Working with DEM geographical data

[kendo353]

Hi Mark, Hi Everyone..

I have a question... in relation to this thread..and would welcome people's advice/expertise.

http://www.garagegames.com/mg/forums/re ... p?qt=67117

I'm trying to model *this* area for a WW1 flight sim.



Prior to today, i assumed that i would have to make an L3DT map
of the approximate size, export it to atlas, and *then* import the
heightmap for the geographical data.

Is there a way to keep everything in L3DT, and then export exactly
what i need to an .atlas ? I have DEMs of the regions i wish to map,
but don't know where to go from there. any advice appreciated.

thankyou.
ken

[Aaron]

Hi Ken,

It can be done, but it's not a direct import. The way I usually load DEM data is to first import the DEM into VTBuilder (free, courtesy of Ben Discoe et al. of the Virtual Terrain Project), and then re-save in the BT (binary terrain) format. You can then load this file into L3DT using the 'file->import->heightfield' menu option. Afer that, you can generate water-maps, textures, etc, and export to Atlas.

Cheerio,
Aaron.

This reminds me: I should put a DEM plugin on the to-do list.

[Rummy]

I use as Aaron suggest, VTBuilder,and also have used 3dem and saved as a terragen file. Once in, don't forget to adjust you Horz scale. Sorry, don't have any atlas experience. Our flight sim is being developed on our outdated engine tools and I really need to write some plugins, if only I knew how to code and could convince the coders that we need to update. Good luck with your sim, WWI is a great period to cover and am glad to see more developers working on them.

On a second tangent here, dem (mostly SRTM 3arc sec) is but one geospatial data set we can pull from good sources, but there are a host of others such as Landuse, tree coverage, river/water body, shoreline etc. Being able to incorporate these at some point would be wonderful as they give a great head start. NOt so much in their original format but perhaps as images or mask.

[kendo353]

aha. i've managed to get it working now.
good luck with your flightsim, Rummy.

thanks for the tips, guys.