TerraLand 2 – High Quality Photo-Realistic Terrains from Real-World GIS Data

TerraUnity · January 5, 2016, 10:00pm

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TerraLand plugin contains of multiple components which use GIS data & coordinates to load & create Photo-Realistic Terrain from any part of the Earth within a few clicks.

The package is Unity 5.x & Unity 4.x compatible.

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Downloader

Link To Tutorial Sections

Connects to ESRI Elevation & Satellite Imagery servers and download needed data for user defined area of interest along with many other options to adjust resolutions and other settings.

Global Elevation & Satellite Imagery support for downloading
Highest available Elevation data resolutions ranging from over 30 meters in most of the Earth areas to approximately 3 meters in some limited areas. More Info
Highest available Satellite Imagery provides 1 meter or better Satellite and Aerial Imagery in many parts of the world & lower resolution satellite imagery worldwide. More Info
Bathymetry data included to create above & below (negative values) sea-level heights mixed for the final heights. More Info
Multi-Threading operations for faster & synchronous job handling
Create, update & edit terrains right within the scene
Multiple or single terrain chunk support for both Elevation & Satellite Imagery
Built-in Geo-Coder to search any location on Earth
Built-in Interactive Map can preview selected area using Google, Bing, OpenStreetMap, MapQuest, MapBox & Yandex with 35 style variations
Analysis Maps Downloader can get terrains’ Slope, Aspect, Hillshade & Elevation maps up to 8192 resolution on the fly
User-Friendly area definition by real-world metrics or geo-coordinates
Heightmap/Elevation data downloader with complete resolution flexibility & other various options More Info
Satellite Imagery downloader with lots of options to define resolution quality & import settings More Info
Save Elevation & Imagery data for later usage in projects or external GIS software
Can save elevation data in 3 formats of ASCII Grid, Raw & Tif along with projection (.proj) files
Satellite Images will be saved in Jpeg format with compression quality modifier
Automatic failed images downloader due to connection drops during the downloads
Predefined resolution presets for elevation & imagery to automatically set final terrain quality
Generated Terrain(s) can have up to 8192 heightmap resolution to override Unity’s limitation and achieve high resolution terrain surfaces
Each downloaded Satellite Image/Texture can have up to 4096 resolution and unlimited resolution for the entire terrain(s) as much as GPU can handle
Elevation/Vertical Exaggeration modifier to set final heights. TerraLand automatically rescales terrains based on Real-World area size (value of 1)
Preset Management to save any user adjustments made in the UI
Run-Time “Terrain Neighbors” script to handle terrain neighboring during the gameplay

Interactive Map

In-Editor Preview option of downloaded visual maps

Terrain

A collection of multiple operations needed for terrain management in the scene.

Loads any previously downloaded elevation data files of ASCII, Raw & Tif
Applies elevation data to new or existing terrains regardless of the data resolution or terrain(s) resolutions through complex resampling operations
Sets terrain neighbors if lost or doesn’t exist at all for seamless LOD & Tessellation between terrain chunks
Splits selected single terrain to the user defined grid size
Smoothen out terrain heights if there are jagged edges on the surface
Exports elevation data in 2 formats of ASCII & RAW from the selected terrain(s)
Image Tiler which takes a folder containing satellite images in project and textures corresponding terrain(s) More Info
Terrain To Mesh converts selected terrain(s) to mesh and optionally places it in the scene
Mesh To Terrain takes a 3D model/mesh and outputs a terrain with selected resolution in the scene
Converts DMS (Degree, Minute, Second) to DD (Decimal Degrees) coordinate systems and vice versa

MapsMaker

A newly introduced component to do image processing on satellite images and maps. It takes a satellite image and outputs 3 map types of Shadowless map, Colormap & LandCover (Splatmap).

