what I do for a living.

    I won't be able to give you much advice for doing this on Linux, or with Open Source software, since I'm actually not aware of anything that meets both those criteria. I know you didn't stipulate those criteria, but this is Slashdot.

    The first issue you face is converting bitmapped contour data into a heightfield. This is not the same as converting greyscale to heightfields, which is a trivial matter. Most of the links proposed already cover using a greyscale image.

    A helpful site for you will be http://terrainmap.com/. He has an application (Windows, $free) called Blackart that tries to extract meaning from scanned topo map contours and build a DEM/heightfield out of it. A commercial app (Windows, $1500) that does the same thing is R2V. I've not used either so I can't comment on what you get for your $1500.

    Once you have a DEM, you can probably find a way to convert it into a file format that Blender can use as a 3D object and apply texturing to.

    The next step is, what kind of texturing? If you just want to be able to slap some pretty-looking colors or natural-looking dirt/rock/grass/snow effects onto it, you can probably do that in Blender. If Blender can't do everything you want, you might try Terragen (Windows/Mac, $free), which is a little more landscape-oriented. I would not recommend VistaPro at this point, it's pretty outdated. TG is at least still being developed, although it's going commercial.

    If you need to be able to place real-world image information onto the terrain (airphoto or satellite images, GIS databases, other scanned maps, etc) then Blender is really becoming a poor choice for your needs. (What were your criteria for choosing Blender anyway? It's not known for its landscape capabilities.) The trouble becomes that data like these are usually stored in a different Coordinate System (read the whole VTP site while you're there, Ben's got GREAT info). This means that lining up the position, size and rotation of the two pieces of data is difficult if your software doesn't know how to do it for you. Even most low-end landscape software (Terragen, VistaPro, more free here) can't do this. This is the realm of typically fairly expensive commercial 3D landscape software with a GIS tie-in, such as ESRI's 3D Analyst (Windows, $3500) read info on commercial page above) and my company's Visual Nature Studio (Windows/Mac, $2500).

    I won't pretend that my company's product meets your needs, but I have to mention it. I suspect that you'll be able to meet your requirements using some of the tools I outlined first. If however, you find yourself doing this sort of stuff a lot, that's where the polish, integration, support and other frills of commercial software like mine may start to become valuable to you.

    Hope you find what you're looking for. If you (or anybody else) have more questions about this, I'd be happy to answer them privately or publicly. As you can see from the above, despite selling my software, I try to be objective and don't always tell you my product is what you need. ;)

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    -- There is no truth. There is only Perception. To Percieve is to Exist.
  8. Try GRASS!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    check out GRASS , a free, open source GIS program.

    I've been doing quite a bit of work with it. it takes some time to figure out, but once you figure out how to import your data, making 3D topo and draping an image over it should not be impossible.

    i haven't needed this function, but i believe it should work well. also be sure to check out the NVIZ 3D visualization module in GRASS. this may also have the functions you need.