DEM Tutorial
Renato! Sigmon
Part 1 of 6
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Bryce Projects

STEP 1 - FINDING DEM IS HALF THE BATTLE

Let's start with one example of Bryce 4's expanded terrain/object Import and Export capabilities: the ability to import and export DEM models. DEM stands for, "Digital Elevation Model". DEMs are digital representations of US Geological Survey (USGS) topographical maps. Bryce's ability to import DEMs means you can create a Bryce scene based on real world terrains!

[For more information on DEMs, visit http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/doc/edchome/ndcdb/ndcdb.html, or simply go to "Links" in the Bryce 4 menu bar, and select "US Geological Survey".]

For the purposes of this tutorial, you'll need one of two DEMs which exist for the Grand Canyon, 'grand_canyon-e'. There are two ways to obtain this file.

DEM IMPORT METHOD #1 - DOWNLOAD FROM USGS

The URL for this file is

compressed (approx. 1.2MB):

http://edcftp.cr.usgs.gov/pub/data/DEM/250/G/grand_canyon-e.gz

uncompressed (approx. 9.0MB):

http://edcftp.cr.usgs.gov/pub/data/DEM/250/G/grand_canyon-e

As you can see, an uncompressed DEM is rather large. Therefore, the USGS makes these files available in both compressed (using 'gnuzip') and uncompressed formats. If you choose to download the compressed DEM, you'll need a utility called, "gzip" to uncompress it. Gzip may already be on your system; or it's available for download, for both PC and Mac, at many URLs; one of them is http://wuarchive.wustl.edu/systems/gnu. It's also included on the "Real World Bryce 2" CD, see "METHOD #2" below.

DEM IMPORT METHOD #2 - COPY FROM "REAL WORLD BRYCE 2" CD

If you have the book, "Real World Bryce 2", the uncompressed DEM for this tutorial can be found on the CD which came with the book. Open the folder "DEM Info". Inside that folder is another folder named "USGS DEMs". Copy the file named 'grand_canyon-e', onto your hard drive.

Windows users will need to add the DEM extension to the uncompressed file before going on to the next step.