I want to re-create the Martian volcano, Olympus mons, in VUE11 Studio. 

I found this hi-res image, and used it to create a .obj mesh in GeoControl2.http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-d2Ei4kKx2sQ/T5m4cJVRtrI/AAAAAAAAELM/MTtRly05F_Y/s1600/Olympus+Mons+04+Topographical+Map+by+Mars+Express.jpg

Then I imported the mesh into VUE. But the terrain doesn't look like the 3d  images I've seen of Olympus mons. 

Also tried using it directly in VUE as a displacement map (colored or grayscale) on a blank terrain, but also not good. 
http://cal3d.com/vue/OM_displacement.jpg 

I know that it's best to import the DEM as an object, but
I can't find the DEM online. =( 

I have tried searching the forums, and Google, but I haven't been able to find a "DEM" file for Olympus mons (?)

 Also found MOLA sets here .
ftp://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/mgs/mgs-m-mola-5-megdr-l3-v1/mgsl_300x/meg016/ 

...then used 3DEM to convert the .img to a USGS DEM, and imported
into VUE, but it's just a point.....not a terrain(?) even if I try to scale it up.  

Very confused. =(

Thanks in advance.

How did you get the GeoControl terrain into Vue?  What export did you use?

Nevermind.  I thought the first image you posted was a GeoControl render.  Vue needs a TIF heightmap from GeoControl for anything to look amazing in Vue.

Quote -  Vue needs a TIF heightmap from GeoControl for anything to look amazing in Vue.

I tried using the 13mb tiff  version of this jpg as a HMap in VUE and got the spikey result. 
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-d2Ei4kKx2sQ/T5m4cJVRtrI/AAAAAAAAELM/MTtRly05F_Y/s1600/Olympus+Mons+04+Topographical+Map+by+Mars+Express.jpg 

GeoControl says it can't use the tif as it's not P2 format. I think it needs to be 
a GEOTiff, but don't know where to find it (yet). 

I thought it would be relatively easy to find a DEM for Olympus mons that VUE could use. There are so many related sites, but some are very technical, and don't have
a DEM ready to go. 

Here are some images of what I'm trying to accomplish:
http://olympus-mons.tripod.com/id2.html

And here is a bunch of images.....
 http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Olympus+Mons+Elevation&id=E1A5A06B938309C91633CDF0972B7D7489E00672&FORM=IQFRBA

I don't know if they are useable as heightmaps...
I thought the gradients were read by VUE as elevations.....whether in color or grayscale. But when I use them, either in GeoControl, VUE, Cararra, etc,
I just get the spiked render.

I also tried Terragen......that was really confusing. I imagine I'll eventually figure it
out, but would appreciate any tips or suggestions.

And when I get it right, I'll post a short tutorial. ;) 

BTW, 

just found these beautiful renders done using 3DEM to convert the MOLAs 
to use in Terragen2.

 http://www.space4case.com/mmw/pages/space4case/mars/mars-images-2007.php

I still want to use VUE though, to be able to animate.

It would cost $439 for Terragen2 with animation, and I don't know how fast it renders....and don't want to learn another package if VUE can do as well or even close.

I have 3DEM & GeoControl to work with already.....just not sure what the process is.  

Quote - I tried using the 13mb tiff  version of this jpg as a HMap in VUE and got the spikey result.  Olympus+Mons+04+Topographical+Map+by+Mars+Express.jpg 

It's not a heightmap.  Just a colored image is all.  Pretty though.

Quote - I thought it would be relatively easy to find a DEM for Olympus mons that VUE could use. There are so many related sites, but some are very technical, and don't have a DEM ready to go.

It's rare to find anything out there for download.

I have a heightmap of the entire Mars.  But it is lo-res, so Mount O. will not look as good.  See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Lcc4fPCAk for the heightmap.

Hi Shawn, 

thanks for the Mars Terraforming tutorial/walkthrough.....I'll go through it asap, but
looks like I'll need at least an hour to watch, pause, do, watch, pause, do, etc.

