tupolov 520 Posted December 18, 2010 All, My map has a number of "errors" in the terrain, leaving steep depressions in the landscape. I need to correct these by somehow smoothly levelling them to the same height as the surrounding terrain. I've tried Visitor, but you can only select squares of vertices, leaving a very unrealistic square that isn't quite level with all the terrain. What's the best way to go about adjusting terrain? Should I output the terrain to a png and edit using photoshop? Is there a better tool out there? Can Global Mapper make corrections? Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly welcome! Tup Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
beton 2 Posted December 18, 2010 It depends what you want to do...and the number of errors if you want to make changes to fine details you may do that by hand in buldozer, maybe do the "Road ironing" method. If you want to change larger areas etc. a tool like global mapper may be good... but i never used that yet. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
[aps]gnat 28 Posted December 18, 2010 Havent tried it myself, but should work. - Export the terrain as XYZ file - Import into L3DT or Wilbur - Use the software tools to touch up the terrain - Export as a XYZ file - Import back into Visitor Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Geordie 0 Posted December 18, 2010 Gnat;1814900']Havent tried it myself' date=' but should work.- Export the terrain as XYZ file - Import into L3DT or Wilbur - Use the software tools to touch up the terrain - Export as a XYZ file - Import back into Visitor[/quote'] Exactly. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
shezan74 11 Posted December 18, 2010 Do this before making any change with Bulldozer, as i'm unable to export the same detail of the bulldozed terrain, and then import it back. This is my experience, i can be wrong, but i've the impression that bulldozer works with different resolution than your heightmap (my one was 10 meters x pixel) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
beton 2 Posted December 18, 2010 I don´t know how l3dt influences the heightmap. But if you have made changes by hand to your heightmap and export it to wilbur, work on it and reimport to visitor may destroy all the handmade detail. This is what happened to me some tÃme ago... so i´m very precaucious with ex and importing my heightmap once i have gone into detail. This may of course come from using greyscale for ex and importing... xyz may be the better way... ---------- Post added at 02:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:13 PM ---------- Ok... same answer :) i think visitor stores handmade changes information made to the originally imported heightmap in the .wrp or .pew file. The relation between highest and lowest point of the map also seems to be different. For me ex and import always led to problems after a certain stage of modelling the landscape. :confused: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
stormridersp 11 Posted December 18, 2010 L3DT is a very handful toy to work with heightmaps. Its easy and straightforward, you edit the terrain in a good realtime 3d environment with 3d mesh view available and you can export it to XYZ via plugins. The only problem is that you cannot import XYZ...Thereafter, correct me if I'm wrong, exporting from GM as whatever image, png, bmp, whatever IMAGE format L3DT support, you end up loosing some of the benefits that the XYZ format allows us with visitor3. Im personally waiting anxious for a L3DT XYZ import plugin so I can go back there and shine up my heightmap a little bit. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 45 Posted December 18, 2010 (edited) correct me if I'm wrong, exporting from GM as whatever image, png, bmp, whatever IMAGE format L3DT support, you end up loosing some of the benefits that the XYZ format allows us with visitor3. Im personally waiting anxious for a L3DT XYZ import plugin so I can go back there and shine up my heightmap a little bit. Not sure I understand your problem stormrider... One of Global Mappers big selling points is the sheer number of different formats it understands... L3DT is pretty good that way too (better than Leveller)... when you do your initial export of your heightmap from GM theres several different DEM formats you could use... - if you don't want that initial export to be a raster (bitmap) format, you could try .ter, .hfz (I think L3DT uses this as its "native" format), .hf2, .bt, etc... most of these are essentially "spreadsheet" type files - numbers in a grid - just like XYZ. GM will output all these formats, and L3DT will import them all (except for .xyz)... Lets say you've imported into L3DT, finished your initial tweaking on that GMrawexport.hfz, and you're ready to output for Visitor first use... at this stage you can use the L3DT XYZ export plugin - this will give your first myproject.xyz file to import into Visitor... When you need to re-edit the heightfield - export it from Visitor (export terrain into picture - I don't think its possible to export from Visitor in