Description

This project allows users to read in DEM height maps from png files. The user can then
walk around the generated height map on foot in the simulation, or fly to view the map
from a different persepctive. There are also little moon spheres with random locations around the map 10 units off the ground.

Gallery

HeightMap Images

Here are 3 example heightmaps, in the next section you'll see these rendered in 3D

HeightMaps InEngine

Here are those 3 heightmaps from these 3 perspectives:

Walking Mode
Flying Mode
Wire Mesh

Renders of Map 1

Renders of Map 2

Renders of Map 3

Technologies Used

Generating a grid of vertices with normals and textures based on a png file.
Camera height placement based on current location heightmap.
Blinn-Phong Lighting with a Point Light.
Textures
Skybox

Controls

WASD to move the Camera
Mouse Movement to control Camera Orientation
Press Z to look at the Wire Mesh
Press F to switch between modes: Walk and Fly

Resources

This project was more about understanding the graphics pipeline and making somthing from scratch than working off of OpenGL libraries.
If you're thinking about doing something similar, most of the code is based on concepts learned from other assessments namely:
Lab 3, Project 3 and 4, and a few of the Texture lecture activities.
For coming up with texture coordinates I used this

DEM Heightmap Renderer

by Ryan Premi

CPE 471 - Fall 2020