Mash

jordibares
What is the solution? this has been a very frustrating subject for quite a while in terms of software.

Also in terms of data sources and their resolution… i ended up post-processing the data to bring the detail to the necessary standard but has always been a dodgy area.

May be this is something worth considering for SideFX and make Houdini the best possible tool to manipulate DEM data.

just a thought

It's very hard to get the resolution needed from any of the public sources of DEM files.
The highest resolution you can get is 10 meter SDTS files
http://data.geocomm.com/ [data.geocomm.com]
And that's just data for the U.S. For the UK getting data is a bit harder.

10 meter SDTS files means every data point, or “vertex” when it's a mesh, will be
10 meters apart. The files usually cover 8 square miles if I rember correctly.
I usually download the file and use global mapper or terragen to convert it to an OBJ file then bring that into Zbrush for sclupting more detials into close up areas.

Depends on what type of data your trying to convert SDTS DEM from http://www.geocomm.com/ [geocomm.com]

or 1/3rd arc second data from the USGS national map viewer.
http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/ [viewer.nationalmap.gov]

One way mentioned was Gloabal mapper which will let you export out a DXF Face mesh. You can also set the “gridding” or how far aprt it places vertexes when it makes the mesh. I think the default is 10x10 meters.
keep in mind if you use the 1/3rd arc second DEM you will need to change the project type in global mapper UTM (universal transverse mercator) to export out the DXF correctly.

Terragen3 will load DEM files now from both web web sites listed above.
You can export a Micromesh OBJ file that will export only the Data in front of the camera. You can then export out the camera data as a .Chan file that can be loaded in houdini.
Someone wrote a maya Script to handle this I'm sure and easy one can be done for Houdini also.

http://planetside.co.uk/ [planetside.co.uk]


http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,16739.msg163522.html#msg163522 [planetside.co.uk]