[Editor's note: Bart-Jan Dekker reminds me I've been negligent on mentioning Bernhard Jenny's latest project (and congrats to Bernie and Helen for their second child!). Bernie's previous work includes Flexprojector and Screepainter. The new update released 24 November fixes launching on some Windows OS machines that was semi-common.]
Republished from Terrain Cartography.
Terrain Bender applies progressive bending to digital terrain models for 3D cartography. It offers interactive tools to add a bent base to a digital terrain model.
Terrain Bender is free and open-source software. Version 1.0.4 of 24 November 2009 is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Please see the system requirements, and download an example terrain model.
Terrain Bender offers specialized tools for bending terrain models.
- progressive bending
- curved horizon bending
- vertical exaggeration adjustable in foreground and background
- preview with perspective camera, parallel camera, and 360° cylindrical panoramas
- illumination settings
- hypsometric tinting, haze simulation, and texturing
- import and export of terrain models in ESRI ASCII grid file format
Terrain Bender features interactive previews of 3D maps, but final rendering is best done with ray-tracing software.
Tags: 3d, bernhard jenny, bernie, dem, dtm, ith zurich, perspective, shaded relief, terrain bender, vertical exageration