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Terrain Processor

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TerrainProcessor_logo.jpg

 

As some of you already noticed the documentation we added yesterday, there's a newcomer in the Arma 3 Tools: Terrain Processor (currently in the dev branch).

 

This is an application for making mass changes and additions to Arma terrains edited in Terrain Builder, focused primarily on fast object population of extents of areal or linear topologies. Long story short, user can use this tool to add thousands of objects to an existing Arma terrain project based on geographic data. Outputs of Terrain Processor need to be imported to Terrain Builder. It is practical to keep the tools separated, so that both can be updated, fixed and tweaked independently and with more flexibility.

 

Application interface is very simple: user sets up a Terrain Processor Project (.TPP) - a queue of Tasks which are processed into output .LBT files which can be imported inside Terrain Builder. Each task processes some geographic data - vectors in ESRI Shapefile (.SHP) and ASCII DEM heightmap (.ASC) - using a particular Module (algorithm of user's choice) to provide outputs in form of Terrain Builder (.LBT) and ASCII heightmap (.ASC).

Arma series benefit from the authentic scale of environment, and it is natural to use digitized map data (=geographic data) commonly used in geographic information systems (GIS) as basis for map design work. Terrain Processor was created in order to allow Arma devs to use some geographic data to quickly prototype terrains and automate some (otherwise tedious) tasks, e.g. placing several hundred thousand trees in a forest. When set up correctly, the existing modules may help map designer to save plenty of work time by populating map with forests, linear vegetation or other randomly placed objects, by leveling terrain under roads or adding small randomization to the terrain mesh. Terrain Processor does not replace manual work and "artistic" fine tuning, but it may serve map designer as a tool for rapid creation of a solid basis for their manual editing.

 

tp.jpg

 

Please note that Terrain Processor comes without much preview tools, which requires some empiric testing and iterative setting tweaks.The manual comes with sample TP project data illustrating the tool's basic setup, and with tutorials guiding community map designers through some basic pipelines of geographic data usage in an Arma map.

 

We're looking forward to your feedback!

 

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TP is out of bag, let's see who catch it first ;)

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Nice, I love the idea of leveling terrain where a road passes.

 

Great job!

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Just tried it, leveled all the roads on Lost Coast. time spent: less than 10 minutes. Result: awesome!

 

Thank you for your continued support BI!

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Great tools !!!

 

digitalcenturion, did you just import your map.asc, (my map.asc = heightfield export from TB.) and import the roads from your roads.shp in the Heightmap: Road Integration ?

 

when i do that, and press Run, Terrain processor just stop working and crash... ( i didn't change the slope option...ect).

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Great tools !!!

 

digitalcenturion, did you just import your map.asc, (my map.asc = heightfield export from TB.) and import the roads from your roads.shp in the Heightmap: Road Integration ?

 

when i do that, and press Run, Terrain processor just stop working and crash... ( i didn't change the slope option...ect).

 

I think you have different coordinates for heightmap and shp. You can check this in GIS (QGIS).

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I think you have different coordinates for heightmap and shp. You can check this in GIS (QGIS).

 

thx, checked, no, it's fine. i tried with an other island, and other .shp.. stil crashing ... I supposed i can import .shp from TB export shapes ! 

 

will install again arma3tools, the Dev branch update,maybe broke something....

 

( and i tried of course to launch TP  with the.exe in admin mod)

 

EDIT : FOUND THE SOLUTION  :

 

.SHP from TB are not compatible with Terrain Processor !!! (Really ...)

Open your .shp from TB in Qgis and export it again to .shp ( ESRI shapesfiles)

 

 

Smoothing road works find ! ( only have to smooth the crossroads, when it's on a hilly area)

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hmmmm???? interesting. I think I'll wait until 2016 before I give this a shot. No doubt it'll break everything a million times before it works fully. Oh hang, time change, 2030, TB is still broke isn't it?

