Is their a way to get a Heightmap from Google Earth?

Development World Creation
1

Hey guys!

So, I was just wondering if its possible to get a height map from Google Earth? I have researched this and found results from way back in 2008 and needing to download a lot of software’s to get it to work.
And the software’s don’t even exist anymore.

UE4HMGEQuest.jpg
UE4HMGEQuest.jpg1421×851 571 KB

Here is some terrain I’m wanting to Heightmap.

So is their and easy way of doing this and is it possible?

Thanks! :slight_smile:

2

Yes, theres a way with a Sketchup. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk_sQun48X0 This will give you the exact geometry, and then you have to decide, which dirty trick to use to convert it to heightmap. I am using the Z channel, giving it min\max settings as min=0, and max= max height of geometrical terrain imported from sketchup. This will give you a nice b\w map, if youll render it with top\down camera, with FOV=0,00000001, moved up to fit the geometrical tile. Unfortunatelly, you cant just render the Z depth from Topview, because theres no actual depth in straight projections. Sorry for my English, it`s not my native language.

3

don’t know a straight way to get heightmap directly with google earth

anf for what I remember, google earth doesn’t create those data, they just use wht’s available ( Google Earth - Wikipedia )

so there are some easiest solutions:

http://terrain.party

http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view.php?id=73934

http://dwtkns.com/srtm/

1 Like
4

In short. No. Use terrain.party and microDem/3dem with worldMachine if you need real world stuff.

5

take a screenshot/snipping tool in topdown and convert it to monochromatic in photoshop then adjust levels/threshold to sharpen it.

6

I found this: https://terrain.party/

7

You can use Terrain Builder script for After Effect to get all necessary maps and mesh from Google Maps

8

This is my go to:

https://tangrams.github.io/heightmapper

4 Likes