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| The problem of creating an elevation grid to accurately
map the terrain of IUP's South Campus has presented our team with of the
larger problems of our project. To create a terrain that was even
moderately detailed by hand was a a near impossible task, simply because
of the massive amount of data entry that was required. Luckily, we've managed
to find other options.
The United States Geological Survey departmen has already created extremely accurate contour maps of almost all of the US. These maps have, in many cases, been translated into digital elevation models (DEM's). Our problem, then, was finding a means to translate these DEM's into a VRML elevation grid. After making contact with Ron Wilson, from IUP's spatial sciences department, we learned that many cartography program's would translate DEM's, but only into a format useable for that specific program. Since that point, we've been scouring the web for a means of translating one of these arography packages into VRML. We are continuing to explore those options. Of what we've found so far, a number of options look extremely promising. A program called PAVEN is known to translate to VRML, and we are waiting to recieve more information from its developer. Ron Wilson has also managed to convert the DEM information into a generic graphics format. This information may allow us to create a 7.5 minute grid--hopefully more than detailed enough for our work. Our options in this case include translating the generic file into a CAD file, and then saving the CAD as VRML. This file can also be saved as text only, which can give us the y coordinates that we need. To use this information, however, would require a program which would extract these coordinates, and put them in the proper format. We are continuing to work on this problem, and expect a viable elevation grid soon. |