3D printing terrain

Hi. I would like discuss of 3d printing terrain.

Is it possible to 3D print terrain with or without buildings? If it is then what softwares do you use and how?

I have my own 3d-printer so I can do it myself. Intrested to know if tools exist for it.

I know that from SketchUp you can 'add terrain'. After choosing your area you can toggle terrain and explode the terrain relief into polygons.

Never did it myself since I live in the Netherlands and everything here is flat.

Also, in the Netherlands there is data available of the heights of houses, it will be presented in the shape of 'point cloud data' and grayscale height maps. From what I understood, combining the two into a relief generator, you can generate height maps of the streets with houses in it. But I've tried doing this on countless occasions and never had any luck.

These are the Dutch sites, sadly, not in English:
[www.pdok.nl]
[www.ahn.nl]


Small addon, I've discovered just a minute ago a programm called 'ArcGIS' (costs 100$ a year for a license) with which you can generate maps. Over here, the PDOK.nl website offers a plugin and with it you can generate all kinds of maps because it combines data from the roof-height registers, and terrain height etc. You can choose what kind of data you want displayed.

I'm not entirely sure but I think ArcGIS from ESRI is the software you might need. They have a free 'explorer' available too. At least, I've just downloaded it for the Mac here:
[itunes.apple.com]

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/29/2014 07:07AM by Ohmarinus.

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http://www.marinusdebeer.nl/

Blender had a plugin for city generation [www.youtube.com]
There are another plugin that create roads, streets intersections, trees on the sidewalks and so on... but I don't remember plugin name, sorry.

If you have a grayscale heightmap, Blender again [www.youtube.com]

I don't suggest to create house with heightmap, it's difficult to controle roof, doors (if not imposible), it's easy to create differents objects.

An alternative to ArcGIS is QGIS. It is open source and works quite well. We use it at my workplace to generate maps and diagrams for various projects.

Link here: QGIS.org.

I don't have access to the tutorial stuff at the moment, but google may offer some help.

Cheers,

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Vjk
An alternative to ArcGIS is QGIS. It is open source and works quite well. We use it at my workplace to generate maps and diagrams for various projects.

Link here: QGIS.org.

I don't have access to the tutorial stuff at the moment, but google may offer some help.

Cheers,

Waow, thanks Vjk, this is exactly what I needed!!! Man, I can't wait to get started

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http://www.marinusdebeer.nl/

There's a few links on thingiverse about extracting terrain from NASA satellite data, and creating an stl, using ACCUtrans, eg: [www.thingiverse.com]

Ian
RepRapPro tech support

Thanks for answers! I will look them at next week!

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calad
Thanks for answers! I will look them at next week!

Yes, there is a lot in here. I'm very happy with the advice from Vjk about QGIS and it is very fortunate that you, calad, and me are both looking for the same thing at the same time

I am trying to get the 'BAG' maps working. They are the maps that also show the houses, but sadly for my city the houses haven't been integrated well enough yet. Luckily, in the meantime, I've been able to play with the Kinect I got last week.

Good luck, there are a lot of nice articles to be found about QGIS too! (and it's also cross-platform!!)

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http://www.marinusdebeer.nl/

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Ohmarinus

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Vjk
An alternative to ArcGIS is QGIS. It is open source and works quite well. We use it at my workplace to generate maps and diagrams for various projects.

Link here: QGIS.org.

I don't have access to the tutorial stuff at the moment, but google may offer some help.

Cheers,

Waow, thanks Vjk, this is exactly what I needed!!! Man, I can't wait to get started

No problem and good luck. I hope it all works out like you intended.

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Vjk

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Ohmarinus

Quote
Vjk
An alternative to ArcGIS is QGIS. It is open source and works quite well. We use it at my workplace to generate maps and diagrams for various projects.

Link here: QGIS.org.

I don't have access to the tutorial stuff at the moment, but google may offer some help.

Cheers,

Waow, thanks Vjk, this is exactly what I needed!!! Man, I can't wait to get started

No problem and good luck. I hope it all works out like you intended.

