Celestia Forums

Venus, Mars, and Earth 3D models with exaggerated land heights are completed for the .stl file format. I am planning a possible contribution of 3D models of these three planets for Celestia someday, if they are needed. It is possible that this would duplicate models that already exist. Before I spend effort on the file generation, please advise me about the possible existence of a Venus 3D model with mountain heights exaggerated 100 times taller than normal.

You can see the models on my website. The Earth mountains are 250 times taller than normal. The Mars mountains are 20 times taller than they really are relative to the scale of the digital globe.

Maybe these would fit in a fantasy universe where more substantial terrain slopes would be desireable. Your comments would enlighten me of the state of the planetary data selection that is available without my contribution.

Please note: nothing to sell here...
from there
http://www.reliefglobe.com/

I must admit, though, this "bi-sexual deep sea animal" for $599 is quite a treat



Bye Fridger

Hey, this site seems to be serious!
but a little bit expensive

Very neat stuff. If he wants to "donate" the meshes to open source software that would be cool, but I wont hold my breath... However, if you did Globemaster, they would have to be in 3ds format. Or convertable to it...

The donated models would be in the 3ds format. I am studying the documentation to find out if the other files and directories need to be populated. No help is needed, I am reading up on this Celestia establishment. I cruised your nice universe today for the first time. Coolness.

I may donate Earth with 500 times exaggerated mountains, so I do not lose out on the commercial values of models with less exaggeration. One half million data points for Earth is about 50 megabytes in stl format, but I am searching for a program to convert my .stl files into .3ds .

Is it possible to do an Earth with no exaggeration? I have spent time searching for one to no avail. There are ways to simulate 3d surfaces with Celestia (bumpmaps and normalmaps), but they still lack that oompf. I wonder how taxing it would be on the system. My largest models are nowhere near the size that you are talking about...

Yes, planets can be modeled with no exaggeration. I have done that in the past for areas 6 miles across. Yosemite Valley was done with no exaggeration. But when a planet of modeled, the use of no exaggeration produces a sphere with minor bumps. Each data point is 20 miles away from the nearest other data point, so the slopes are boring.

I have already simulated Earth with no exaggeration of land heights. The Andes Mountain Range was barely visible on the smooth metalic sphere of the globe. A 50 megabyte Earth file with 1x mountain exaggeration is not recommended. I can send you a picture.

Imagine the following : Inverted Seafloor Globe.
The deepest parts of the ocean become the tallest peaks.
Go inside the Earth. Interior surfaces can follow the exterior or they can be encrusted with large faceted gems that reflect well.

Fantasy planets have been made with arches and caverns woven from mathematically designed triangles. You can have it all.

I am just wondering what something like this would do to our FPS-rates?
Especially on lower end machines. And how things like this would operate with the textures that are already out, especially the high-res ones?

Regards,

Guckytos

Guckytos,

Models in Celestia are limited to using textures that your graphics card can accept, usually 1K, 2K or 4K on a side. Celestia does not cut those textures into smaller pieces as it does for its internally defined spheres.

GlobeMaker,

Once you find a 3ds convertor, you could consider converting the models into binary CMOD format, which would pretty much limit their use to Celestia.

Hello Seldon,
I found the converter from stl to 3ds, and now I will search for a converter from 3ds to CMOD. I will be experimenting with models of planets in two sizes : 6 megabytes and 50 megabytes to explore the "frames per second" issue. The 50 megabyte Earth simulation has the seafloor inverted, so the deepest trenches arenow the tallest peaks. There is 300x exaggeration of land heights. Continents are smoothed off at zero elevation.

100 megabyte and 25 megabyte Venus models will have low clouds and clear skies above taller continents. 150x exaggeration.

The 6 megabyte Earth has sealevel increased 360 meters, flooding many lands.

The 100 megabyte and 25 megabyte Mars simulations will use 97x exaggeration and minor flooding will smooth out many lowlands.

These globe simulations have attributes that make them less valuable to my business than globes that I am turning into plastic.

I will experiment with the models in Celestia before releasing them. If anyone wants to volunteer to test a planet, please let me know, and I will post the file on my ftp website, in encrypted form. A volunteer would be given the AES key by email.

