I have made my first test image using Vue 4 of a Mars digital elevation data, just to play around with the program a bit (only had it 3 days!). I used a program called "Wilbur" to load in the high-resolution binary gridded data and used that to convert the data to a true height map image. This image was saved out as an TGA format file for simplicity. I used the terrain editor in Vue 4 to load the height map image in to create the new terrain, using the dimensions of the original binary grid as input to the terrain size. Added a surface texture and loaded a metal sphere object for fun! A great program to work with!

Really nice, I love the reflection of the sphere. Sharen :-)

You've done an excellent job for your first image!! I'm sure we'll be seeing great work from you in the near future. Irene

Looks very good, and I'm impressed regarding the smoothness of the terrain. So this is an actual area of Mars? Also, you can load DEM files into Vue 4, directly through the Objects>Import menu, and they can still be edited in the terrian editor, unlike all other 3D formats, which can't be edited. But it looosk like your way works just fine. :)

wow.. nicely done! the reflections and everything.. and the method for bringing in a digi-elev suonds pretty interesting.. Wilbur? thank ye

Thanks for the comments everyone! Some technical info on the Mars data; the data format is a gridded 2-byte integer binary file. The data is not a standard USGS DEM which are an ASCII format. Off the top of my head I can't think of the actual ground resolution in Kilometres but it's very good for planetary data (I'll have a check). If anyone is interested in this data let me know and I'll post the link. The Wilbur program is freeware and a very good utility to play round with and check DEM data out. The link is: http://www.ridgenet.net/~jslayton/software.html

What a great beginning with Vue! :)

cool beans thank ye for the link artic 8 ) I'll give it a go... thank ye muchly