CompuServe Thread

Hi David, <<I've designed a mountain exactly how I want it. >> Choosing a software package for this, kind of depends on how you have designed your land. Vista Pro can import a grayscale .pcx file as elevation data. The DISPLACE ipas routine will take a grayscale image an displace your geometry according to dark and light values of the bitmap. Or, better yet, if you designed it in another 3D package, you could export a .dxf file and load it directly into 3ds. There is a .dem (Vpro's file format) to .3ds file converter out there, but I think it only converts .dem files of size 128×128. Personally, I use Vista Pro, export the .dxf file and paint my own tex maps for use in 3ds.

>> What is the best tool for creating mountains? << There may be better replies to this one, but if you have or get Yost groups' Disk #7 of the IPAS routines, one way would be to use its "Displace" function. In this you could create an overhead view of the typography, with the highest points white, and the lowest points black, and in between both extremes create the gradient shades and "Displace" will create the mountain for you. There is another shareware out there (there may be quite a few) called GIFDXF by Kayman Software that takes a GIF image and does pretty much the same thing I just described. I don't know what the policies are of this forum, but if anyone wants me to upload it I will. Hope this helps.

If you want to try out Displace, there's a demo version of it in DL1, called DSPLAC.ZIP. For a mountain, you could start with the Grids.pxp that comes with 3DS, and create a 2D grid by leaving out the Height parameter. Make a grayscale bitmap for the topography, and then use Displace to deform the grid.

Have you checked out the Yost IPAS "displace"? It works on the contrast of an image and is interactive, and it also can optimize the mesh.

Hi, David. Just thought I'd add my 2 cents…AutoCAD will also work. Connie