A Tool that pulls Google Maps elevation data to create heightmaps for FAF mapping
- This application requires a Google API key. Follow these instructions to get one.
- This application requires enabling the Google Elevation API. You get $200 in credit each month, and if you dont add a credit card it will not charge you, it just wont work. See instructions on how to enable the API here
Latitude and Longitude can either be lat/long pairs you get off google maps by right clicking and hitting the button that looks like this: 35.98800489312466, -78.88236362690753 and placing the first value in the latitude box and the second in the longitude box. Or, you can get the values from something like google earth where you are given latitude and longitude in degrees, minutes, seconds like so: 0° 3'26.35"S, 129°31'52.34"E. Again, first value to the latitude and second to the longitude.
The application comes with some pre-saved datasets that you can play around with (without needing an API key). Once you run the application with a point from the live data section you can save the elevation points and fiddle with settings without having to make API requests again.
Automatic water won't change the heightmap, just give you values. Flatten will remove all detected water values from the map, making its bottom flat.
These settings control how the application will attempt to get the distance between the min and max points under 50. Compress will compress the entire map until it fits, while flatten will just chop off all values past the min and max values.
The Squish Until box controls when the initial fit algorithm will stop. It is recommended to keep this at 80 for any first runs with the API, but feel free to change it when editing saved data (or live data if that suits you).
How the application smooths the elevation to make it more fit for play.
Uses a normal distribution (Gaussian Kernel) to smooth the map.
Rounds all values to the nearest provided value. The default is 0.2500, so all points would be rounded to the nearest 0.2500
The combined pass runs the Round smooth a single time, then the Normal smoothing for however many passes were set.
These values are the suggested water values for the map to use. The files are saved independently inside the selected folder.
Opens a save dialog that has some extra settings.
Saves some extra data such as the raw elevation data, modified elevation data, and the preview .bmp you see in the application. Does not save a dataset to the Saved Data tab.
Saves the set of elevation points for use again in the Saved Data tab.