GC Importer Terrain Filter

The GC Importer is available from the list of Filters in the Terrain Editor.

1. Use the Open button to select an elevation map to import.
2. On Import, Set Elevations will read the elevation data from files that provide it and use that for its elevation settings.
3. Some sources of USGS DEMs do not correctly set the min and max elevations in the A record. If after importing, the elevations are out of the expected range, check the Calculate USGS DEM elevation option and reimport.
4. Bottom and Top Elevations set the elevation ranges for the terrain.
5. Filtering controls how the elevation samples are taken when the Resolution isn't 100% and Ground Control is importing as a Mesh or Terrain. Point Sampling will just go to the closest point, Bilinear Filtering will create a calculate the value between the points creating a better, more accurate mesh at the cost of some speed.
6. Name displays the name of the terrain for those file formats that include that type of information.
7. Native Resolution shows the number of points in that elevation's data set.

GC Shader Terrain Filter

The GC Shader is available from the list of Filters in the Terrain Editor.

1. The Displacement popup selects a shader to provide the value to drive the Operator.
2. Constrain Effect for Average Operator uses the selected shader to control what areas apply the operator. Black is no effect, white is full effect.
3. Use Existing Height will set the Height field to the existing height of the terrain.
4. Operator controls what the Displacement shader does:
   
   Add - Adds the shader value * the Height to the terrain
   Average - Averages the shader value * the Height with the terrain
   Filter - Replaces the terrain with the Height * the shader value as the shader gets closer to white
   Max - Uses the shader value * the Height or the existing terrain whichever is larger
   Min - Uses the shader value * the Height or the existing terrain whichever is smaller
   Multiply - Multiplies the terrain by the shader value
   Replace - Replaces the existing terrain with the shader value * the Height
   Smooth - Smooths areas where the shader is white
   Subtract - Subtracts the shader value * the Height from the terrain
5. Passes for Smooth and Average control how many times that operator is applied.
6. Refresh Master Shader Lists will refresh the Displacement and Constrain popups.

Ground Control Importer

Use File|Open or File|Import and select a file with a DEM file extension to activate the Ground Control importer.

1. Import As select what kind of object is created in Carrara to display the DEM. You can import DEMs as a Mesh, Anything Grooves, or Ground Control primitive. The various strengths and weaknesses of each type are outlined below in the Tips and Tricks section.
2. Look for sequenced files will scan the selected file's folder for other elevation maps that match its name with numbers. The files will be loaded in sequenced order and can be animated by a Ground Control primitive.
3. Grayscale controls how the elevation data is translated into a format that Carrara can understand. If set on Simple, Ground Control will create a straight grayscale conversion of the elevation data for the texture and height information for Anything Grooves and Terrain objects. If Smart Weight is selected, Ground Control will use it's knowledge of Carrara's internals to weigh different colors in the texture and height information to generate many more levels than the 255 available for a simple grayscale. Mesh and Ground Control primitives are more accurate to begin with so do not benefit from Smart Weight.
4. Resolution controls resolution of the imported object as a percentage of the resolution of the original DEM file. For Anything Grooves, Terrains, and Ground Control primitives, no information is thrown away so the resolution can be adjusted later. For a Mesh, the resolution cannot be adjusted later.
5. Adaptive Mesh will build a mesh that uses more facets where more detail is required. The Use Max Error option will stop subdividing when no surfaces exceed the error limit.
6. X, Y, and Z sets the size of the imported object.
7. Filtering controls how the elevation samples are taken when the Resolution isn't 100% and Ground Control is importing as a Mesh or Terrain. Point Sampling will just go to the closest point, Bilinear Filtering will create a calculate the value between the points creating a better, more accurate mesh at the cost of some speed.
8. Auto Adjust Proportions will adjust the X or Y so that imported object matches the proportions of the elevation map.
9. Shading will control what kind of shader will be created for the imported object.
10. Some sources of USGS DEMs do not correctly set the min and max elevations in the A record. If after importing, the elevations are out of the expected range, check the Calculate USGS DEM elevation option and reimport.

Ground Control Primitive

1. Resolution controls the rendered resolution as a percentage of the original DEM's resolution.
2. Adaptive Mesh will build a mesh that uses more facets where more detail is required. The Use Max Error option will stop subdividing when no surfaces exceed the error limit.
3. Preview Size controls the resolution of the Ground Control primitive in the 3D View.
4. X, Y, and Z sets the size of the imported object.
5. Filtering controls how the elevation samples are taken when the Resolution isn't 100% and Ground Control is importing as a Mesh or Terrain. Point Sampling will just go to the closest point, Bilinear Filtering will create a calculate the value between the points creating a better, more accurate mesh at the cost of some speed.
6. Name displays the name of the terrain for those file formats that include that type of information.
7. Native Resolution shows the number of points in that elevation's data set.
8. Animate and Interpolate Frames are used to control sequenced elevation maps.

Ground Control SRTM Shapefile

The Shapefile shader imports the Shapefiles of water data for the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. It is not a generic shapefile importer.  Use this shader as a Distribution shader for a terrain where you have imported a SRTM HGT file. See the tutorial in the Tutorials section linked at the top of this page for more details

1. Use the Open button to select the shapefile.
2. Invert is used if the Shapefile shader misses it's guess about which areas are water.
3. Some sources of Shapefiles will not crop the file to the matching terrain. The Longitude and Latitude sliders can be used to crop the Shapefile.

