Image format for artificial 3D-landscapes

[DiZi]

Hi folks!
I'm working for a geospatialweb research project. http://www.ecoresearch.net/iswc2007/

Among other things we compute so called "Information landscapes" for special topics and project them to the map. Up to now these were 2D images. In the next step weare going to produce 3D information landscapes with elevation informations and visualize them via World Wind.

What we have is a matrix with a number of points and (x,y,z)
coordinates for each point.
What we need is to create on the basis of this matrix some file format with elevation information, that can be displayed as a 3D landscape via WorldWind.
The image files will be served via WMS.

There seems to be a great number of formats, that are supported, e.g.
VRML, .bil (SRTM), GeoTiff, 3DEM, DXT1, etc.
but no clear documentation.

I'll be grateful for any tips on which format is the most suitable in our case.

Optimaly it should be free, supported by WMS (e.g. OpenLayers) and there will be some free (java?) libraries for creating it.


Thanks!

[patmurris]

Quite an interesting and unexpected use of mapping software!

As of now, WW uses .bil SRTM files for elevation and either .jpg, .png or .dds image files for texture mapping over the terrain. However getting custom elevation data into it is not straightforward to say the least... Other formats are supported via plugins and other means but they sometime have restrictions or side effects.

A java version of WW is being developed - see the WorldWind Java SDK part of this forum. However integrating your own elevation is not any easier just now.

[DiZi]

Hi Patrick!
Thank's a lot for a fast reply!

If i understood you correctly, export of data to GeoTiff will be a long way around and
the only thing we have to do is to arrange the export of elevation data to .bil format. The 2D .png - layers that we already have can be then used as texture.
The challenge will be then to read this data into WW.

Actually we are going to use the SDK-Version of WorldWind within a browser.

[m_k]

In theory it's quite simple - http://www.worldwindcentral.com/wiki/Dstile_howto
you just give any data supported by GDAL and dstile produces image or DEM tiles for WW

[patmurris]

If you are going to use the java sdk, be aware that it is still in alpha stage.

That said, there have been several threads regarding custom elevation data integration and AFAIK it is not simple just now. However, the SDK is open source and if you can afford it, you can write your own components to deal with your own .bils vs the actual SRTM, using the sdk classes as examples...

I'm not sure what is the best course of action in that regard, i havent digged that way yet but others may have.

Please let us know how things unfold, there is a lot of interest in custom elevation data integration.

Also note that the surface images must be in the lat-lon projection (plate carrée) to fit in the actual tile renderer.

[Forexagend]

Hi, good post. I have been wondering about this issue,so thanks for posting.