Re: Terrain DBs

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Mario Veraart (rioj7++at++fel.tno.nl)
Tue, 20 Jan 1998 13:57:19 +0100 (MET)

> Can anyone recommend a source of terrain databases which aren't too
> expensive (they're for use in some academic reseach). They could be in
> any Performer-loadable format. The sort of size/resolution that we're
> after is:
> a) 160 x 50km, low resolution (2km grid?)
> b) 20 x 20km, higher resolution (300m grid)

There are a number of internet sites that cary DEM files (Digital
Elevation Map). You can use these to write a program that converts
them to a format readable by performer (OBJ, Inventor, DXF) or a
binary one. The disadvantage is that you don't have a nice texture map
on it. You can use some arial foto graphs and use TEXGEN to map these
textures to the geometry. You can also use some fake coloring of the
vertices based on the height, and use (dynamic) gouraud
shading to fill it out smoothly.

The sites where you can start are

http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/glis/hyper/guide/etopo5#etopo57
ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/Solid_Earth/CD_ROMS/TerrainBase_94/
http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/landdaac/gtopo30/gtopo30.html
http://www.usgs.gov/data/cartographic/index.html

Mario
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