Post

Building Elevation Grids

Posted Updated
By CREATE3000
2 min read

Motivation

  • Building terrains is very common
    • Hills, valleys, mountains
    • Other tricky uses…
  • You can build a terrain using an IndexedFaceSet node
  • You can build terrains more efficiently using an ElevationGrid node

Syntax: ElevationGrid

An ElevationGrid geometry node creates terrains:

  • xDimension and zDimension - grid size
  • xSpacing and zSpacing - row and column distances

XML Encoding

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<Shape>
  <Appearance><!-- ... --></Appearance>
  <ElevationGrid
      xDimension='3'
      zDimension='2'
      xSpacing='1.0'
      zSpacing='1.0'
      ... />
</Shape>

Classic VRML Encoding

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Shape {
  appearance Appearance { ... }
  geometry ElevationGrid {
    xDimension 3
    zDimension 2
    xSpacing   1.0
    zSpacing   1.0
    ...
  }
}

An ElevationGrid geometry node creates terrains:

  • height - elevations at grid points

XML Encoding

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<Shape>
  <Appearance><!-- ... --></Appearance>
  <ElevationGrid
      ...
      height='0.0, -0.5, 0.0,
              0.2,  4.0, 0.0'/>
</Shape>

Classic VRML Encoding

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Shape {
  appearance Appearance { ... }
  geometry ElevationGrid {
    ...
    height [
      0.0, -0.5, 0.0,
      0.2,  4.0, 0.0
    ]
  }
}

An ElevationGrid geometry node creates terrains

  • solid - shape is solid
  • ccw - faces are counter-clockwise

XML Encoding

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<Shape>
  <Appearance><!-- ... --></Appearance>
  <ElevationGrid
      solid='true'
      ccw='true'
      ... />
</Shape>

Classic VRML Encoding

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Shape {
  appearance Appearance { ... }
  geometry ElevationGrid {
    ...
    solid TRUE
    ccw TRUE
  }
}

A sample elevation grid

XML Encoding

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<Shape>
  <Appearance><!-- ... --></Appearance>
  <ElevationGrid
      xDimension='9'
      zDimension='9'
      xSpacing='1.0'
      zSpacing='1.0'
      solid='false'
      height='0.0, 0.0, 0.5, 1.0, 0.5, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0,
              0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 2.5, 0.5, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0,
              0.0, 0.0, 0.5, 0.5, 3.0, 1.0, 0.5, 0.0, 1.0,
              0.0, 0.0, 0.5, 2.0, 4.5, 2.5, 1.0, 1.5, 0.5,
              1.0, 2.5, 3.0, 4.5, 5.5, 3.5, 3.0, 1.0, 0.0,
              0.5, 2.0, 2.0, 2.5, 3.5, 4.0, 2.0, 0.5, 0.0,
              0.0, 0.0, 0.5, 1.5, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 1.5, 0.0,
              0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 2.0, 1.5, 0.5,
              0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.5, 0.0, 0.0,'/>
</Shape>

Classic VRML Encoding

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Shape {
  appearance Appearance { ... }
  geometry ElevationGrid {
    xDimension 9
    zDimension 9
    xSpacing   1.0
    zSpacing   1.0
    solid FALSE
    height [
      0.0, 0.0, 0.5, 1.0, 0.5, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0,
      0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 2.5, 0.5, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0,
      0.0, 0.0, 0.5, 0.5, 3.0, 1.0, 0.5, 0.0, 1.0,
      0.0, 0.0, 0.5, 2.0, 4.5, 2.5, 1.0, 1.5, 0.5,
      1.0, 2.5, 3.0, 4.5, 5.5, 3.5, 3.0, 1.0, 0.0,
      0.5, 2.0, 2.0, 2.5, 3.5, 4.0, 2.0, 0.5, 0.0,
      0.0, 0.0, 0.5, 1.5, 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 1.5, 0.0,
      0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 2.0, 1.5, 0.5,
      0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.5, 0.0, 0.0,
    ]
  }
}

Example

Elevation Grid

Summary

  • An ElevationGrid node efficiently creates a terrain
  • Grid size is specified in the xDimension and zDimension fields
  • Grid spacing is specified in the xSpacing and zSpacing field
  • Elevations at each grid point are specified in the height field

Animation, Sensors, and Geometry

Tutorials
Building Elevation grids
This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.