Shadow Remover can remove shadows from the Satellite Images through complex image processing operations
Colormap Generator can remove small details from the Satellite Image and generates a colormap
LandCover Generator Filters top used colors in the image and generate a landcover/splatmap from the image

John-G · January 7, 2016, 10:19am

Can TerraLand 2 get height information for bathymetry also?

TerraUnity · January 7, 2016, 2:56pm

Yes, TerraLand 2 can get height information from the highest possible Bathymetry data available and generate terrains from that. So you can have negative elevation values below sea level (sea level = 0). The generated terrain will have above & below elevations mixed together for the final heights.

Following is the picture of the generated terrain containing bathy data. The area is 75km2 and the location is “Dead Sea”.

The generated terrain has 4096 heightmap & 16384 satellite imagery resolution spread over 4 terrain chunks.

Note: The heights on terrain surface have 2x elevation exaggeration (vertical factor) for better heights visualization & comparison.

And here’s the extracted & saved data information:

Highest Elevation: 1077 - Lowest Elevation: -433

TerraUnity · January 20, 2016, 9:57am

Video tutorial for TerraLand “Downloader” component has been released. Other components tutorials are on the way.

Link To Tutorial Sections

blazespinnaker · January 20, 2016, 3:25pm

I’d like to use this, but I want to make sure I have IP rights to do so (copyrights, etc). If we pull this from ESRI, are we legally in the clear?

TerraUnity · January 20, 2016, 4:17pm

As we are an ArcGIS developer and our app is subscribed and registered for ArcGIS Online Services program, you access Elevation & Satellite Imagery data under our company. More info: https://developers.arcgis.com/en/terms/

Other quotes from ESRI:

Online terms of use

The ArcGIS.com website allows you to create maps; share your maps, data, and apps; and manage your content. You can also access maps, data, apps, and tools that have been shared by the community, including Esri and other commercial data providers. As a user of the website, whether you are storing, sharing, or using content, you agree to certain terms and conditions of use, including but not limited to what is listed below.

Content is subject to terms of use. ArcGIS Online contains public and shared content that is typically available for your personal or noncommercial use. The specific terms of use for content items are provided in the access and use constraints for that content. As a content user, it is your responsibility to abide by the content owner’s terms of use. As a content owner, it is your responsibility to clearly define the terms of use in the access and use constraints field of the item properties.

Permission to reproduce. By sharing content publicly and creating public groups in ArcGIS Online, you expressly grant Esri and end users of ArcGIS Online permission to use, reproduce, prepare derivative works of, and distribute content, subject to any use constraints you provide.
…

Use ArcGIS Online maps and map layers, imagery, and geometry services in conjunction with Esri software or an ArcGIS Online subscription for projects and applications that are both internal and external use

As long as you do not exceed the transaction cap if the cap applies to you.  Government, Education, and NGO users: Full unlimited use  Private organizations, Business Partners, and Developers: 50,000,000 transactions per year. For maps, a transaction is defined as eight tiles. For imagery and geometry services, a transaction is defined as one request.

As always, if you are really concerned about the usage of specific data in your commercial application, contact the licence holder directly.

nasos_333 · January 20, 2016, 4:34pm

That is a major plus, nice.

Is the discounted pack available in the asset store as well ?

TerraUnity · January 20, 2016, 7:11pm

The latest package will be submitted to Asset Store in about a week as we are preparing documentation files and tutorials. But I don’t think there will be the discounted price in there.

For now the price is stable until 31st of January directly from our website, but after this time we make decisions on the extending and also the Asset Store price.

nasos_333 · January 20, 2016, 7:13pm

Thanks

blazespinnaker · January 20, 2016, 10:27pm

How do we get updates if we buy from the website?

TerraUnity · January 21, 2016, 8:17am

@nasos_333 Welcome

@blazespinnaker First of all, when you buy any products from our website, you will be included in our customers mailing list to get the latest updates and news through newsletters & direct emails.

