[Addon] Import real world terrain with global coverage

Remember to make the end clip distance a big number, each SRTM file is going to be several kilometers wide!

This is a very cool addon! Works very well.
I was very dissapointed though when I imported the file containing Denmark…
It was veeeery flat… Only 186 meters high… tsk… :smiley:

Do you know if the .hgt files are used in national mapping services… Maybe I can get a smaller area with more detail somehow…

Try to do the following actions:

  • increase far clipping distance of the 3D View camera at least to 10 thousand
  • set orthographic camera for the 3D View by pressing 5 on the numpad
  • set top view by pressing 7 on the numpad
  • select your terrain in the outliner
  • press . (dot) on the numpad to fit the terrain into the 3D View

To all:

Consider using “Use manually set extent” checkbox to limit terrain import to a smaller area.

To find coordinates of the desired area use http://www.openstreetmap.org/export
Press “Manually select a different area” on the left (it may be written on your language).
Adjust the the box over the map.
Use coordinates on the grey rectangle on the left.

I would recommend that your area spans not more than several kilometers or dozens kilometers.

Thanks, that worked, but I can’t decimate it, blender locks up.

I didn’t understand what you meant. Could you provide more details, post a screenshot?

meshlab to the rescue, I exported an .obj and did /filters/quadratic edge collapse, this one has 14,399 faces, original 100x that amount. Looks like the grand canyon. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/102638093/nw_34_w112.zip 313k

quote
I can’t decimate it, blender locks up.
unquote

I want to reduce the polys to what meshlab did, 1.4 (million?) to 14,000, anyway by 99% or so. I can’t
use blender with a mesh that large, I have a dual core with 6MB, good video card.
Blender freezes, ctrl-alt-delete close the program, too many polys on the original mesh

hike1:
Did you try to limit the imported area with the “Use manually set extent” option?

quote
Did you try to limit the imported area with the “Use manually set extent” option?
unquote

I don’t understand what to put all I have is 34 and 112 for numbers. Anyway I want to see the
whole thing.

To find coordinates of the desired area open http://www.openstreetmap.org/export
Press “Manually select a different area” on the left (it may be written on your language).
Adjust the the box over the map.
Use coordinates on the grey rectangle on the left.

I would recommend that your area spans no more than several kilometers or dozens kilometers.

I am having difficulty importing the hgt file I want to use today. I was able to import it yesterday, but I had the same problem as some others had in that the mesh for the hgt was showing up in the outliner window but I couldn’t see any thing except a dot. Now that I have the answer to that challenge I am having a different issue. When I try to import my hgt file I get an error msg saying the hgt file is missing. Would someone please let me know what they think I have done incorrectly. Thank you.

Could you please provide more details. Which .hgt file did you try to import? Did you change the default import settings?

Hi,

I started this email with Vladimir Elistratov who recommended me to ask my question here.

I tried to import a srtm file in blender with the io_import_scene_srtm.py script, but nothing happens, I have no error or warning message, I just have nothing.

I use Blender 2.71 and N48E001.hgt.zip, N48E002.hgt.zip and N34W112.hgt.zip from http://dds.cr.usgs.gov/srtm/version2_1/SRTM3/Eurasia/.

I can see a SRTM stuff under the scene panel (see screen capture).


What can I do ? Can it be a blender version problem ?

I am a newbie in Blender and SRTM but I know about perl, javascript, xml/xsl, … I have eclipse installed on my laptop, do you know of a good python debugger I could use to find where I went wrong ?

Best regards,

Bulbab

@bulbab:

Try to do the following actions:

  • increase far clipping distance of the 3D View camera at least to 10 thousand
  • set orthographic camera for the 3D View by pressing 5 on the numpad
  • set top view by pressing 7 on the numpad
  • select your terrain in the outliner
  • press . (dot) on the numpad to fit the terrain into the 3D View

Hi vvoovv,

Great it works perfectly, thanks for your help.

Bulbab

I updated the addon to use the data set with global coverage and resolution about 30 meter.

Please read the documentation before using the latest version of the addon:

I’ll integrate the adon functionality into blender-osm so the buildings imported from OpenStreetMap will be placed on the terrain.

There was a question about the terrain addon in the blender-osm thread.

Just follow the documentation. The addon will print the URL for .hgt files to download.

Thank you very much

The addon has been finally ported to Blender 2.8x. It also works with the bpyproj to support custom geographical projections.