Hello
Can someone point me to an open source Height-map generator that is easy to use. Also, it will be great if one could point me to a tool that has GUI which shows the updated changes on the height map (Eg: Terrain height change with respect to changes in Height-map image).Currently i create Height-map using tools like GIMP by manually editing the image which i find very tedious.
Thanks.
Most likely not a direct help, but have you looked on http://vterrain.org? It has ton of resources, papers, code samples, libraries, etc. You may find what you looking for there.
Blender has a add-on, ANT landscape add-on, that allows you to make a quick landscape that you can then edit using blenders sculpting tools.
Then use Blenders texture baking tools to create a height-map.
If you are looking for a random black and white image, in Gimp under Filters -> Render ->Clouds ->Difference Clouds
http://terrain.party/ is good for realistic maps.
Taking a print screen of a map and converting it to a gray scale can also work.
from my perspective, you definately want to take this upon yourself. as a hf is only a 2d array, it's a simple concept to implement, the fine point is generating desirable terrain contours.
i'd be enthusiastic about an opportunity to exercise numerically creative abilities in shaping a hf, it's good general experience. like a meet n greet for your collection of rnd #, averaging, interpolation algs.
the one in my user img uses unsigned long ints.. seed = 196314165 * seed + 907633515;
i only ran an averaging filter over a couple of times to get the contours, which works well for the context. there are plenty of threads on perlin noise, and "musgrave's multiridged fractal" which is only inverting + contours in perlin to make ridges..
normal linear interpolation can be smoothed a bit with an 's' contour -
d * d * (3 - d - d) for [0, 1] range
there are other methods of procedural generation online, like throwing hundreds of circles or lines at the hf and slightly raising all the points on one side, repeat until "landscape". lots of things to try.