Secondly, you have to register on our website through the checkout page so that you will have a user panel on our site to get downloaded packages, updates and notifications just as any other shopping systems such as Asset Store.

Olafson_1 · January 21, 2016, 12:31pm

At what resolution can I download elevation data and Sattelite images?

TerraUnity · January 21, 2016, 2:02pm

For the elevation data, on each terrain generation you can have resolutions from 32 to 8192 for the entire terrain whether it’s a single object or split into chunks.

More Info: HEIGHTMAP DOWNLOADER

For the Imagery data, the resolutions can be from 32 to whatever you desire and as much as GPU handles. Of course if there is available imagery for that value.

More Info: SATELLITE IMAGE DOWNLOADER

The most interesting feature in TerraLand is that elevation data is totally flexible in resolution and it is not static. For example if you define an area of 10 x 10 km, you can have heightmap resolution of 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096 or 8192. TerraLand can connect to elevation data server and dynamically extract heightmap based on the specified resolution and resample the data on the server to finally load it into terrain(s). Obviously the more the assigned resolution is, the more detailed your terrain heights will get.

For the imagery resolution, each terrain can have a grid of 1 to 10 images defined (GRID PER TERRAIN) as the total number of images and individual value (IMAGE RESOLUTION) for each satellite image resolution itself.

To summarize, if you have 4 terrain chunks, “Grid Per Terrain” is set to 2 and “Image Resolution” is set to 4096, the total imagery resolution for the entire terrain surface will be 16384 pixels.

Note: Getting the 16384 pixels resolution can be achieved by multiple combination of assigning values, for instance setting the “Grid Per Terrain” value to 8 and “Image Resolution” to 1024 will also result the 16 k resolution. But be aware that for performance reasons it’s usually better to have higher Image Resolution value instead of Grid Per Terrain which specifies total number of images. For each set of 4 images in terrain data, an alphamap will be generated which is an extra cost if there are many of them.

We have predefined resolution presets which automatically sets Elevation & Satellite Imagery resolution for the generating terrains. So you only need to define area location as center point, give it desired area size and select one of the presets to start downloading as we show it in the following link:

More Info: ENGINE RESOLUTION PRESETS

Amir Badamchi

Olafson_1 · January 23, 2016, 4:33am

Okay, that sounds good. But I actually meant the elevation data resolution from the source you are downloading.

Most sources provide 1 Arcsecond data. Can terraunity download higher resolution data? I know that some sources also offer up to 1/3 arcsecond data, USGC even offer 1/9 Arcsecond for some areas.

John-G · January 23, 2016, 4:10pm

Purchased, is there any particular source I need to choose in order to get the bathymetry along with the terrain height information. Or are the different map sources just for visual reference.

TerraUnity · January 24, 2016, 10:16am

@Olafson_1 I was going to say that in previous post but forgot to

Elevation Data Resolution

The World Elevation data resolutions are ranging from over 30 meters in most of the Earth areas to approximately 3 meters in some limited areas.

In Depth:

