How To: Generate Superb Heightmaps :)

[SwissFan91]

I don't suppose there are any heightmaps made for the extra-large map patch AND the extra height levels patch?

[Terkhen]

Heightmaps can have any size, and they have 256 levels of grey to represent height. Therefore, big heightmaps scaled to [0-255] should work in both vanilla OpenTTD and with the patches you mentioned. Vanilla OpenTTD will just scale the heightmap to the values it can use (both in size and height).

[Sabre_Justice]

If there's people in this thread willing to create heightmaps for those who can't run the software or figure it out, would anyone mind making a heightmap of South Australia? (yes, that's an actual Australian state called South Australia. We have creatively named states) I figure it's not worth downloading all that software and trying to figure it all out when I only really plan on making that one scenario and probably messing with it endlessly

EDIT: Never mind, I'll just be slightly less lazy and find an existing heightmap from this very forum to modify.

[SwissFan91]

Heightmaps can have any size, and they have 256 levels of grey to represent height. Therefore, big heightmaps scaled to [0-255] should work in both vanilla OpenTTD and with the patches you mentioned. Vanilla OpenTTD will just scale the heightmap to the values it can use (both in size and height).

Thanks, Terkhen.

I don't suppose anyone fancies making me a quick heightmap?

[Terkhen]

You might want to check the tutorials in this very thread and give them a try.

[SwissFan91]

You might want to check the tutorials in this very thread and give them a try.

Mainly, this..

Ok, firstly you'll need a reasonably beefy PC to do this, as the data crunching is quite intense.

Unfortunately, my netbook, which is in dire need of reloading, struggles! Poor little thing.

[gab_3020]

Ok I've tried this for over 6 months here and there and still cannot make the overlay work properly.

Could anyone make me a heightmap of the following area?

Ottawa, Canada

I'm trying to make it as zoomed in as possible

Thanks

[romazoon]

i m in good mood today... so here it is !

ottawa heightmap 1024.png

i haven t tried it ingame... so if the part where Ottawa is standing is flooded in OTTD, simply increase the light with an image editor and save the modification then retry the map in OTTD

note: i also have wider ones (2048x2048 and 4096x4096) wich i believe would be more accurate if you intend your map to be as big as 2048 or 4096. (the only thing is that i will have to upload it to an other place cause it s too big for the forum)

EDIT : THIS IS NOT OTTAWA heightmap... it s parts of the Alps

[SwissFan91]

i m in good mood today... so here it is !

ottawa heightmap 1024.png

i haven t tried it ingame... so if the part where Ottawa is standing is flooded in OTTD, simply increase the light with an image editor and save the modification then retry the map in OTTD

note: i also have wider ones (2048x2048 and 4096x4096) wich i believe would be more accurate if you intend your map to be as big as 2048 or 4096. (the only thing is that i will have to upload it to an other place cause it s too big for the forum)

This could just be me seeing things, but looks awfully like a heightmap of Switzerland.

[romazoon]

huh ! it s seems that you are right... i don t know how it did happen as i was downloading the Ottawa datas for doing it.... but i do have a swiss heightmap so it maybe just me... i m gonna check further...

EDIT : thanks for spotting my mistake... i guess i was just doing things too fast and opened the wrong folder...

anyway here is a correct heightmap of Ottawa :

ottawa 1024.png

[SwissFan91]

Not just me then!

[gab_3020]

Thanks!

A Million Thanks!!

This is great!

[doktorhonig]

Since handling those arcascii-files is a bit tedious, I wrote a little tool to make it easier: arcasciishop

Basically it converts arc arscii files to png. You can set the minimum gray value to preserve the coastline - 16 is pretty much optimal, but in case you try it with more heightlevels you might have to lower that setting. The minimum and maximum meters will then correspond to the minimum gray value and 255. The ocean is black. Additionally, to compensate for large differences in height, you can specify a gamma value. That helps if you have a lower and a higher mountain range - otherwise the lower one would disappear or the higher one would be capped.

Up to now it's fairly fast, but there's still a lot of room for improvements, e.g. better performance, resizing, copying images together etc. but I don't want it to become too complicated.
It's written using c++/Qt, which unfortunately makes it a bit large for distribution (at least on Windows). Is anyone interested in testing it? I think I could open a project on sourceforge or something (I have to clean up the source for that, though )

[SwissFan91]

I have a little request for someone.

I am trying to use the UK-South West heightmap that can be found in-game via the content downloader. Now, I want the map to be LARGE - around 4000x4000 or whatever the variant is in the extra-large map packs. When I load the present heightmap, it is obviously very inaccurate as the heightmap is made for 2048x2048. Is there a way to improve this accuracy? The coastlines, for example, are about 3 tiles high atm, and it misses most of the height detail.

Many thanks for any help.

[Flowdy87]

[quote]Now, on the pic, you'll notice the two green buttons for S_22_09 and S_23_09 - these are the two DEMs we'll need.

Click on the Green buttons and you'll see a page pop up, scroll to the start of the links and you'll want to download either of the first two links (Either from the US or UK Servers, it doesn't matter), its the data file in ARCASCII format.[/quote]

This is the first time i'm trying to make a heightmap, when it comes to download the data, the link never works and nothing will download and i have done everything the tutorial says and everything works up until that point..Is this anything else i can do or is it a lost cause? [/b]

[kipperedfish]

Argh

I just can't get it to work.... I followed all the instructions, did everything I was told and it looks like poop... can someone PLEASE make me a heightmap or scenario of bedfordshire, uk. I just can't get it to work.

[kamnet]

Since handling those arcascii-files is a bit tedious, I wrote a little tool to make it easier: arcasciishop

Basically it converts arc arscii files to png. You can set the minimum gray value to preserve the coastline - 16 is pretty much optimal, but in case you try it with more heightlevels you might have to lower that setting. The minimum and maximum meters will then correspond to the minimum gray value and 255. The ocean is black. Additionally, to compensate for large differences in height, you can specify a gamma value. That helps if you have a lower and a higher mountain range - otherwise the lower one would disappear or the higher one would be capped.

Up to now it's fairly fast, but there's still a lot of room for improvements, e.g. better performance, resizing, copying images together etc. but I don't want it to become too complicated.
It's written using c++/Qt, which unfortunately makes it a bit large for distribution (at least on Windows). Is anyone interested in testing it? I think I could open a project on sourceforge or something (I have to clean up the source for that, though )

Sorry I didn't see this before now, but WOW, what a great idea! When I get back to heightmap making, I'd love to try this out! i've had a heck of a time trying to get decent looking maps made of the Ohio Valley region (midwest USA), particularly in part because you have the ohio river which starts at a higher elevation and winds down to the low elevations where it meets the Mississippi. Through my best efforts I usually either end up with what lookslike a bunch of hills or I have half a map that looks like a swamp.

[doktorhonig]

That would be great!

Update:

I've uploaded a version of that tool compiled with VS Express. I have another one compiled with mingw, and its faster due to multicore optimizations, but I have to figure out all the license stuff before redistributing that thing. It's fast enough on my machine though.

[matt.d]

Hi, I may have done something wrong but when i installed the overlay it registered as being SRTM4.1 and therefore I don't have any green dot to use for first step, if anyone could help that would be brilliant thanks

[doktorhonig]

Try to get your files here: http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org/SELECTION/inputCoord.asp. If you want to use my tool, select "ArcInfo ASCII".