Topography

Hello People, new in here. However already got a question! I would like to make a rhino model based on topography on hte area i am looking at. Of course there are two main questions:

Do you know a website for good quality Topography plan I can download and take information from? (used to use digimap -but n=only for UK area. our site is in USA) Please help with the website of proper topography etc information of the site.

Second question: do you know any good tutorial to look at of the creating the site model- topography in Grasshopper. New user- but learning quickly enough.

Please help.

Best,

Ana

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by djordje on October 7, 2016 at 5:01pm

Hi Ana,

Ladybug plugin has two components which enable generating automatic topography data for the chosen location.

Basically you define the location (for example through: latitude,longitude), you choose the radius of the terrain which will be taken into account around that location, and components automatically download and create the 3d terrain.

In order to use them, you would need to follow these steps:

1) go to http://www.food4rhino.com and register.

2) download the "ghpython.gha" file from this page: http://www.food4rhino.com/project/ghpython

Right click on that downloaded "ghpython.gha" and choose "Properties".

Click on the "Unblock" button, if one exists. Then click on "Ok".

If that kind of button does not exist, just click on "Ok".
3) download the terrainGenerators.gh file I attached at the bottom of this reply, and open it in Grasshopper.
4) you can directly use the first "Terrain Generator" component. For "Terrain Generator 2" components you need to download some other files and copy them. The component itself will provide instructions on how to do that. Here is a screenshot of the resulting terrain from the second component ("Terrain Generator 2"):

Both components may provide different 3d terrain geometry, due to different data sources.
The first component (upper) will also provide satellite image of the terrain, which is a feature the second (lower) one does not have. You may get more help on this from the component author.

Depending on the very purpose of your topography, Ladybug can further conduct a couple of terrain analysis of it.

Let us know if you have any issues.

Attachments:

terrainGenerators.gh, 455 KB

Permalink Reply by Jeffrey Richmond on January 31, 2018 at 2:07pm

Hey djordje,

I seem to keep getting a message that says"

"1. Solution exception:Unable to open EPSG support file gcs.csv. Try setting the GDAL_DATA environment variable to point to the
directory containing EPSG csv files."

Any ideas on what is going wrong? I have downloaded and installed all The GIS data as well.

Permalink Reply by djordje on February 1, 2018 at 12:10pm

Hi Jeffrey,

Try these two methods:

1) Open Command prompt, and type in the the following command:
regsvr32 "yourMapWinGiS_installation_folder\mapwingis.ocx"

if your MapWinGIS installation folder is: "C:\Program Files\MapWinGIS" then the command would like:

regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\MapWinGIS\mapwingis.ocx"

Restart your Rhino and Grasshopper and try running Gismo then.

If first method does not work, try:
2) Add Environmental variable as: both "user variable" and "system variable".

The variable should be: "GDAL_DATA", and its Value should be: "yourMapWinGiS_installation_folder\gdal-data".

For example, for upper installation folder, it will be:

"C:\Program Files\MapWinGIS\gdal-data"

Restart your PC! Then run Rhino and Grasshopper again.

Please let us know, if nothing of this is works.

Permalink Reply by Jessica Ma on May 2, 2019 at 4:58pm

Hey djordje,

I was running the file and kept getting an error message like "solution exception could not find a part of the path" even with the original name. I want to put the location as USA_Quakertown. Is this the correct name to use?

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