Nasa topographic data

Nasa is a great general source for earth related maps be it weather, temperature, or topographical. In the following source we can get some height maps of earth: https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/images/73934/topography

This source is great for topographic data of larger regions i.e. continents or whole countries. 

You can one image of the entire planet or eight divides one with higher resolution




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blender api script

Image
To generate a topographic model from a height map we are going to blender Python API. The used python script does the following: Get path for the used heightmap and output STL Create a plane and subdivide it. This give a higher number of vertices and looks like a higher 'resolution'. In this current example we use 200 cut which is the maximum for this operation. If a higher vertex count is need the operation can always be redone  The heightmap image get loaded as a texture and this texture get used for the displacement operation. The displacement strength controls the height of the displacement A solidify operation is used to give the plane some volume. This could also be done with an extrusion for a cleaner result. But a solidify is easier and in the next operation the this won't matter anyway A boolean operation is used on the plane to cut it in a circle. The used object for this is a cylinder. The intersection is used for the operation. Finally the STL is exported. Here
Read more

Project concept

Image
In this blog we will explore the possibility to create custom STL files based on topographic data sources via a web interface. General workflow: The user will select the the wanted terrain via a map interface, here he will set the coordinates and radius of the map. These properties get send to the web server which will request a height map from the corresponding data source. This can be via a API request or in a internal file.  The webserver launches blender via a terminal command a launches the internal python script. This script will get the height map and needed model properties After the python script has been processed blender will export a STL file and render a image of the model. The render part may be optional The webserver fetches the STL file and optional rendered image and sends these through to the web interface. Now the user can preview the model via the rendered image and download the wanted STL model. The currently planned development process for this project is the foll
Read more