 I want to create the real geometry, and fly down into & around Olympus mons, the  Valles Marineris, and other Martian features.

Will be looking for signs of ancient civilizations......and expect to find some......maybe even some hybernating Martians! =O

I need to get a handle on GeoControl, too, especially for DEMs. It's just a matter of 
pushing the right buttons in the right order.

I've tried using 3DEM to open & convert the MOLA .img files, but not getting 
any topology yet.

So am still searching for the right kind of hi-res heightmap of Olympus mons
to use either with GC, and/or directly in VUE.

BTW, this is something I did in Carrara and would like to do in VUE. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeESIvg2o4s&list=PLC8650D4DA576C797
(turn audio on) 

I installed 3DEM on my machine and will do some tests.  It's been forever since I used that format.  I will relearn it if I don't find any notes I made from back in the day.

I went to http://www.terrainmap.com/rm50.html and followed their quick instructions and was able to load a MOLA (using Latitude) from

http://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/mgs/mgs-m-mola-5-megdr-l3-v1/mgsl_300x/meg128/

and saved a selected region as ascii DEM because TIFFDEM is not availabe for MOLA.  The ascii DEM won't work with curved maps (that's obvious since DEMs are flat on the bottom).

Anyway, I imported the ascii DEM into Vue.  I had to scale the terrain object (by eyeball technique since I've seen this so many times already in SCI-FI), otherwise the volcano is flat (2m high) instead of 1 mile high, my edumacated guess).  Rendered with no material in Vue.

This time, I saved the MOLA stuff out of 3DEM as a TER file and loaded that into GeoControl 2.2.  I did a 4096 generated terrain in that and exported a 16-bit hightmap TIF file.  I applied the TIF to the Proc (altitude) function of a fractal terrain and got this (again, I had to eyeball the re-sizing).  It's not as good as the DEM file because it went through a 16-bit TIF funnel to get to Vue.  But it is still better than nothing.

NOTE: Maybe adjusting the high in GeoControl frist before exporting the ITF will give Vue more depth to work with?

Height, first, and TIF.  Typos.  Typing on a black keyboard in the dark.

This time I also remembered to turn off the zero edging thing in the terrain editor.  My fractal terrain is 256x256.  The imported TIF is 2048x2048 (Vue will auto-size the fractals).  So everything looks good this time.

Awesome!!!

That's exactly what I was trying to do. 

Thanks! I'll try it asap.

Which GeoControl do you have? 1.0? 2.0?  I have 1.0 somewhere to test with.  Don't know if it will read TER files though.

I have GC2.0......I tried to upgrade to 2.2, but the download was the German version. 

Will try again later. 

Just the installer is German.  That's normal for the author to do.  If you know which button is ACCEPT and which button after that is NEXT (as in NEXT, NEXT, NEXT.. FINISH), it will install.  At first I thought, "I hope this doesn't convert my Windows 7 GUI to German?!"  It didn't.  It's totally in English because my Windows is English.  But his installer doesn't see my machine as being English for some reason.  It's too new I guess.

The first link in his email didn't like my serial number.  So I downloaded the other link and the serial number worked.  I can never remember which one I'm supposed to download (update or full).  I've only bought GeoControl from him and not Cornucopia3D.

Just upgraded to GC2.2 OK. 

I don't see a New Features list, but the Help is much larger now. 

I'll start printing it out.....along with the VUE11 pdf. 

I went to the MOLA download page you listed.....didn't know which to download, so
went into 3DEM, and selected an area that looked like it might be Olympus mons,
and noted the Lat/Long.

Then selected the .img  that included that area, downloaded it, and
then loaded it into 3DEM......then saved it as a USGS ASCII DEM, and imported/loaded
into VUE....but VUE crashes each time. 

