How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

[Wasila]

Excellent tutorial, but I am creating a height map of the UK and even though I add srtm_37_02_thin to the merge page it doesn't end up in the finished product. You did mention this (East Anglia) but I'm not sure what you mean about the two figures at default.

[Crazy Photon]

Followed the tutorial, created map for my region and uploaded it on BaNaNaS (Uruguay map). I expect to make a few revisions some time in the future, since some of the rivers were not brought by the satellite images.

[Vano13]

Hi to everyone!
I need some help. I have an idea to make a complete Russia scenario, but i run into a problem - there is no data for north part of Russia in STRM. Is there any other sources of height data or completed heightmaps i could use? Any help appreciated!:)

UPD: sorry, i can't understand how could i miss this link on page 10 of this thread: http://edc.usgs.gov/products/elevation/ ... opo30.html
I will try this.

UPD2: no success. This data is incompatible with MicroDEM:(

[SwissFan91]

Well after several failings using MicroDEM, I have decided to ask on here. Would anyone be willing to help me create a heightmap of a certain part of the Valais canton in Switzerland? I would be ever so grateful...

[mikeel]

i can help you but after the january 1st.
Can you give me the coordinates of the zone?

[SwissFan91]

What's the best way to read that off Google Earth ?

[Eddi]

i don't know google earth, but on google maps you can right click and chose "what is here?" to find out the exact coordinates.

[The Irish]

you should see it at the bottom of your google earth, there is a small bar, which keeps updating as you mouse over the area, reading long/lat and elevation.

[mikeel]

using the last version of GE, the coordinates of your mouse position are visualized in the middle of the bottom bar (see the image).
you must tell me the NW and SE coordinates of the area you want.
merry christmas
mikima

EDIT The Irish has been fastest than me. sorry for this-quite-double post.

[SwissFan91]

Sorry for the delay. The NW co-ordinate is:

46(o)22'23.70"N
7(o)32'15.98" E

and the SE co-ordinate is:

45(o)53'49.38"N
7(o)32'15.98E

Many thanks.

[realbout]

Hi all,

i'm new here, i love ottd and play it for years. now i have registered because of these heightmaps. It rocks at all

i cant run google earth and it would be great if someone can make a heightmap of Vorarlberg / Austria (Vorarlberg is a county/region of Austria) near the "Bodensee". Its on the westside of Austria (austria isnt that big, everyone can find it ) on the Border of Switzerland and Germany.

It would be great if someone can to this for me - i create a scenario then and load it up here (with all regional details, like companys and so on), promised

PS: here is a google maps screenshot of the region (where to find coordinates?)

[Willvette]

World Machine also can produce Height-maps, but it is restricted to 513x513 pixels
http://www.world-machine.com/

[turbo84gn]

I created a new topic with EASY directions for using DEM data to create a heightmap.

http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php? ... 66&start=0

[Phreeze]

hm i dont get those green dots and SRTM values (installed the plugin correctly..)

i want to make a map of Luxembourg. as it's a very small country, detailled landscape would be nice.

coords are:
50 10'12.94"N
5 45'36.56" E

to

49 25'52.12" N
6 28'52.01"E

if someone has some minutes to spare, would be very nice, i appreciate your work

[vanadio]

I have a problem. The green buttons don't appear in my google earth, i dont know why...

[vanadio]

Can someone create for me Portugal map? Just the terrainm no trees, no cities...

[vivastpauli]

I'm trying to merge two .asc files with Microdem after I thinned them, using the described path via Data Manipulation-> Merge-> Dems, but the only options that appear are "ADF grids" and "Geographic blocks", which doesn't help me very much. Anyone an idea how to proceed from here on?

[jono99]

I have a problem. The green buttons don't appear in my google earth, i dont know why...

I'm having the same problem. And the plugin shows under the Places tab. SRTM4.1 but no green dots

[Terkhen]

Expanding on [url=hhttp://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?p=632135#p632135]this post[/url], I am going to post the method I followed to get good heightmaps, avoiding two common problems: the "truncation" of big heights and low land showing as sea. Note that all commands in this method are run from the console.

1) Get Gdal tools. Many linux distributions have them in their repositories, and you can also get them from here http://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/wiki/DownloadingGdalBinaries

2) Download the required data in TIF, ASC or any other format compatible with gdal. There are many places from where you can get elevation data data, but I have been using this: http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org/SELECTION/inputCoord.asp

3) Merge all the required files in a single one. Ignore this step if all of the land you want to use is in the same file.

Code: Select all

gdalmerge.py input_file_1.tif input_file_2.tif ... -o merged_file.tif

4) Now we need to know the maximum height present on the elevation data.

Code: Select all

gdalinfo -stats merged_file.tif

From all of its output, search for a line that looks like this:

Code: Select all

Minimum=-32768.000, Maximum=3460.000, Mean=-13170.688, StdDev=16358.309

5) Finally we need to convert the data to a PNG file (which is the format that OpenTTD can understand), scaling the height so that the resulting heightmap does not have the problems mentioned before.

Code: Select all

gdal_translate -scale -(Max * 1/15) Max 0 255 -projwin ul_longitude ul_latitude lr_longitude lr_latitude -of PNG -ot Byte merged.tif result.png

ul_* and lr_* stand for the coordinates of the upper left and lower right corners of the heightmap. If you want to use all of the data you can omit the -projwin param.

Max is the Maximum value that we obtained from gdalinfo. Using -(Max * 1/15) as the lower value for input data forces all land points up to a value were OpenTTD will correctly interpret them as land. This might not work if you use different elevation data, though. Note that you have to calculate the -(Max * 1/15) value and put it there; gdal_translate will not calculate it for you.

[Samli]

great:D