The Terrain Download operator can be used to download terrain data from various cloud services.
The Terrain Download operator, and the tyTerrain Downloader, give users the ability to download real-world Earth DEM (digital elevation model) and satellite data, and apply that data directly to tyFlow terrain grids. DEM data is applied to the height channel of affected grids, and satellite data is applied to the color channel. By applying these data sources to tyFlow grids, users can construct 3D representations of real locations with ease.
Default Python installation: when selected, users will need to run the installer to download/install Python and the required Python dependencies to their local drive.
Install tyTerrain Downloader: click this button to run the one-click installer and install tyTerrain Downloader to your local drive.
The tyTerrain Downloader is a custom Python app/script, that requires an isolated installation of Python 3.10 and its dependencies in order to run. The installation process may take a few minutes, as those dependencies are downloaded from trusted sources. All tyTerrain Downloader dependencies are installed to: C:\ProgramData\tyFlow\tyTerrain. To completely remove all of the installed dependencies from your system, you can simply delete that folder.
Existing Python installation: when selected, users can opt to run the tyTerrain Downloader through an existing Python installation, rather than needing to install anything separately. Click the “[?]” box next to the path field in order to see the list of required dependencies. If any dependencies are missing, the tyTerrain Downloader will not run.
Downloaded tile cache folder: this is the directory where all downloaded terrain data (DEM/satellite/XML) will be saved by default.
Grid names: terrain grids with matching names will be affected.
Color channel: specifies which color channel of affected grids will be modified.
The tyTerrain Downloader window can be used to download DEM/satellite data to disk (into the specified downloaded tile cache folder) - but that data isn’t immediately applied to affected grids (it’s merely saved to disk as TIF/PNG data). However, once you press the “Apply” button in the tyTerrain Downloader UI, the most recently downloaded pair of height/color maps will be assigned to the height/color texmap slots of the corresponding Terrain Download operator. The process of both downloading and then applying the data is what ultimately transfers it from the cloud into a tyFlow terrain setup.