XYZ)... this gives a "export into image" popup with TWO sets of max/min heights... WRITE DOWN THE TOP ONES - "TERRAIN" SECTION - then say OK... You'll get a .png file (16bit = no loss of quality) and a .pbl file... - throw the .pbl file away, we don't need it... Import the .png into L3DT - it'll require max/min heights - use the ones you noted down earlier... Edit till you're done in L3DT - then export as .xyz - import into Visitor as usual... Any other time you need to heightfield edit - use the same procedure... Export image from Visitor - note max/min - import image to L3DT - edit - export .xyz - reimport For Visitor - .png = export / .xyz = import For inital GM export - take your pick... if you choose a raster format make sure its 16bit... or use .hfz to import directly to L3DT (.ter for Leveller) should work fine... at least, I haven't had any problems so far... Only major reason for preferring XYZ over .png in subsequent Visitor imports is because Visitor seems to take hours to REimport a .png, but minutes to REimport an .xyz - but they're just the same as regards heightfield quality really - they're both essentially a grid of 16 bit numbers... The other major danger with .png is if you accidentally somehow convert it to 8bit somewhere along the way (like in photoshop or something)... this will wreck a heightfield, since the cells will now contain numbers strictly within a 0-255 range - no way you can reflect a precise cell height value of 240.262m, for example, in a range like that... a 16bit file gives you a per cell value range of 0-65535... since you wont use a 65535m height value in a cell - the increased range provides finer detail... B Edited December 19, 2010 by Bushlurker Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
oktyabr 12 Posted February 18, 2011 Top shelf tip Bushlurker! I was about to ask the same thing in my L3DT to V3 thread and then I found this! (At least I use the search function while stuff is compiling ;) ) Thanks! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
oktyabr 12 Posted March 5, 2011 I'm having problems with the xyz format. Export as png from V3, touch up in L3DT, export back as xyz, import into V3... changes are there but my sealevel always seems off from it's original level... not by much, maybe give or take 1m or less. What is going on here? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 45 Posted March 5, 2011 I've noticed that while Visitor Exports - and presumably imports to a fairly precise degree - 4 or 5 decimal places... I've also noticed that L3DT usually seems to round up or down to about 2 decimal places... so I guess small variations can creep in... The most obvious place you'd notice this would be with something like bridges - placed to a precise absolute height... I haven't noticed any major "drifting" of heights myself - and I've imported and exported a couple of times - but I guess its probably good practise to minimise the number of times you do it, and try to get most of the terrain tweaking dome before getting too involved with lots of absolute-height objects.... B Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pauliesss 2 Posted March 7, 2011 Well, I have the problem with map height. I want to create a river, but the problem is, I have to lower terrain too much, because my lowest height on whole map is around 120m or so. Any tip how to change lowest height so I can create river? Thanks. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bushlurker 45 Posted March 7, 2011 (edited) you can rescale/resize/remap heights with L3DT Standard... How you'd actually do it depends on the actual heightfield you're working with - but basically - if you have a heightfield that's currently say... min height = 120m max height = 630m You could just change that - either during the import process itself, or using the heightfield tools afterwards - to... min height = -10m max height = 500m That'll keep you heightfield in the same scaling/proportions, but drops minimum height to 10m below sea level - you should be able to dig down now - using L3DT's 3D heightfield tools, and just carve a river where you want... Fool around with the figures till you get it right - just remember to keep those proportions the same - you're just basically shifting the whole heightmap up and down the scale - without distorting its scaling or proportions if possible..... B Edited March 8, 2011 by Bushlurker Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pauliesss 2 Posted March 7, 2011 Thank you very much Bushlurker, that worked! :bounce3: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
oktyabr 12 Posted March 7, 2011 Interesting thoughts, rivers... If you follow the above directions do you end up with a 'river' that is actually just ocean? Does it have waves, sea sounds, tides? Or is there some trick with V3 to actually create a river that moves downhill? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
pauliesss 2 Posted March 7, 2011 Actually, its just "standing" water, I don´t know if it´s possible to create real river. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