Hi. I dont want to rant of this but QGIS was extreamly confusing and after two hours of working with it I still had no idea what Im doing.

So I researched more and found out you can simply export google earth into sketchsup and print it. It is really as easy as using paint so your gramma can even do it! Im a bit exited how cool this is and I will post more later.

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calad

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Vjk

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Ohmarinus

Quote
Vjk
An alternative to ArcGIS is QGIS. It is open source and works quite well. We use it at my workplace to generate maps and diagrams for various projects.

Link here: QGIS.org.

I don't have access to the tutorial stuff at the moment, but google may offer some help.

Cheers,

Waow, thanks Vjk, this is exactly what I needed!!! Man, I can't wait to get started

No problem and good luck. I hope it all works out like you intended.

Hi. I dont want to rant of this but QGIS was extreamly confusing and after two hours of working with it I still had no idea what Im doing.

So I researched more and found out you can simply export google earth into sketchsup and print it. It is really as easy as using paint so your gramma can even do it! Im a bit exited how cool this is and I will post more later.

I'm a bit disappointed as I had already told you in my first reply that you can do that with SketchUp...

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http://www.marinusdebeer.nl/

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Ohmarinus

Quote
calad

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Vjk

Quote
Ohmarinus

Quote
Vjk
An alternative to ArcGIS is QGIS. It is open source and works quite well. We use it at my workplace to generate maps and diagrams for various projects.

Link here: QGIS.org.

I don't have access to the tutorial stuff at the moment, but google may offer some help.

Cheers,

Waow, thanks Vjk, this is exactly what I needed!!! Man, I can't wait to get started

No problem and good luck. I hope it all works out like you intended.

Hi. I dont want to rant of this but QGIS was extreamly confusing and after two hours of working with it I still had no idea what Im doing.

So I researched more and found out you can simply export google earth into sketchsup and print it. It is really as easy as using paint so your gramma can even do it! Im a bit exited how cool this is and I will post more later.

I'm a bit disappointed as I had already told you in my first reply that you can do that with SketchUp...

Well you also said you never did it nor you explained how it works so it was very low on my check up list.

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calad

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Ohmarinus
I'm a bit disappointed as I had already told you in my first reply that you can do that with SketchUp...

Well you also said you never did it nor you explained how it works so it was very low on my check up list.

Look, I'm not angry, it's okay. But I did explain exactly how it works:
"I know that from SketchUp you can 'add terrain'. After choosing your area you can toggle terrain and explode the terrain relief into polygons."

I did try it and it worked, however I had no use for it as my country is flat.

If you would put more time and effort in QGIS, you will notice that it can be a very good program to work with. I advise you to looking into it again. I followed the tutorials from their website and it was pretty straightforward. QGIS is a marvelous program

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http://www.marinusdebeer.nl/

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Ohmarinus

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calad

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Ohmarinus
I'm a bit disappointed as I had already told you in my first reply that you can do that with SketchUp...

Well you also said you never did it nor you explained how it works so it was very low on my check up list.

Look, I'm not angry, it's okay. But I did explain exactly how it works:
"I know that from SketchUp you can 'add terrain'. After choosing your area you can toggle terrain and explode the terrain relief into polygons."

I did try it and it worked, however I had no use for it as my country is flat.

If you would put more time and effort in QGIS, you will notice that it can be a very good program to work with. I advise you to looking into it again. I followed the tutorials from their website and it was pretty straightforward. QGIS is a marvelous program

I dont try to fight with you sketchup does satisfy my current needs and it is very easy to use. Do you know if it is possible copy also buildings from google earth? I dont mean special buildings but every 3d modelled building on selected area. Many cities like Amsterdam are complitely 3d modelled so it would be extreamly cool to be able to copy and print entire cities.

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calad

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Ohmarinus

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calad

Quote
Ohmarinus
I'm a bit disappointed as I had already told you in my first reply that you can do that with SketchUp...

