Outerra forum

Outerra Engine => Development screen shots and videos => Topic started by: cameni on April 13, 2011, 01:02:16 pm

Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: cameni on April 13, 2011, 01:02:16 pm
There's a new blog post about the new terrain mapping & compression tool.

You can find it here: http://outerra.blogspot.com/2011/04/new-terrain-mapper-tool.html (http://outerra.blogspot.com/2011/04/new-terrain-mapper-tool.html)
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: Grind and Click on April 13, 2011, 01:17:04 pm
Somewhat above my head personally, but good show.

Pleased for you, myself too... :)
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: SpaceFlight on April 13, 2011, 02:42:03 pm
Great stuff.  :cool:
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: Edding3000 on April 13, 2011, 03:26:18 pm
Very Nice!!!
Question: do you also map coastal lines in this tool? Because netherlands werent possible to show due to that it is beneath MSL...
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: cameni on April 13, 2011, 03:43:09 pm
Quote from: Edding3000
Very Nice!!!
Question: do you also map coastal lines in this tool? Because netherlands werent possible to show due to that it is beneath MSL...
No, not yet.
I'm not entirely sure how to handle it. For the ground level views to render correctly, there simply should be dikes that stop the water from flooding the area, not just some magic that masks the water out of a region. Applying coastal lines there would mean creating the dikes, but their size is below the resolution of terrain data and thus would have to be created separately in a vector layer - for example by placing a kind of road around them, elevating the terrain. Or it could be another stage that patches coastal regions only, smoothing the shores everywhere.
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: ZeosPantera on April 13, 2011, 04:10:47 pm
I feel like making a T-Shirt that says...


I use a variant of quadrilateralized spherical cube projection, along with wavelet-based compression to process my data.
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: Grind and Click on April 13, 2011, 08:29:51 pm
HA, id buy it.
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: Abc94 on April 13, 2011, 11:16:28 pm
Wow!  200 X faster does sound like a little more than just an improvement!  :D

When do you think you will have the video out comparing the old datasets?
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: cameni on April 14, 2011, 01:16:18 am
Quote from: Abc94
When do you think you will have the video out comparing the old datasets?
It's not a video, but screens comparing the same locations now and then. I have them almost ready.

There will be some video from Angrypig though, if he ever comes through the phase of him saying - "I'm just going to fix/add this and that before making it" :)
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: angrypig on April 14, 2011, 02:05:54 am
Quote from: cameni
There will be some video from Angrypig though, if he ever comes through the phase of him saying - "I'm just going to fix/add this and that before making it" :)

Grr, I'm pretty angry right now.
 :D
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: ZeosPantera on April 14, 2011, 02:26:15 am
Quote from: angrypig
Quote from: cameni
There will be some video from Angrypig though, if he ever comes through the phase of him saying - "I'm just going to fix/add this and that before making it" :)

Grr, I'm pretty angry right now.
 :D

No need. Sometimes people need a little motivation. That includes calling them out in-front of an audience.

...

So hows that video coming along?
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: C. Shawn Smith on April 14, 2011, 04:06:30 am
Quote
Grr, I'm pretty angry right now.

LOL!

Nice screens.  I can see a HUGE improvement in the before and after shots.  Can't wait to fly through terrain in the demo.  I've actually bitten off quite a few fingernails waiting in anticipation.
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: Jagerbomber on April 14, 2011, 10:37:24 am
A quick question about the video:  Why did the water areas process so quickly if there's land under the water?
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: cameni on April 14, 2011, 10:47:20 am
Quote from: Jagerbomber
A quick question about the video:  Why did the water areas process so quickly if there's land under the water?
Underwater terrain comes with 1km resolution, whereas the land data have 90m or better. When processing oceans, the tool doesn't have to go so deep (in quad-tree hierarchy) as with the land, which results in the quicker processing.
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: tknudsen on April 25, 2011, 01:24:48 pm
Excellent news!

No it seems that northern part of Europe will aslo get better elevation data..
Cant wait to see the results in Norway..

Keep it up, will be sure to follow this thread....

regards
Tom
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: giallanon on April 27, 2011, 04:52:00 am
Quote from: cameni
Underwater terrain comes with 1km resolution, whereas the land data have 90m or better. When processing oceans, the tool doesn't have to go so deep (in quad-tree hierarchy) as with the land, which results in the quicker processing.

So, when you process the terrain data, are you generating and storing all the qtree levels from 90m resolution down to 1m resolution (or whatever its the lower resolution) ?
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: cameni on April 27, 2011, 05:03:40 am
No, it goes the other way. When processing the terrain data, we are mapping and storing all the quad tree levels from 90m (or 1km in oceans) resolution up to coarser resolutions, ending with 40km one, I think. Detail finer than the stored one is generated in run time using fractals.
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: giallanon on April 27, 2011, 05:13:05 am
Thank you :)
Title: A new terrain mapping tool
Post by: corona on May 09, 2011, 04:44:39 pm
(As you may remember, I havent been around for a while) I love these technical blogs, even and especially when they are over my head, gives me reason to read up on new material :-)

Keep it up!