Topography Data for Virtual Environments

Virtual landscapes are topographical environments simulated by computers. Most applications relating to virtual environments are primarily visual experiences where a user can travel through a computer generated world.

Virtual reality (VR) originally signified fully immersive systems where a user would wear specially designed equipment like stereoscopic goggles and cyber gloves. Historically it has been difficult to create convincing VR environments due to the lack of computer processing power and image resolution.

In recent years there have been significant advances in computing and this has led to non-immersive systems. A good example of this is shown in the following media clip of an animation rendered with TGD (Terragen) of Mars. Elevation data was taken from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter and used to displace the surface of a Mars-size sphere.

View larger version of media clip.

Terragen has its own adaptive subdivision renderer and can create scenes with billions of boulders or trees, import map data, create procedural landscapes, produce production quality anti-aliasing and motion blur, and a lot more. Terragen was used to render planets for Star Trek: Nemesis in 2002. The image below shows another scene created using Terragen.

Mount Rainier North Face created using Terragen.

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