Ground Control Water

Ground Control Water is a shader that uses an edge detection algorithm to find relatively low (compared to the surrounding areas) spots in UV based shaders. It can be helpful for mixing between earth and water shaders.

1. Quality controls the number of samples used to calculate if the current point is high or low.
2. Distance controls how far away the samples are taken from the current point and can be adjusted to control the size of the features that Ground Control Water recognizes.
3. Threshold controls how much of change is required to go from white to black.
4. Height makes anything under it's level black.

Ground Control Primitive shader

The Ground Control Primitive shader will read elevation data directly from the Ground Control Primitive so a seperate texture is no longer needed.

How do I...

Install Ground Control?

Extract and copy the files to the extensions or plugins directory.

For Carrara 8.0

On the PC, it is the Carrara8\Extensions directory. If you installed Carrara to the default location, this is C:\Program Files\DAZ 3D\Carrara8\Extensions or C:\Program Files (x86)\DAZ 3D\Carrara8\Extensions.

On the Mac, OS X.

1. Open the Carrara 8 folder.
2. Ctrl-click on the Carrara application and select Show Package Contents.
3. In the newly opened Finder window, navigate to Contents\MacOS\Extensions.
4. Extract the contents of the ZIP and copy them there.

For Carrara 7.2

On the PC, it is the Carrara 7 Pro\Extensions directory. If you installed Carrara to the default location, this is C:\Program Files\DAZ\Carrara 7 Pro\Extensions.

On the Mac, OS X.

1. Open the Carrara 7 folder.
2. Ctrl-click on the Carrara application and select Show Package Contents.
3. In the newly opened Finder window, navigate to Contents\MacOS\Extensions.
4. Extract the contents of the ZIP and copy them there.

For Carrara 6.2.1

On the PC, it is the Carrara 6 Pro\Extensions directory. If you installed Carrara to the default location, this is C:\Program Files\DAZ\Carrara 6 Pro\Extensions.

On the Mac, OS X.

1. Open the Carrara 6 folder.
2. Ctrl-click on the Carrara application and select Show Package Contents.
3. In the newly opened Finder window, navigate to Contents\MacOS\Extensions.
4. Extract the contents of the ZIP and copy them there.

Enter my serial number?

After purchasing Ground Control you will be emailed a serial number. If you open a scene with Ground Control or use Ground Control in a scene, the Enter Serial Number window will display. Enter your serial number in the field provided and click OK to continue.

Get starting using Ground Control?

1. Select File|Open.
2. Using the file open dialog, select a DEM file.
3. When the Ground Control dialog comes up click OK.

Get started using the Ground Control Terrain Filter

1. Select File|New.
2. Select Insert|Terrain.
3. Click the Add button to add a new filter layer.
4. Select the Null Generator filter layer, and using the Filter popup, select Ground Control|GC Importer.
5. Click the Open button the GC Importer UI to select an elevation map.

Tips and Tricks

1. Ground Control can import four different ways; Anything Grooves, a Mesh, a Terrain, or a Ground Control primitive. Each of the four types has it's own set of advantages which are listed below.
   

   Import type	Accuracy	Exportable	Sequence files	Render Speed	Memory Usage	File Size	UI Responsiveness
   Anything Grooves	Good	Good	No	Good	Bad	Good	Good
   Mesh	Best	Best	No	Good	Good	Bad	Bad
   Terrain Filter	Best	Bad	No	Best	Best	Good	Best
   Ground Control Primitive	Best	Good	Yes	Good	Good	Good	Good

    

2. The best place to get great DEM files is the U.S. Geological Survey. Select the 1:250K DEM link.
3. The best place to get great Shuttle Radar Topography Mission HGT files is here. 

Evaluation Mode

Ground Control supports an evaluation mode which allows you to try out Ground Control before purchasing it. When the Ground Control Enter Serial Number window is displayed, just click Cancel to go into evaluation mode. During evaluation mode, Ground Control sets the elevation to zero in blocks.

Release Notes

August 29, 2010

1. Fixed a problem with bounding box on import.
2. Fixed a problem where the terrain distribution version of Ground Control SRTM Shapefile would show in the normal shader list.
3. Added support for text format PGM files.
4. Improved preview resolution support.
5. Fixed a problem with native resolution display on import.
6. Fixed a problem on Mac side where the object name would include the full path.
7. Added support for sequenced elevation maps.
8. Added support for adaptive mesh subdivision.
9. Removed low memory mode.
10. Dropped support for Carrara 5.
11. Added Ground Control Primitive shader that talks directly to the primitive to get elevation data. Changed import defaults to use the Ground Control Primitive shader instead of a texture.
12. Added support for changing the cropping of shapefiles in the Ground Control SRTM Shapefile shader.
13. Removed the transform tab from the Ground Control Water shader.

July 25, 2010

1. Fixed a problem under Carrara 8 where a scene with a Ground Control primitive could not be reloaded once saved.
2. Fixed a problem where binary format files could not be imported on 64bit Carrara 8.
3. Fixed a handful of UI problems on the import dialog for Ground Control primitives.

June 08, 2010

1. Changed where serial numbers are saved to a more modern OS friendly location. This fixes a problem with saving serial numbers on the 64-bit Windows Carrara when UAC is turned on.

Pricing

$29.95 US dollars for a single user license. The single user license includes the right to use the product with up to 5 render nodes using Carrara 5.0 Pro or better. Pricing is also available for a render node site license for use with Grid.

Ordering

Place your order online here using our secure server. Use the same link for PayPal, credit cards by fax or phone, purchase orders, and checks.