CMOD Tools: 3dstocmod, cmodfix
(require Celestia v1.3.2 or later)

* Windows binaries: 3DS to CMOD, CMODfix
http://www.spacesim.net/tools/cmodtools-win32-1.0.0.zip
* Documentation
http://www.celestiaproject.net/~claurel/celest ... readme.txt
* Sourcecode:
http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/c ... ools/cmod/

I think they may be included in the MacOS v1.4.0 prerelease distributions.

[edit]CMOD format runs about 1.5x as fast as 3DS, since it's optimized for use with OpenGL. I suspect the 100MB models won't work on systems with cards that have less than 128MB of memory [/edit]

GlobeMaker wrote:Hello Seldon,

I will experiment with the models in Celestia before releasing them. If anyone wants to volunteer to test a planet, please let me know, and I will post the file on my ftp website, in encrypted form. A volunteer would be given the AES key by email.

I would be happy to. I have accessability to windows platform with nvidia and ati. Check your private messages for my contact info. Obviously my job will get in the way (heh) at times so you might have to give me a day to check things out.

I must admit, though, this "bi-sexual deep sea animal" for $599 is quite a treat

hehe, that's the perfect description of that ugly blob. I can't imagine anyone seeing that thing in a shop window and saying "Oh gosh! Only 599$! I've got to get me one of those. It will match my shoes."

So I've played with these a bit and I am stumped. The solid 3ds is in 3 parts. I tried to join the pieces, which worked. However, I think what I have now is a hollow sphere, so the texture doesn't wrap correctly. I only have anim8or and I am not spending $$$ for 3ds. Bummer.

If the initial model somehow could be derived directly from a sphere, that might work, since usually a simple cylindrical projection is the default in that case.

Alternatively, perhaps a utility like UVMapper could be used.

selden wrote:If the initial model somehow could be derived directly from a sphere, that might work, since usually a simple cylindrical projection is the default in that case.

Alternatively, perhaps a utility like UVMapper could be used.

I did get a UV map to stick once, but everything was out of whack. I just have to do some research on the whole thing I guess. Maybe this weekend...

The problem with putting textures on the 3D exaggerated relief Earth models is probably due to the "unshared edges" at the South Pole. All of my Earth models have this error, but that never caused a problem until textures were added. I will debug the GlobeMaker Software soon and provide perfected 3D models. Please accept my sincere apologies for posting the oval2.cmod and bonsai_earth_200x.3ds files with the "unshared edges" at the South Pole. This caused gaps to appear within 2 degrees of the South Pole, so that the model was not topologically similar to a closed sphere. It may take 2 days to debug this error. Once again, I humbly request your forgivenness for this failing on my part. If you never trust me again, I will understand, quietly disappearing into the obscurity that I have become accustomed to.

While you are waiting for my perfected 3D planetary models, you can have a preview of a second orbiting hotel with an artistic, Cubist style :


More cubist raised-relief globes are at : http://www.reliefglobe.com/artistic.html

Apologies aren't necessary. This project may be one man's initial idea (thankfully open source idea). However, if it weren't for the diligence of hundreds of individuals making and correcting their additions to the project, it would not be where it is today. Take all the time you need, we are a patient bunch. Plus, for some reason, we all have to hold down jobs too, and they always get in the way.

I did a quick scan of this thread and it brings up a question. (i may have over looked some parts)
Did anyone ever use this planet generator perl script from Blender?
It seems to produce the same results as this thread shows.
Thru Math equations it can do a real planet too. Or a large section of one.

I started to use it then my time got devoted to other things.

cartrite

Hi Cartrite,

I do not know anything about Blender . When I looked at http://www.blender.nl it was not on-line. The program I wrote with Perl makes 3D engineering plans for plastic globes using the .stl format for stereolithography. It is a goal of mine to donate 3D models to virtual universe establishments, like Celestia. The .stl files are easy to convert to .3ds and .cmod file formats. I will give freely to Celestia to fullfill my goal, which I call "The Infinite Zoom". Someday we should be able to zoom from any quark up to the universe using the Celestia firmament.

Please provide a link to Blender.