Playing with Google Earth Image on 3D Terrain

[postandbeam]

I was trying to get an image from Google Earth to show up on my 3D terrain, and got it to work reasonably, but is a bit of a hack....  I'm wondering if anyone can think of ways to clean up the process or know of a better way... 

 

As a side note: my goal is different than trying to get elevation data from Google Earth, that is a totally different process.  My goal here was just to get the image to follow approximate terrain and be visible in 3D views.

 

My process so far:

• Take a Snippet (screen capture) from Google Earth (measure some points so it can be scaled in Chief correctly)
• Import into chief as in image then scale it accurately.
• Create the terrain perimeter at the outside edges of the image
• You can now move or delete the image (the import image step was just used to get the scale of the terrain perimeter to match the image size).
• I then created a new material using the image from my snippet (the exact same one I imported) and set the image height to whatever the height (top to bottom) the terrain perimeter measures to in Chief (from the steps above) and keep the "retain aspect ratio" box checked off (in this case it was around 1,000' in the vertical axis).   The reason I do all the scaling stuff is that checking off "stretch to fit" didn't work for me as, but would seem to be the better solution if it did... (the result was that it had a few triangles that looked about right, but the rest of the terrain was just blurry green, almost like it couldn't stretch an image that big and have it lay "flat" over all the triangles that make up the sloped terrain...)
• Just to make trouble-shooting easier, I made a terrain feature the same size as the terrain that is 1" tall so I could apply the texture to that instead of the terrain  perimeter (probably not a needed step).
• Apply the new material to the terrain feature (or to the terrain perimeter if you skipped the step above)

 

When viewing in the 3D camera, it came up looking about right BUT since it isn't a "stretch to fit" material, it tiles the image.  The tile start/stop doesn't relate to my terrain feature, so I had to use the X,Y offset within the texture to keep adjusting the tiling so it filled my terrain cleanly.

 

Here is the result from the quick hack (image attached)....

 

If this is useful to someone, or my instructions aren't clear, I could try to make a quick screen capture video of the process.

 

If someone knows of a better way, I would love to hear how it could be done better.

 

Thanks,

-Huckle

 

[Chopsaw]

It is very limited as to how well a material will fit to the terrain contours but it definitely does make a nice presentation in the correct circumstances.  I am not sure the terrain feature is any benefit as the top surface of the terrain perimeter is independent from the skirt.

From your illustration it seems you still have a tiling issue around the perimeter so unless you can get that right you should maybe go back to the stretch to fit setting and then adjust your terrain setting so that the triangles are not visible. 

 

Are you hoping to add 2D content to that or just 3D for your presentation ?

[postandbeam]

@Chopsaw- Your are correct about the tiling, I just did this as a quick proof of concept.  It wouldn't take much time to fix the tiling so it was directly on the edge.  I also agree that the terrain feature is a step that can be skipped. I'll mess around with the terrain settings to see if I can get the stretch-to-fit to work as that would remove the tiling adjustment step.

 

We have a project coming up that I'm going to try this with and will post how it comes out.  I'm guessing that we will draw the house, then zoom in for some overview shots and see how it looks.  I'm also hoping that camera views from inside the house looking out will catch some of the satellite view on the terrain...  I definitely think this has pretty limited benefit, but it might be helpful on some specific projects....

 

It might not be the best solution, but thought I would post this "hack" as there were some similar posts/questions, but never a solution on how to make it work...

 

 

[Chopsaw]

2 hours ago, postandbeam said:

I definitely think this has pretty limited benefit, but it might be helpful on some specific projects....

 

The only part that is limited is the ability to apply it to the terrain and it only works with relatively mellow terrain currently.  Also you need a project where you have a sight that is able to be used without much surface alteration or that has already been prepared for construction without the use of a dozer or bobcat.  Some parts of the country are more suitable than others for this type of development process but when the conditions and sequencing is correct it is a nice solution.

 

Here is one I did with 2D and 3D content included.