DEMs and Georeferenced Imagery
LIME supports digital elevation models or other surface grid data in standard formats:
- Georeferenced image files (*.tif, *.png)
- Erdas Imagine (*.img)
- ESRI ASCII/binary grids (*.asc, *.adf)
- USGS DEM (*.dem)
- ZMap+ grid (*.asc, *.dat, *.zgf)
DEMs represent real-world surface topography as raster grids of height values. They are commonly found in GIS projects and are made available by national mapping agencies around the world. With today's satellite sensors, there is complete coverage of the earth's surface, though available resolution may depend on country, data source and access restrictions.
In LIME, DEMs are a good way to visualise the surroundings of your virtual 3D models – as well as being a source of important information in their own right!
Loading a DEM (or multiple DEM files) is straightforward. Drag and drop to get a low-resolution preview of the terrain, then crop the DEM to your area of interest and select a suitable sampling resolution to load.
Once the DEM has been imported into LIME it shows up just like any other model, allowing us to take advantage of the in-built display settings to create stunning terrain visualisations. Here's a small gallery for inspiration.
Surface Grids
General surfaces and horizons can also be loaded. Here we are looking at data from Mills et al. (2003) – flat shading, a colourful ramp and full grid opacity gives a "classic" simulation image.
