Real World Terrain, L3DT to TerrainBuilder

[chief_wiggum 17]

Hey Guys,

i'm currently trying to create my first real world island for Arma3.

 

This is the island i want to create:

https://www.google.de/maps/@38.564035,25.5948034,10708m/data=!3m1!1e3 (Psara, Greece)

 

My Hightfield in L3DT looks like this:

Unfortunately my hightfield looks like this, after importing it into TB:

 

What did i do wrong?

 

~Chief

[spookygnu 563]

what are your L3DT settings?

[chief_wiggum 17]

Which settings do you mean?

[spookygnu 563]

Your parameter settings in l3dt?

You can also find loscs of info and solutions to heightmap issues in l3dt through their forum aswell.

But just as a thought it might be something to do with your map settings in l3dt.

[chief_wiggum 17]

Ok, i guess i've found the problem.

My highfiled isn't a square, so i resized it and it looks fine in TB.

But how can i make my hightfield a square without distorting my island?

[wantafanta 13]

easiest way is to crop it out in a perfect square either in a GIS app or in photoshop. lets say its 10m per pixel (so 10m cell resolution) you would create a 1024x1024 pixel box in photoshop with the selection tool and drag it over the area you want to keep.

in global mapper you can just right click, create rectangular feature and then type in the dimensions (in meters) and drag it over the area you want to export, and save it as a .asc file (remember to import it into L3DT and export it again or disable the georeferencing before you export it.

[chief_wiggum 17]

So, i download a big area from here:,

http://opentopo.sdsc.edu/gridsphere/gridsphere?cid=geonlidarframeportlet&gs_action=raster&opentopoID=OTSRTM.042013.4326.1

open the .tif with L3DT, safe it as png, cut out the area i want with gimp, and import it as png in L3DT?

[spookygnu 563]

Yeah photoshop is probably the best place or gimp.

Drag the seletion tool over the area and look at the height and width values as you do it. When they match up then its squared.

need a steady hand though.

If you don't have global mapper this will still work. Wantafanta i think is suggesting an alternative.

You can save the image as a png,bmp or jpeg and still import to l3dt. The thing is you may need to smooth the island in l3dt, you end up with perlin noise all over it. This is an l3dt issue when these images are imported. Nothing too bad really. I've done eon amount of times on small and large terrains.

When ya done in l3dt with it export as a .asc or xyz file and remember to disable georeferencing. Then bung it in TB.

[chief_wiggum 17]

I guess i'm to stupid for this.

How do i select a square on the website?

When i enter

X_min = 25.45 Y_min =38.5 X_max =25.65 Y_max =38.7

the box should be a square right?

But for some reason it isn't????

 

A step by step tutorial would be great.

[spookygnu 563]

you have to visually try and do it if you are using opentopograhy to try and get a square. All you really need to do is download the data that site gives you and then with the image once you have sorted it out resize it in photoshop.

 

follow this. I knew I had it somewhere. This is something I put together a while back. don't know if anyone really used it. But it might help.

 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwGVkyqKfsc0VjhuQ2FqbExFOEk/view?usp=sharing

[chief_wiggum 17]

Thanks m8,

i'll try this out tomorrow.

1 more question:

If i have a 64x64 heightfield which i resize to 1024x1024,isn't my island way to big then?

[spookygnu 563]

it depends on the cell size of the island. For example a 1024x1024 with a cell size of 2.5m is about 5sq kilometers I think. I'm not using my program to work this out, just trying to remember what I have seen in things I've made before.

[spookygnu 563]

How did you get on with that document i sent?

[chief_wiggum 17]

Sorry for the late respond m8,

haven't had much spare time the past days.

 

Your document helped me a lot!

You should make a forum post with it, if you didn't do already.

 

Thanks,

~Chief

[spookygnu 563]

I thought I had done. I'll set one up now.