Well you also said you never did it nor you explained how it works so it was very low on my check up list.

Look, I'm not angry, it's okay. But I did explain exactly how it works:
"I know that from SketchUp you can 'add terrain'. After choosing your area you can toggle terrain and explode the terrain relief into polygons."

I did try it and it worked, however I had no use for it as my country is flat.

If you would put more time and effort in QGIS, you will notice that it can be a very good program to work with. I advise you to looking into it again. I followed the tutorials from their website and it was pretty straightforward. QGIS is a marvelous program

I dont try to fight with you sketchup does satisfy my current needs and it is very easy to use. Do you know if it is possible copy also buildings from google earth? I dont mean special buildings but every 3d modelled building on selected area. Many cities like Amsterdam are complitely 3d modelled so it would be extreamly cool to be able to copy and print entire cities.

Hey, that's strange, when I view Amsterdam I don't get any building in 3D? Through what viewer are you looking?

With the QGIS you can get the 'BAG' maps for Amsterdam through the 'PDOK' plugin, but I am not sure how it works through Sketchup..

Here is a bit of info an working with terrain in SketchUp, but it's quite a big process:
[sketchup-ur-space.com]

I couldn't find a guide for getting the buildings from Google sad enough. Maybe someone else knows? I'm curious too.

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http://www.marinusdebeer.nl/

Ah, I meant google earth. Download it and zoom into any city, then move camera manually from bird eye view into horizontal with your mouse. Now buildings should appear. Famous landmarks are downloadable from google earth as well, forexample look Eifel Tower and click it, it should open a menu. I had some intresting links into youtube videos, I will post them later.

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calad
Ah, I meant google earth. Download it and zoom into any city, then move camera manually from bird eye view into horizontal with your mouse. Now buildings should appear. Famous landmarks are downloadable from google earth as well, forexample look Eifel Tower and click it, it should open a menu. I had some intresting links into youtube videos, I will post them later.

Aha, I always wondered why they didn't appear. When I check manhattan the buildings appear instantly, but with Amsterdam I need to zoom in a lot and then again go into birdseye view for the buildings to appear.
I can look for a way to get the data!

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http://www.marinusdebeer.nl/

Thanks... here are three videos related into it. I think the last one is most intresting but it is outdated so I could not imitate it.

[www.youtube.com]
[www.youtube.com]
[www.youtube.com]

Here is a video about getting the buildings out of Google Earth. It uses a program that pulls geometry and textures from windows using DirectX, kind of like a 3D screenshot. It outputs .3DR which 3DSMax can import. There may be something else out there that can read and convert it as well.

Export buildings from Google Earth

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IanJohnson
Here is a video about getting the buildings out of Google Earth. It uses a program that pulls geometry and textures from windows using DirectX, kind of like a 3D screenshot. It outputs .3DR which 3DSMax can import. There may be something else out there that can read and convert it as well.

Export buildings from Google Earth

Too bad this doesn't work on mac. I also found another tutorial video using 3Dvia's 3D screenshot program, but I can't find the software package anywhere, apparently it's already outdated...

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http://www.marinusdebeer.nl/

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IanJohnson
Here is a video about getting the buildings out of Google Earth. It uses a program that pulls geometry and textures from windows using DirectX, kind of like a 3D screenshot. It outputs .3DR which 3DSMax can import. There may be something else out there that can read and convert it as well.

Export buildings from Google Earth

You sire deserve gold:



So to repeat: does it also capture terrain elevation?

It doesn't look like it does terrain, but then they were doing New York which is flat. You would probably need to use some other method and try to match them up. If you can get terrain mapped with aerial photography, use could use the texture as a reference to line up the buildings by eye. I know there are tutorials on how to get terrain from Google into Sketchup, but I've never done it. The one I tried was in the US so I downloaded terrain and photography from USGS and used QGIS and Accutrans.

Well getting buildings out was already a huge help. Now I think it again it would be very illogical not to include terrain elevation because google earth is not a flat map.