I only downloaded the files that started with "megt".  They all have to be downloaded (32 of them) and saved in the same folder so 3DEM can stitch them together before you make your region selection to export as ascii DEM.

Ok, thanks........I get it now.

Wish I could get my FTP client to connect, but
will have to do it one at a time.

FTP is dead on that site it looks like. 3DEM is archane knowledge these days.  So many other digital terrain majiks out there now that are all "pay-for" sites.

Finally downloaded all the files.......then opened 3DEM,  chose an area I think is Olympus mons, and loaded the first .img file, et voila!
http://cal3d.com/vue/OM1.jpg

I don't have time to do more for now, but that's the first time I've been able
to get at least an image from 3DEM......will export the USGS ASCII DEM later
for VUE.  I'll see how Carrara & Bryce handle it, too.  

Thanks Shawn for all the help.....I'd still be knocking my head on it with out it. :blink:

There are so many sites, file/data types, you almost need to be an astro-physicist
to figure it out.  

It's government grant sites which are webmastered by the absolute worst government contractors.  This is how the Internet was done in the '80s before WWW came into being.  The government sites never made the switch-over very well.  Plus, their data was never meant for us to use.  Just a few professors here and there, who needed interns to do the browsing and downloading for them.

I imported the DEM file into Carrara 5.1 Pro using the Ground Control plugin (just used the defaults in the import dialogue box).  It looked ok.  Later versions of Carrara might do a better job (more detail, and less spiking).

I saved the MOLA as a USGS ASCII DEM, and imported into VUE, but get
this instead of a terrain.....I scaled it up 1:10, but don't see any features (?) 

http://cal3d.com/vue/OM1_dem.jpg 

Bryce wouldn't touch it.  

I'll try the .ter in Cararra using Ground Control later when I get some time. 

Also will try Ground Control........one of them has to work! :lol:

Here's a video for you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIo3-AgTqXA

Thanks for the tutorial......that's Valles Marineris......I can hardly wait to fly through it!

I went back into 3DEM and changed & re-sized the area as you did.....then saved the
USGS ASCII DEM, and imported to VUE......and here's the result.....
http://cal3d.com/vue/OM1try2.JPG 

Interesting but not like yours(?)  I don't have a clue what's wrong.....there aren't that many options.  

I need more time to work on it, but can't till later.

So near yet so far. :unsure:

I've never seen that before.  I have no idea what's causing that.

Instead of using the USGS ASCII DEM directly in VUE,  I opened it in GeoControl2.2, 
and converted it to all the possible file types available.

Then I randomly took the 512 res .obj, and imported it into VUE, and scaled it to
1km x 1 km x 50m to get this (500 frames, 25fps, rendered to "Final" in 1hr 49min
on my ASUS G73 i7 laptop with 6GB ram)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv3efKekGto

Thanks for the great help Shawn! :thumbupboth:

ps- I'll try the other file types as well. 

Cool.  You're doing something different from me.  Because my GeoControl 2.2 doesn't even have a DEM import.  As long as it gets into Vue.  :)

Quote - Instead of using the USGS ASCII DEM directly in VUE,  I opened it in GeoControl2.2.....

....wrong!  Sorry....I did it as you did, i.e. used 3DEM to convert the MOLA selection to a .ter, 
then opened it in GC2.2, and converted it to all the available file types.

So far have only tried the 512 .obj mesh......very dense. I couldn't see how to decimate it in VUE, only for preview renders.

But will try the others, e.g. tif , bmp, pgm (for Bryce), etc and see what gives the best results.  

Have you tried VistaPro?

I know: outdated and all - but >>> VistaPro carries tons of DEM's with it.

And, I guess that half of Mars is present. You can export from VistaPro in different fromats.

Tried it once with Vue6infinite - worked quite well.

Good luck...

I used VistaPro in 1993.  Mount St. Helens was the bees knees in that program.  I don't remember if the DEMs were hi-res though for a 486DX-66 4MB system running Windows 3.11 for Workgroups in 16-bit mode.