The AHN Netherlands (AHN2) 3 meters* DTM covers entire Netherlands.
The Geoland 10 meters DTM covers entire Austria.
The Geodatastyrelsen DTM (approx. 3 meters* and 10 meters) dataset covers entire Denmark.
The National Land Survey of Finland 3 meters* and 10 meters DTM covers partial areas of Finland and entire Finland respectively.
The Norwegian Mapping Authority 10 m DTM covers the entire area of Norway.
The Ordnance Survey’s OS Terrain 50 (50 meters) dataset covers Great Britain.
The FEMA LiDAR DTM (approx. 3 meters) covers partial areas of the conterminous United States.
The National Elevation Dataset (NED) 1/9 arc second (approx. 3 meters) dataset covers areas of the conterminous United States and small areas of Alaska.
The National Elevation Dataset (NED) 1/3 arc second (approx. 10 meters) dataset covers the conterminous United States, Hawaii, partial Alaska, and Territorial Islands of the United States.
The National Elevation Dataset (NED) 1 arc second (approx. 31 meters) dataset covers the conterminous United States, Hawaii, partial Alaska, Puerto Rico, Territorial Islands of the United States, Canada and Mexico.
The National Elevation Dataset (NED) 2 arc second (approx. 62 meters) dataset covers the state of Alaska.
The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) 1 arc second (approx. 31 meters) dataset from NASA covers all land areas between 60 degrees north and 56 degrees south except Australia (which is covered by DEM-S from Geoscience Australia).
The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) 1 arc second (approx. 31 meters) DEM-S dataset from Geoscience Australia covers Australia.
The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) 3 arc second (approx. 93 meters) dataset covers all land areas between 60 degrees north and 56 degrees south.
The EarthEnv-DEM90 3 arc second (approx. 93 meters) dataset covers approx. 90% of globe.
Global Multi-resolution Terrain Elevation Data 2010 (GMTED2010) 7.5, 15 and 30 arc second (approx. 232, 464 and 928 meters) datasets cover global land areas.
General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO)** 30 arc second (approx. 928 meters) dataset covers the entire globe.

So, in most cases you are going to have the source data ranging from 30 to 10 meters resolution and in worst case scenarios it’s 90 meters in resolution.

But as mentioned earlier, TerraLand can dynamically resample the source data to user specified resolutions and have higher resolution extracted from the original data if needed. Needs extra Smoothness operation though.

Note: Resampling the data to higher resolutions doesn’t mean that there will be extra details of terrain surface which doesn’t exist in original data but just provides flexibility in resolutions and maps existing height values to a higher dataset for later enhancement features on heightmap.

Satellite Imagery Data Resolution

World Imagery provides one meter or better satellite and aerial imagery in many parts of the world and lower resolution satellite imagery worldwide.

15m TerraColor imagery at small and mid-scales (~1:591M down to ~1:72k) and 2.5m SPOT Imagery (~1:288k to ~1:72k) for the world
0.3m resolution imagery in the continental United States and parts of Western Europe from DigitalGlobe
Additional DigitalGlobe sub-meter imagery is featured in many parts of the world, with concentrations in South America, Eastern Europe, India, Japan, the Middle East and Northern Africa, Southern Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. Sub-meter Pléiades imagery is available in select urban areas globally
In the United States, 1 meter resolution NAIP 2013 through 2015 imagery is available (~1:36k down to ~1:4k) across 47 states
In other parts of the world 1 meter resolution imagery is available from GeoEye IKONOS, Getmapping, AeroGRID, IGN Spain, and IGP Portugal
Additionally, imagery at different resolutions has been contributed by the GIS User Community. In select communities, very high resolution imagery (0.07m) is available down to ~1:280 scale

Amir Badamchi

TerraUnity · January 24, 2016, 10:34am

@John-G Hope you like it.

No you don’t need to choose any particular source in order to get bathymetry or any other kinds of data. If there are bathy data available in your selected region, height values below sea level will be automatically included in your extracted elevation data and heightmap.

Terraland gets its data from ESRI elevation and satellite imagery map services and these services get their data from multiple sources. For the elevation data the main sources are:

USGS NED 2, 1, 1/3, and 1/9 arc-second DEM
USGS & NASA SRTM DEM
USGS GMTED DEM 7, 5, 15, and 30 arc-second
OS Terrain 50m
FEMA LiDAR DTM 3m
EarthEnv-DEM90 93m

Yes, the map sources you select in Interactive Map section is just for visual reference and area selection.

Olafson_1 · January 24, 2016, 1:53pm

Awesome, thank you TerraUnity.
Sounds like a great product! Exactly what I need

TerraUnity · January 26, 2016, 9:38am

@Olafson_1 Welcome, have fun with it

TerraUnity · January 26, 2016, 3:15pm

Here are some screenshots taken directly from sample scenes