[Plugin] Bitmap To Mesh

Rich O Brien

I like that idea

Kind of Footprint or Ink Stamp tool, lots of uses for it too!

thomthom

@dave r said:

I was just thinking that setting some limit so that everything is either black or white and not shades of gray would get rid of the spikes.

The spikes you see if much due to the extreme height of the mesh, and part due to the current triangulation. I'm not sure if making the contrast bigger will reduce then - in either case, Ruby isn't efficient for image manipulation - you'd be just as well off just preparing the image before in an proper image editor.

@dave r said:

Would it be possible to work things so that a face is created only if the value is less than some set point (250,250,250?) and the face is always at Z=0? Delete coplanar edges between faces and you'd have a raster to SKP converter.

It'd be an interesting new tool, but I still think it's best if the image is prepared by the user in an editor and made into complete Black and White (not grey scale).

Then the tool could read all the white or black and generate a mesh - where it could then afterwards trace the outline and remove the interior lines. After running an curve simplification, like the Douglas-Peucker algorithm, and you could end up with a decent vectorized shape from your raster mask.

This would have been so much better if I could read the alpha channel of PNG files. I was a looking at this some time ago, but existing too many third party libraries for my comfort which makes redistribution more complex. The alternative, making a pure standalone ruby PNG interpreter wasn't so easy either, the decompression algorithm wasn't the easiest.

Dave R

Well, it's all voodoo to me so I am glad we have folks like you.

thomthom

Version 0.2.0b

Made into a tool so the user can easily position the mesh
Moved menu to Draw > Mesh From Bitmap
Keeps aspect ratio of image or Image element
Right click and Image element to generate a mesh. (Does not need to be BMP image - but Draw > Mesh From Bitmap still require BMP imput)
Colour BMP images will convert the RGB value to optical greyscale.
VCB support

thomthom

Test using sample maps from: http://www.mtgrafix.com/programs/terrain.html

Also tried this: http://www.twisteddirt.com/TutorialStuff/dem_02.php Nice terrain shape - but the diffuse texture wasn't so good.

dedmin

thomthom

308px × 1 047px - that would make the mesh ~500-600K faces?

And the issue with that bitmap is that despite it being a greyscale, it's still not a height map - which is why the mesh doesn't come out looking as what the image illustrate.

dedmin

Yes, true. I just wanted to test it - the file is 105 MB

thomthom

Yea - the last texture I tested was 512x512 - heavy mesh. And I'd forgotten that Autosave was on - every 5 mins. x_X

dedmin

dedmin

shura

Why don't I get the Curve Simplification to work?

thomthom

hm... possibly you have a version where it failed on closed loops. I might not have uploaded a corrected version...

david_h

So I notice these wonderful meshes created. How is one controlling the height of the extrusion?

pichuneke

The pieces on the roof (above the pediment) are made with your plugin

Reconstrucción del Templo de Artemis Agrotera 4 by Egocentrico, on Flickr

Click here to see it in bigger size (1024 px):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/28798115@N00/5053994977/sizes/l/in/photostream/

Ghalko

So I read the posts and then thought nothing of trying a 2048x2048 heightmap produced by L3DT (terrain generating program.) Maybe I should try a bit smaller at first. Then I won't just freeze sketchup and make my patience run out...

I will try with a smaller (much smaller) one first and post the results.

Bryan

solo

@unknownuser said:

So I notice these wonderful meshes created. How is one controlling the height of the extrusion?

Color, the darker the black and brighter the white will produce the greatest crests and troughs.

Ghalko

After letting a 384x384 (meters) heightmap simmer:
Yey!

david_h

@solo said:

Color, the darker the black and brighter the white will produce the greatest crests and troughs.

I get that easy enough. its all based on contrast. . .so One must go into PhoShop and manipulate and lessen those contrasts before putting it into the plugin? Because when I down loaded the scrolly motif lintel thing, I got all kinds of mess. I just couldn't get my model to look like others were doing. . .

I'll keep playing with it.

jeff hammond

David,
Use the scale tool to compress it vertically.