Making a 3D Map...How Exactly?

[Hancock the Superb]

I was hoping to take a topo map of the Devil's Den section of Gettysburg, convert that into a 3D map, then take a snapshot of that map (from a certain angle), so I have a 2D representation of a 3D map.

I've been looking online, and have found no good ways of doing this. What do you guys suggest.

When I finally get the image, I plan on using little squares to represent companies and do a cool animation of the battle of Devil's Den, but I believe that a 3D map will capture the action far better than a straight down topo-map.

Thanks for your help!

[Mazikainen]

I think you can use google sketchup for that. I think there should be a plethora of programs which can convert a 2d heightmap to a 3d model at least, but you need to make a heightmap from a topomap first.

[Hancock the Superb]

I've tried sketchup, but it only works for Google Maps...

I have a map with contour lines that I would like to turn into a 3D map...could you explain what you mean?

Anyone else have suggestions?

[con20or]

Ive used plenty of proprietary GIS and RS packages like Erdas or ArcMAP to do something similar, but never a a free package...

Usually what you do is digitise the contours so you have vector polylines, aplpy their z values in an attribute table somewhere, digitise the boundaries of map itself, then just drape or create a raster from that.

Alternatively, look at http://lidar.cr.usgs.gov/ where they have loads of free LiDAr datasets, they might have one of gettysburg. This will give you a point file with among other things, x,y and z. Then you could drape an aerial photo over that....I doubt it will be of high enough resolution just to be applicable to Devils Den but you might get lucky.

BUT, like i said, I dont know what free packages do it. I always heard Googlesketchup did a good job, so youre probably on the right track with that.

[born2see]

H,

I tried to do the same same thing once and got to the point where I had a 3D rendering of the battlefield. I forget exactly what I did (sorry) but here are my bookmarks on the topic. The answer is in there (out there?).

There are others who can tell you exactly what to do and hopefully they'll jump in. If not here ya' go:

http://www.photoshoproadmap.com/Photosh ... photoshop/
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/OziU ... sage/15221
http://www.cartographersguild.com/showt ... hical-Maps
http://hme.sourceforge.net/
http://techcenter.jefferson.kctcs.edu/G ... fault.aspx
http://www.globalmapper.com/helpv12/Help_Main.html
http://store.usgs.gov/b2c_usgs/b2c/star ... prd%29/.do
http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/ ... &scoring=d
http://www.emrl.byu.edu/gsda/data_dem_obtain.html
http://groups.google.com/group/SketchUp ... 1796c4a760
http://www.webgis.com/terr_pages/PA/dem75/adams.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_L ... %80%93_USA
http://www.nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/history/CivilWar/

B

[Hancock the Superb]

Thanks for the information guys!

I hope to read over it all on the weekend and start figuring this thing out.

[Mazikainen]

You'd THINK there's a program out there that can automate a transformation from a contour map to a proper heightmap you can use to make a 3D model, I think it's quite feasible as long as the contour lines are intact and you specify the scale of ascent..

[con20or]

not exactly related - but seeing as how we're on the topic

http://www.profsurv.com/magazine/articl ... =71028&p=1