Developer Set‐up

Tile Creation Prerequisites

Before we start creating our own tiles, we're going to need to go over some of the external programs and set-up to get our auto-generation scripts up and running.

---

To automate the tiles properly we're going to need a few programs.

1. Starting with SASPlanet which can be found here: https://sasplanet.geojamal.com/2024/08/download-sas-planet-2024-explore-world.html

SASPlanet will be our primary source to grab imagery.

As of (05/01/2025) use the 3rd link there, the Download the Full Version with Fixed Map Errors.

Extract it to your desktop, press G and verify the google satellite imagery is visible.

2. OSGeo4W can be found here https://www.osgeo.org/projects/osgeo4w/

OSGeo4W includes a variety of GIS tools, including GDAL which will be vital for re-projecting imagery.

If you can, it is ideal install OSGeo4W on your C: drive, as this is the default path in the scripts.

3. ImageMagick can be found here https://imagemagick.org/script/download.php

ImageMagick is a very nice CLI image editor with a python hook called wand

4. If you don't have python, now's the time to install it, https://www.python.org/.

I personally used Python 3.11.4, but other versions will probably work.

5. Use pip install to download

wand
tifffile

5. (Optional) If you don't have Visual Studio Code I'd highly advise you do that as well as it'll make managing the scripts incredibly easy. https://code.visualstudio.com/

6. Nvidia Texture Tools, or NVTT, https://developer.nvidia.com/texture-tools-exporter

NVTT has a CLI interface allowing the automation of textures to DDS

It is required that you add NVTT_export to your path, read here on how to do that https://stackoverflow.com/a/41895179

7. TopoConv, the original source for which is here, only /bin/TopoConv.exe is required

TopoConv is capable exporting 16 bit heightmaps to R16 DDS.

It is required that you also add TopoConv to your path.

---

Verification

1. Verify SASPlanet runs and displays imagery
2. Verify C:\OSGeo4W\OSGeo4W.bat exists
3. Verify magick -help in cmd is recognized.
4. Verify typing python in cmd enters python mode.
5. Verify Wand and tiffile are listed after running pip list in cmd.
6. Verify nvtt_export -h in cmd is recognized.
7. Verify topoconv in cmd is recognized.

If all of these checks succeed, congrats! Download: https://github.com/RSS-Reborn/MTEv2/blob/main/_workflow.py

Place it in a folder you feel comfortable working in, in other sections this will be called your "work directory".