Accurate Geographical Data to Oahu

[BossOfGames]

I would like to know if there is accurate geographical data to Oahu. I would like to create an accurate island.

[Nicholas]

Oahu!? You should create "The Big Island" instead!

I'm not sure where you might find geographical data to recreate it though.

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I would suggest to contact Icebreakr. He has created some very awesome islands and knows what he is doing. You can also check out his website where he has links to contact him there as well.

[W0lle]

The USGS should provide Digital Elevation models of the U.S. free of charge.

[Jakerod]

I would recommend breaking it down into pieces though or scaling it down. It's quite big. Probably too big to do a 1:1 on actually.

[BossOfGames]

The USGS should provide Digital Elevation models of the U.S. free of charge.

Looking at that now. Thanks.

EDIT: How would i go about making this into a format that Visitor will be able to read?

I would recommend breaking it down into pieces though or scaling it down. It's quite big. Probably too big to do a 1:1 on actually.

The one thing about Oahu is that it is the island where Honolulu is. I have checked that visitor can handle the map geographically, but I am worried about the urban environments that I will need to replicate pretty close. That will be a major load on scenery. I am thankful that I did not pick the biggest island. I do not think that the island will be able to take the load.

[phaeden]

It depends on the poly count of your buildings. You can have a dense urban area so long as you keep the poly count low.

[GiorgyGR]

but I am worried about the urban environments that I will need to replicate pretty close. That will be a major load on scenery.

You can do some tricks to reduce the load significantly.
Yes..
1) ..the polycount of course is the 'number one'.
Reducing polygons from an object it's a tiresome process..but it pays on performance.
2) LOD's
Build different lod's for different distances (1 object far away DOESN'T need to be so 'complex' (lots of poly's)
3) You can choose 'lighter' RVMAT's for buildings and objects.
i.e a 'normal' map needs only the *.co and *.nohq texture in comparison to a 'heavy' map as "Super Shader" or "Multimaterial" who both requires more resources and texture types.
Yes..
..The result of quality maybe wouldn't be the same..but personally i love MORE objects>quality than LESS objects with
good>quality.
4) Last but really serious matter- is the "Section count" on scene.
The ideal is to use 1 RVMAT per (big) object or..1 for multiple small objects for exceptional performance (although to 'squeeze' all relevant textures *walls/floors/ceilings*for a big-like-house object to 1 *.co i believe it will significantly lower your quality.)
-----------
So...
I gave you some .."extreme" measures for a 'rich' simulated environment
YOU...can balance the 'Quality' vs 'Performance' to your needs

[Jakerod]

I use 3dem for getting heightmaps into a .ter format which I then import into L3DT (I used to use terragen). You might want to take a look at what types of data can be imported into that and then try to obtain height data in that format.

If you want a 1m per pixel sat map and mask you are going to need at least a 71,000 px x 71,000 px image to cover the entire area. I would make sure you have a program that is capable of doing that because at that size photoshop gets really iffy. Perhaps you should do a bare mockup of the area just to make sure that you would be able to play it ingame with a good ground resolution. That way you don't do a ton of work for nothing. I do look forward to playing on it though if you can get around those issues I mentioned.

[m16a2m203]

Been a long time since I messed with this stuff. Just jumped in some threads to see how things have changed and improved. Way too big of a project to model I think but you could always do it in "miniature” by scaling the data. You can find 1/3 arc second (approx. 10m data) here http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/dem/squareC.../download/3410 for Oahu. I think a more realistic/manageable project could be Midway or Wake -

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/dem/squareC...d/download/642
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/dem/squareC...d/download/634

Good thing about using bathymetry would be it's use in upcoming ArmA 3 instead of having a flat bottom like a lot of old maps were made in the beginning.

Bad thing with these is that the data does not appear to negate the heights of buildings, trees, etc. that is usually done in some LIDAR applications so you may have to do some minor height editing in order to make the islands look more realistic. ie. non-flat runways, or high points where a structure is located etc.

Here's a portion of Wake with a quick overlay from Google in Global Mapper...




Good Luck,

gren

[BossOfGames]

The 3DEM method is not able to parse the data from the links m16a2 is providing me. How will i able to find the proper data?

EDIT: I found the data but It is individualized into zones. Is there a way to combine all the zones properly in 3DEM?