Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Procedural modelling of terrains with constraints

  • Published:
Multimedia Tools and Applications Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Terrain is an essential part of any outdoor environment and, consequently, many techniques have appeared that deal with the problem of its automatic generation, such as procedural modeling. One form to create terrains is using noise functions because its low computational cost and its random result. However, the randomness of these functions also makes it difficult to have any control over the result obtained. In order to solve the problem of lack of control, this paper presents a new method noise-based that allows procedural terrains creation with elevation constraints (GPS routes, points of interest and areas of interest). For this, the method establishes the restrictions as fixed values in the heightmap function and creates a system of equations to obtain all points that they depend this restrictions. In this way, the terrain obtained maintains the random noise, but including the desired restrictions. The paper also includes how we apply this method on large terrain models without losing resolution or increasing the computational cost excessively. The results show that our method makes it possible to integrate this kind of constraints with high accuracy and realism while preserving the natural appearance of the procedural generation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Belhadj F (2007) Terrain modeling: a constrained fractal model. In: AFRIGRAPH ’07: proceedings of the 5 conference on computer graphics, virtual reality, visualisation and interaction in Africa, pp 197–204

  2. Bernhardt A, Máximo A, Velho L, Hnaidi H, Cani MP (2011) Real-time terrain modeling using cpu-gpu coupled computation. In: SIBGRAPI ’11: proceedings of the 24th conference on graphics, patterns and images, pp 64–71

  3. Bradbury GA, Amati C, Mitchell K, Weyrich T (2014) Frequency-based creation and editing of virtual terrain. In: Proceedings of the 11th european conference on visual media production, London, UK. ACM, New York, pp 13–14

  4. Bruneton E, Neyret F (2008) Real-time rendering and editing of vector-based terrains. In: Computer graphics forum, special issue: Eurographics ’08, vol 27. Wiley, pp 311–320

  5. Bundy Soft. Available online: http://www.bundysoft.com/L3DT/. [Accessed on 30 may 2018]

  6. Cordonnier G, Galin E, Gain J, Benes B, Guerin E, Peytavie A, Cani MP (2017) Authoring landscapes by combining ecosystem and terrain erosion simulation. ACM Trans Graph 36(4):12

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. De Carpentier GJ, Bidarra R (2009) Interactive gpu based procedural heightfield brushes. In: FDG ’09: proceedings th international conference on the foundations of digital of the 4 games

  8. Doran J, Parberry I (2010) Controlled procedural terrain generation using software agents. IEEE Trans Comput Intell AI Games 2(2):111–119

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. E-on Software. Available online: https://info.e-onsoftware.com/more-info-vue. [Accessed on 18 June 2018]

  10. Emilien A, Bernhardt A, Peytavie A, Cani MP, Galin E (2012) Procedural generation of villages on arbitrary terrains. Vis Comput 28(6–8):809–818

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Fournier A, Fussell D, Carpenter L (1982) Computer rendering of stochastic models. Commun ACM 25(6):371–384

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Gain J, Marais P, Strasser W (2009) Terrain sketching. In: I3D ’09: proceedings of the symposium on interactive 3d graphics and games, pp 31–38

  13. Gain J, Merry B, Parallel MP (2015) Realistic and controllable terrain synthesis. Comp Graph Forum 34(2):105–116

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Gasch C, Chover M, Remolar I, Rebollo C (2016) Procedural modeling of terrain from GPS routes XXVI spanish computer graphics conference

  15. Génevaux J, Galin E, Guérin E, Peytavie A, Benes B (2013) Terrain generation using procedural models based on hydrology. ACM Trans Graph 32(4):13. Proceedings of SIGGRAPH

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  16. Génevaux J, Galin E, Peytavie A, Guérin E, Briquet C, Grosbellet F, Benes B (2015) Terrain modelling from feature primitives. Comput Graph Forum 34(6):198–210

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Guérin E, Digne J, Galin E, Peytavie A (2016) Sparse representation of terrains for procedural modeling. Comput Graph Forum 35(2):177–187

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Hnaidi H, Guérin E, Akkouche S, Peytavie A, Galin E (2010) Feature based terrain generation using diffusion equation. In: Computer graphics forum: proceedings of pacific graphics, vol 29, pp 2179–2186

  19. Hou F, Qin H, Qi Y (2016) Procedure-based component and architecture modeling from a single image. Vis Comput 32(2):151–166

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Kamal KR, Uddin YS (2007) Parametrically controlled terrain generation. In: GRAPHITE ’07: proceedings of the 5 international conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques in Australia and Southeast Asia, pp 17–23

  21. Kelley A, Malin M, Nielson G (1988) Terrain simulation using a model of stream erosion. In: Proceedings of the 15th annual conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques, pp 263–268

  22. Kristof P, Benes B, Kivanek J, Stava O (2009) Hydraulic erosion using smoothed particle hydrodynamics. Comput Graph Forum 28(2):219–228

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Li W, Han D, Li H, Wang X, Zhu J (2018) Extraction of digital terrain model based on regular mesh generation in mountainous areas. Multimed Tools Appl 77:6267–6286

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Mandelbrot BB (1983) The fractal geometry of nature. W.H. Freeman, New York

    Book  Google Scholar 

  25. Mei X, Decaudin P, Hu BG (2007) Visualization on GPU fast hydraulic erosion simulation pacific graphics. IEEE Comput Soc :47–56

  26. Miller GSP (1986) The definition and rendering of terrain maps. SIGGRAPH ’86: proceedings of the 13th annual conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques 20(4):39–48