 

Although I like the fact BIS have kindly taken the time to do something for terrain builders and finally opened a door to leveling terrain where roads are. It does sound alot like the A3 version of World tools and road leveller in one package. 

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Hello gentlemen, nice to hear about some job done in the TP, and sorry about the issues.

 

Please, if you have particular issues with Terrain Processor, please PM me. We are interested in repros including the data.

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Wow, BIS.  :o  You really helped terrain makers with this Terrain Processor! This tool makes so many things so much easier than it used to be. Especially editing the heightmap. Before it was nothing but a pain in the ass give your terrain some detail with perlin noise brush tools etc.  :D

 

DEM converter is just mind blowing!

 

Im sure the community will see much more detailed terrains in the future just because of this tool!

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Great Job!

Hope to see a command line tool to enable people make multiple maps with single batch file, from raw height-map/masks to packed .pbo directly.

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The first tutorial for Terrain Processor has been published on the Community Wiki: Terrain Processor: Tutorial. This tutorial will introduce you to some basics and comes with a sample project.

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We have several reports of TerrainProcesssor not properly terrain-processing shapefiles on drives different from EXE location or P:\ drive. For now, we recommend to have the project file (TPP) and shapefiles stored near the TP executable.

 

Apologies, we are working on the fix. :)

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An additional note about the P drive. It's a substitute drive, meaning it has to be mounted for both types of user, admin and normal. Arma 3 Tools already handles it, provided it's not started as administrator. So, for those who have troubles with P, try this:

  • Start Arma3Toos.exe (non administrator),
  • Ensure the path to your P content is correct (Preferences >> Settings),
  • Click Mount P: drive from the main form.

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Is it possible to generate plant objects with surface mask rather than .shp file?

What about GeoTIFF height map?

Quite hope there being a tool to make series of maps automatically.

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Is it possible to generate plant objects with surface mask rather than .shp file?

 

No, but you can vectorize surface mask.

 

What about GeoTIFF height map?

 

Nope, Terrain Processor and Terrain Processor support only asc heightmap. You can use GIS to save GeoTIFF as asc

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I think you have different coordinates for heightmap and shp. You can check this in GIS (QGIS).

How can you edit these coordinates?

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How can you edit these coordinates?

 

Heightmap ASC is text format, you can edit values directly in file. SHP you can edit coordinates with GIS tool transformation

Edited by Manoxik
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Has anyone had a problem where the road smoother does nothing ? It outputs a new .asc height file but no changes have been made.

No errors and all the other TP options work, love the high density forests but road smoothing will not work.

 

Is there some sort of witchcraft needed for road smoothing ? my road shape is only about 400 meters, goes up a small slope, nothing too complex.

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Heightmap ASC is text format, you can edit values directly in file. SHP you can edit coordinates with GIS tool transformation

This might be offtopic, but can you pls explain just how.

First lines of my .asc looks like this

ncols         8192
nrows         8192
xllcorner     0.000000
yllcorner     0.000000
cellsize      2.000000
NODATA_value  -9999

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This might be offtopic, but can you pls explain just how.

First lines of my .asc looks like this

ncols         8192
nrows         8192
xllcorner     0.000000
yllcorner     0.000000
cellsize      2.000000
NODATA_value  -9999

Looks ok, what's wrong ?

Although you might be better of doing 4096 @ 4 meter cells or 2048 @ 8 meter cells, sure i read somewhere that 8192 should be avoided

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Looks ok, what's wrong ?

Although you might be better of doing 4096 @ 4 meter cells or 2048 @ 8 meter cells, sure i read somewhere that 8192 should be avoided

 

Im trying to resize one shape file to match my terrain roster. The problem is that the lines in shape file are too small, like they are different scales. Im trying to find a way to make these two files work with each other.

 

I don't understand GIS at all, but i was thinking the problem could be in coordinates of these files.

 

Your problem with roads sounds like same kind of problem. Coordinates must match exactly and they just wont if you just make your own shape lines in TB and export it.

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