Módulo para edição de terrenos virtuais e distribuição procedural de vegetação

Abstract

Virtual terrains are often embedded in various types of graphics applications, such as simulators and games. However, creating these terrains commonly involves performing tasks that force the artist to spend a great deal of time. One of these tasks is the insertion of vegetation, something that can quickly become impractical for an artist as the dimensions of the terrain increase. In addition, it is common that lands previously created or pre-generated with the aid of some automated technique need further modifications to correct inconsistencies or incorporate new elements. With this in mind, this work presents the process of developing and implementing a module that extends the capabilities of the simulator developed in the context of the SIS-ASTROS Project, in order to facilitate the tasks of preparing the virtual terrains used in the simulator. This preparation is divided into two parts. The first involves editing the heightmap used to render the terrain. The second involves the procedural generation of the positions of the vegetation elements that cover the terrain. The terrain editing portion allows the user to manually modify the heightmap by using a parameterizable “brush” type editing tool to raise, lower and level the terrain. The part of the procedural distribution of vegetation consists of using the vector data that represents the areas covered by forests to generate a list of positions referring to all the vegetation elements that cover the those areas. This distribution is parameterized and allows the user to define its density. In addition, the implementation ensures that there are no collisions between distributed trees.