After seeing a post about importing DEM'S into Bryce. I thought I would give it a try. Does anyone know where I can find Dem maps of Canada, downloadable. I have searched all over and found one or two sites and you have to buy them- unbelievable. Also in the previous post there was mention of changing file names to .dem, and also was a link to a tutorial for converting sts and dems to grayscale. I downloaded a dem zip went through all the procedures to convert it including the 3'rd party software and I could only get one to convert to grayscale. However I was just playing around and used file import object and just imported a dem without converting it in anyway. It worked, so it's got me wondering why do you have to convert it or change filenames at all. Am I missing something, or me being a newbie to Bryce am I asking a silly question? Any help in clearing this up would be appreciated, thanks

We might be doing things differently. When I download zip files from the USGS site, they unzip in a .gz format. When I go to import object under the file menu in Bryce 4.1, nothing is there. So when I go back to the directory where the .gz file is and rename it to a .dem, then the import object option sees the file and in it comes as a mesh. Does that make sense? The mesh is pretty flat so I raise the height just a bit an believe it or not, it really looks like the lay of the land. I'll post a few renderings in a bit. If you are talking grayscale, then it sounds like you're downloading jpg or gif images and using them in the terrain editor and creating a mesh from that.

Go check out a tutorial, hope this helps. http://www.annsartgallery.com/tutdem.html

Attached Link: http://home.att.net/~RShamlian/dems.htm

I used the term "grayscale" because of the term used in the tutorial link I used. I have no problems importing using the file menu, all seems to work fine. I was just wondering why this tutorial talks about converting to 'grayscale' when file-import object seems to work.However I am going to check out your tutorial when I am done here. Thanks

The tutorial may have been written B4 Bryce4 had the ability to import DEMs directly. Prior to Version 4 you had to use a grayscale height-map (I think V4).

I guess there are several ways to do it. http://www.annsartgallery.com/tutdem.html is the way I do it.

Are there DEMS, of the moon available? Preferably free. I haven't seen anything mentioned at the USGS site. I know I could "fake it" using a hi res grayscale of the moon but that is still too pixelated. Or does any body know where to get a 3D representation of the moon surface. One good enough for cameras near the surface? Pete