Heightmaps from Google Earth or similar.
polycounter lvl 6
Hi All!
I spent about 3 hours trying to get this to work from various tutorials I googled, it didn't so I thought I'd just ask rather than waste more time
Basically all I want to do is use "google earth" type terrain elevation data to create a heightmap for the basic terrain for my skybox.
I tried following tutorials like this one: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/quick-how-to-importing-heightmaps-from-google-earth-mac.18601/
But the SRTM doesn't work for me, even when I tried to get and older version of google earth. I also tried getting the data from here:
http://www.viewfinderpanoramas.org/Coverage%20map%20viewfinderpanoramas_org3.htm
but it was too low res.
I think along with the many other things I read about this that I saw somewhere someone mention that maybe Sketchup has some in-built feature, which would make sense I guess... but before I start downloading and installing more software I thought I would just ask.
Is Sketchup the best way to get terrain data into heightmaps or is there some other way which would be better? Obviously a lot of the tutorials/advice you find online can be a few years old and I don't know what is the easiest way of doing this today.
I want to render an area of about 50sq miles (120sq km) or approx. 8x6 mile area. The data doesn't have to be hugely high res so long as the basic shape is there, I guess a 1024x1024 image would probably be enough, although more is always better!
Thanks!
I spent about 3 hours trying to get this to work from various tutorials I googled, it didn't so I thought I'd just ask rather than waste more time
Basically all I want to do is use "google earth" type terrain elevation data to create a heightmap for the basic terrain for my skybox.
I tried following tutorials like this one: http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/quick-how-to-importing-heightmaps-from-google-earth-mac.18601/
But the SRTM doesn't work for me, even when I tried to get and older version of google earth. I also tried getting the data from here:
http://www.viewfinderpanoramas.org/Coverage%20map%20viewfinderpanoramas_org3.htm
but it was too low res.
I think along with the many other things I read about this that I saw somewhere someone mention that maybe Sketchup has some in-built feature, which would make sense I guess... but before I start downloading and installing more software I thought I would just ask.
Is Sketchup the best way to get terrain data into heightmaps or is there some other way which would be better? Obviously a lot of the tutorials/advice you find online can be a few years old and I don't know what is the easiest way of doing this today.
I want to render an area of about 50sq miles (120sq km) or approx. 8x6 mile area. The data doesn't have to be hugely high res so long as the basic shape is there, I guess a 1024x1024 image would probably be enough, although more is always better!
Thanks!
Replies
http://dds.cr.usgs.gov/srtm/
Grab MicroDEM free here
http://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/microdem/microdem.htm
steps here to get a gray scale elevation map from the data
http://scrawkblog.com/2013/02/05/using-dem-data-to-create-height-maps/
Thank you for the reply. Sadly however the data you linked me too is the exactly the same data that I obtained from a site I linked in my first post:
http://www.viewfinderpanoramas.org/Coverage%20map%20viewfinderpanoramas_org3.htm
Unfortunately it is just too low res to be much use. I used a little program called BIL2BMP.exe which reads both .bil and .hgt files and converts the directly to bitmaps. However the area I want covered ended up being a 128x128 image which is too low to be much use... also each section seems to be separately calibrated depending (I guess) on the highest and lowest points in that area, as a result the subsection I wanted was only covered within a very limited tone range.
increase zoom factor in MicroDEM before exporting to BMP and you can get larger resolution image, up to 2580x3200. If that's still too low res for the area you're looking to cover ( it may be), and you don't need to have a specific real world location, better off generating the elevation map procedurally.
Here's an example using SRTM3 height data, openstreetmap shapes and a Bing satellite image
model
You can get a free version of Maproom or buy it directly here: https://www.klaasnienhuis.nl/product/maproom/
Regarding Google maps, this is not accessible through Maproom. I've spoken to them and it doesn't make sense financially to use Google maps content. I'd need to get a ridiculously expensive license, but the user would also need an expensive license.
As for Boston, CyberCity 3D has a fair bit of coverage already for 3D buildings: