Expressing real landscapes as terrains: from LiDAR to Unity

Questions & Answers
1

I’d like to adapt some aerial 3D laser scan (LiDAR) data into a Unity terrain (see bottom for the data itself).

There are lots of ways to approach this, but if you’ve been down this road any criticism is welcome for my proposed steps below:

  • Extract a DEM from a LiDAR dataset
    via LAStools
  • Combine hero DEM with
    outlying, lower resolution DEMs, to
    gracefully handle the borders of the
    high resolution area
  • Convert DEM to
    image (GeoTIFF), export as type
    “.data” from Gimp/PhotoShop to obtain
    a Unity-compatible RAW file In Unity,
    import RAW file → Real World Terrain
    (Unity Asset Store - The Best Assets for Game Making)
  • Using Real World Terrain, texture
    terrain with 0.25m sat images
  • Export
    Unity terrain
  • In Unity, import DATA/RAW file → Gaia
    / Map Magic
  • Add forests, grasses,
    other vegetation
  • Export Unity terrain
    Add sky, ocean elements

As an option for the terrain input above, I could triangulate that LiDAR point data into a mesh, then convert the main to a Unity terrain via ‘Mesh to Terrain’ or similar.

p.s. – Here is a link to some of the USGS Big Sur LiDAR data (ARRA-CA Aug 27 2014) that I’m using:
https://catalog.data.gov/dataset?q=&sort=views_recent+desc&collection_package_id=55e67773-09ac-459c-8be3-3fb2750ddc9b&as_sfid=AAAAAAWPrPaCYlhEpBe0ubd7kLLIqD7qO1pecVRFlfYwc2hCSEi0uAko2vlLkquWslmPA8-n75vdhS8P-o-zQe1wQBajFz5hErQ-hvDfTkKYpLNkUlpt1oHH-8wcSvzD81OXH8s%3D&as_fid=a59d488213daf5ded4172bbaae393fd840d8841b&ext_location=Big+sur%2C+CA+(93920)&ext_bbox=-121.9022%2C35.7942%2C-121.1957%2C36.335&ext_prev_extent=

2

You can also get access to a huge volume of high rez elevation/lidar data at NOAA: Data Access Viewer

Go NOAA

3

@KevinCain any progress with this? I’m attempting a similar project and was wondering if you found this approach to be successful?