Converting RL topographical data in sim terrain

Is there an automated method for conversion of togographical and perhaps associated texture data into the form used to determine a sim's terrain, a RAW file? Perhaps only one or two layers of the raw file.

Has anyone use such a method to reproduce RL terrain contours in SL?

On a related issue. I'm seeking topographical data of Pamela Anderson's nether regions. I'd like model my garden on Pamela and plant my seeds there.

In theory, it should be easy. Scale 0 to 0, and your highest altitude to 255, and make it a 256x256 grid.

This goes in channel 1 of a .raw file.

Off hand, I don't know any tools to do this, but for someone who knows the formats of the input and output already, it should be easy to make.

What format is your topographical data in?

The texture data would be much trickier, and only roughly approximate. SL terrain texture is almost solely based on altitude.

You could probably use program like Microdem (free, at http://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/microdem.htm) to generate suitable heightmap ... but since SL sim has just 256 m width/height, doing it to scale you won't see much of terrain variety in most cases.

My first thought is similar to Joannah's...
RL land is much vaster horizontally than vertically...it wont' look the same in SL.

Taking RL topography and translating it to SL is not immediately straightforward. Unless you're talking about importing just the OUTLINE of a land mass, there's an extra step needed. Perceptually, the vertical scale in SL is out of proportion to the Horizontal.
Much like a 'relief' globe or map has RL physical features exxagerated to make them stand out.

Offhand, I don't know of any easy to use software that would do all of that--but its certainly possible. But, since Layer 2 works geometrically on Layer 1 values, I think you can do it this way: Import your terrain files from RL into RAW Layer 1, then play with Layer 2, to slowly increase the effect of Vertical, until it 'feels' right in SL

You fail @ life.

In the moments I was able to pry myself out of SL, I occupied my time learning how to do things for SL. This topo question has my attention with the numbers of folks buying regions nowadays., including myself....SO...

Yes you can convert USGS topo data to SL it is easier than I thought ( but time consuming)and yes you need to distort it vertically in order to make it "feel" right. It took me about 18 hours to do a single 65k area at first and now have a method to do it in about 9.

A benefit of this is that you can stretch or condense an area using the same tools as you do for the vertical. i.e. Take a 4sq mile RL area and make it "fit" on 65k meters or vice versa, not sure how useful that is unless your studying geology but... you can do it.

Since I believe there is a market for this kind of service , Im being intentiionally vague on what Im using to do it. If I can get to the 3-4 hour/per range Ill offer it as a service.

Stay tuned

The raw heightmap could be snagged using Terragen 0.8 or better, I figure (Terragen is free, too!)

You can find Vista/VistaPRO .DEM files in some places. There was even a place that dynamically generated DEMs based on an area of the world you could define.

Import the DEMs into terragen and then use it to output a BMP of the 1024x1024 heightmap

Then import the BMP into Photoshop and play with it. I dunno how to do this step, as I don't technically have photoshop. ^_^