Well, there is something to say about proggies that - although somewhat outdated - still continue to run on actual machines, I guess.

About what you can get out of it - a lot can be changed for the better (resolution) using the means of Vue.

Had been reading about the steps involved doing DEM's "your way" - lots of rituals involved :) ...

Maybe you should go and ask NASA about the tricks they used to feed us with these simulations.

Good luck editing!

Hi zerebrom, 

I was going to try VistaPro, but it requires using an installer that 
makes me leary........I think it may be a conduit for adware.

But would try it if it was a simple download from a reputable 3D site.

Thanks though. ;) 

cmcgaugh -

don't know from where you tried to get it, so

http://www.creative-3d.net/vistapro.cfm

might help. You'll find the link to the dev's on the site.

Again - best of luck!

Ok, thanks.......I see the links on the right now......thought it was just a review.

But the links aren't active......  **"This webpage is not available" **

Also tried right clicking to save the download, but
it doesn't work either (?)  And the forum is empty at 3D Links. 

I'll try the site I thought was questionable......my mistake......I think it's probably OK. 
 http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/VistaPro-Download-142716.html

Thanks again for pointing me to VistaPro. 

re: VistaPro

I was able to download the demo, but it does only low res. I tried to purchase
the full version, but all the links return "This webpage is not available". 

Bummer.

I'll email the developers...... byteme@monkeybyte.com  (LOL) 

I've only seen version 4 sold in stores in boxes, next to Bryce and another terrain program (I forget the name) that still comes in a box.

...seen it - the link I gave is kind of  dead, sorry.

The way I use VistaPro (if at all) is just to get out the DEM's for Vue.

Exporting in dxf format works pretty well. Certainly you'll have to work on the mesh, either inside Vue or in any modeler that can read dxf (a lot to choose from).

All DEM's that come with VistaPro = 700 MB, roughly.

Good news!

Yon at MonkeyBytes.com replied that VistaPro is still available here...

 http://store.monkeybyte.com/index.php/software/instant-downloads/vistapro-renderer-download-pc.html#

Thanks again zerebrom for reminding us about it. ;)

:) glad you found it.

Like I said - what you will get out of VistaPro still needs some additional work, but all of this is done fast and easy. Depending on your needs the means of Vue alone might be sufficient.

Anyway: have fun editing! 

Is there a user manual packaged with it?

I was considering getting it, but only if it has a manual, and had an
advantage over VUE.

But for $50 it's tempting.  

Here are some  images of Mars I found....http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org/resources/planetary-observing/vistapro-images-of-mars/

Well, using the Help menu in VistaPro you'll get some basic information.

The rest - it is just a matter of changing dials and render (only if you want to really render inside VistaPro).

The way I use it - mostly as a tool to get DEM's into readable form for other apps, so it does not matter for me how exactly VistaPro might render any mesh.

A fast search brought up this here:

http://casde.unl.edu/imagery/dem/tutorial.php

This covers really all there is. Due to being extremely fast on actual machines, experimenting with the settings will give you results in no time - hopefully :).

Thanks....I searched for VistaPro user manual, and didn't find anything. 

But I did find these pretty nice images of Mars. 

http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org/resources/planetary-observing/vistapro-images-of-mars/ 

I've seen these - rendered with VistaPro.

You'll get a lot more out of these DEM's if you "process" them outside the program, bring the altered meshes into Vue, and use what Vue offers concerning mesh handling.

So turning on "dynamic subdivision", playing around with the smoothing angle, etc. will certainly make the blocky mesh from VistaPro look better then the examples from what is shown in the link.

And again: concerning the user manual, there only is some basic instruction.

VistaPro was written back in the day before PDFs took off.  So the instructions are probably still built into the program via old Windows HLP files.

Just an idea, if you want to fly in Mars try X-plane ;)

re: X-Plane.....pretty neat. I didn't know that. Thanks. :)