DEM o'Graphics Potpourri 1

plus Quick 3D Terrains for Illustrators

Supplement to 3D Artist issue #39, page 14-16 articles by Thomsen-Norre

The image at right was rendered in World Construction Set using USGS data assembled with MicroDEM+. It depicts the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming with an elevation exageration of 2:1 as seen from an altitude of 240km.

Rendering of Black Hills seen from 240km altitude in WCS.

[_URLs for More Info_|_Update_|_Quick 3D Terrains_|_Buttons_]
Editor's note: The info on this page supplements a feature article and its sidebar in 3DA#39. You may find this page useful by itself, but it will be considerably more so if you have read the hard copy about how to use the Windows MicroDEM+ (free) and DEMCon (us$20) utilities with applications such as World Construction Set. (Or, as shown on page 16, how to skip 3D apps altogether and go directly from MicroDEM+ to image editors such as Photoshop to do 3D map illustrations!)

WCS Update
In Note 2 to "DEM o'Graphics Potpourri 1," it was stated that WCS didn't like DEMCon's 90m and DTED 1km USGS ASCII conversions. That statement is true for WCS v4.55. However, the experimental WCS v4.61 will load the DEMCon 90m and the DTED ASCII conversions. As v4.55 recognizes the v4.61 .elev files, DEMs loaded and saved in v4.61 can be loaded in v4.55 for use.--T-N

Links
MicroDEM+ - www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/microdem.htm
DEMCon - members.bellatlantic.net/~pguth/ptbr.htm
USGS SDTS 30m & ASCII 90m data: edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/doc/edchome/ndcdb/ndcdb.html
U.S. Census Bureau geographic data instructions: tiger.census.gov/instruct.html

Quick 3D Terrains for Illustrators

Correction: The assertion in this sidebar that "you can't correctly convert the file to USGS ASCII with DEMConverter" is incorrect. You can. The problem is not one of straddling the Prime Meridian, but one of missing data from the DEM. Unlike DTEDs, GTOPO30 files do not contain ocean area sea-level data. To convert GTOPO30 data containing ocean areas, open Data Manipulation/Edit/Missing Data to Sea Level and select the file.
Caution: If you wish to keep your original data intact, make a copy with a new name and use that, since this option rewrites the opened file. Now you can convert the MD .dem to USGS ASCII with DEMConverter.--T-N

Click here to 'frame up' the full DEM o'Graphics series and also find out WHAT's NEW!

'Frame up' for more + What's New

> DEM o'Graphics - 3DA#37
> DEM o'Graphics Potpourri, Part 1 - 3DA#39
> DEM o'Graphics Potpourri, Part 2 - 3DA#40
> Quick 3D Terrains for Illustrators - 3DA#39
> Run, Don't Walk - 3DA#42 full text

Revised: 19 Nov 00 rev 1
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