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Musgrave FK, Kolb CE, Mace RS (1989) The synthesis and rendering of eroded fractal terrains. In: SIGGRAPH ’89: proceedings of the 16th annual conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques, vol 19, pp 41–50

  28. Nagashima K (1997) Computer generation of eroded valley and mountains terrains. Vis Comput 13:456–464

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  29. Neidhold B, Wacker M, Deussen O (2005) Interactive physically based fluid and erosion simulation, vol 1

  30. Pajarola R, Gobbetti E (2007) Survey of semi-regular multiresolution models for interactive terrain rendering. Vis Comput 23(8):583–605

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Parberry I (2014) Designer worlds: procedural generation of infinite terrain from Real-World elevation data. J Comput Graph Tech (JCGT) 3(1):74–85

    Google Scholar 

  32. Perlin K (1985) An image synthesizer. In: SIGGRAPH’85: proceedings of the 12th annual conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques, vol 19, pp 287–296

  33. Peytavie A, Galin E, Grosjean J, Merillou S (2009) Arches: a framework for modeling complex terrains, vol 28, pp 457–467

  34. Planetside Software. Available online: https://planetside.co.uk/. [Accessed on 28 June 2018]

  35. Puig-Centelles A, Varley PAC, Ripollés O, Chover M (2009) Automatic terrain generation with a sketching interface. In: Proceedings of the 17th international conference in Central Europe on computer graphics visualization and computer vision (WSCG ’09)

  36. Puig-Centelles A, Ripollés O, Chover M (2009) Creation and control of rain in virtual environments. Vis Comput 25(11):1037–1052

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Puig-Centelles A, Varley PAC, Ripollés O, Chover M (2014) Automatic terrain generation with a sketching tool. Multimed Tools Appl 70:1957–1986

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Prusinkiewicz P, Hammel M (1993) A fractal model of mountains with rivers. In: Proceedings of graphics interface’93, pp 174–180

  39. Ramos F, Chover M, Ripollés O, Granell C (2006) Continuous level of detail on graphics hardware. In: Proceedings of the 13th international conference on discrete geometry for computer imagery , pp 460–469

  40. Rebollo C, Remolar I, Chover M, Ramos JF (2004) A comparison of multiresolution modelling in real-time terrain visualisation, vol 3044. Springer, Berlin, pp 703–712

    Google Scholar 

  41. Rebollo C, Remolar I, Gumbau J, Chover M (2014) Three-dimensional trees for virtual globes. Int J Digit Earth 7:789–810

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Ripollés O, Ramos JF, Puig-Centelles A, Chover M (2012) Real-time tessellation of terrain on graphics hardware. Computers Geosciences 41:147–155

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Rusnell B, Mould D, Eramian M (2009) Feature-rich distance-based terrain synthesis. Vis Comput 25:573–579

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Scheneider J, Boldte T, Westermann R (2006) Real-time editing synthesis, and rendering of infinite landscapes on gpus. In: Vision modeling and visualization, pp 145–152

  45. Smelik R, Tutenel T, De Kraker KJ, Bidarra R (2010) Interactive creation of virtual worlds using procedural sketching. In: Proceedings of eurographics 2010: short papers

  46. Smelik R, Tutenel T, Bidarra R, Benes B (2014) A survey on procedural modeling for virtual worlds. Comput Graph Forum 33(6):31–50

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Stachniak S, Stürzlinger W (2005) An algorithm for automated fractal terrain deformation. Comput Graph Artif Intell 1:64–76

    Google Scholar 

  48. Stava O, Benes B, Brisbin M, Krivanek J (2008) Interactive terrain modeling using hydraulic erosion. In: Eurographics/SIGGRAPH symposium on computer animation, pp 201–210

  49. Tasse FP, Gain J, Marais P (2012) Enhanced texture-based terrain synthesis on graphics hardware. Computer Graph Forum 31(6):1959–1972

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Unity 3D. Available online: https://unity3d.com/. [Accessed on 2 June 2018]

  51. Vanek J, Benes B, Herout A, Stava O (2011) Large-scale physics-based terrain editing using adaptive tiles on the GPU. IEEE Comput Graph Appl 31 (6):35–44

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Wikiloc. Routes of the world. Available online: https://es.wikiloc.com. [Accessed on 28 June 2018]

  53. WM WorldMchine Software Available online: https://planetside.co.uk/. [Accessed on 18 July 2018]

  54. Yoon JC, Lee IK (2008) Stable and controllable noise. Graph Models 70(5):105–115

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Zhang J, Wang C, Qin H, Chen Y, Gao Y (2017) Procedural modeling of rivers from single image toward natural scene production. Vis Comput. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-017-1465-7

  56. Zhou H, Sun J, Turk G, Rehg JM (2007) Terrain synthesis from digital elevation models. IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graph 13(4):834–848

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (Project TIN2016-75866-C3-1-R) and (PID2019-106426RB-C32) and the Universitat Jaume I research project (UJI-B2018-56).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of New Imaging Technologies, Universitat Jaume I, 12006, Castelln, Spain

    Cristina Gasch, Miguel Chover, Inmaculada Remolar & Cristina Rebollo

Authors
  1. Cristina Gasch
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Miguel Chover
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Inmaculada Remolar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Cristina Rebollo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cristina Gasch.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Gasch, C., Chover, M., Remolar, I. et al. Procedural modelling of terrains with constraints. Multimed Tools Appl 79, 31125–31146 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-020-09476-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-020-09476-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation