Generating Point Objects

Houses, landmarks, and other such objects are placed at specific points of the terrain. Two shape types can be selected from vector data sources (*.shp and *.geojson assets) and used for point object placement:

• Point — the primary object is placed at the position specified by the point and oriented the same way as when saved to a *.node file.
• Line — the primary object is placed at the position specified by the first point, while the second point determines the orientation of the object's forward direction vector (positive Y).

This chapter describes the general workflow for the generation of point objects on the terrain.

Create a primary object that will be used as a building block for the generation — any *.node file containing a single root node with any hierarchy.

Export your node to a .node file.

Currently, Sandworm allows using only offline vector data sources for the generation.

1. In the Sources panel, add a new vector data layer.

   

   • Clicking on Vector opens the window for adding Slots. Slots are designed to organize data.

     

   • Clicking on + Add Layer provides the toolset for uploading vector data.

2. In the Parameters panel, define the type of Data Source to be used: Assets or External Files. Currently, only *.shp and *.geojson are supported as assets. Therefore, if you have other types of files, you can try to add them as External Files.

   

   Click Import.

3. In the window that opens, select the set of files to be used as vector data.

When the vector data is added, its image is displayed atop all the layers in the Preview panel (you may change the order of layers display by RMB click on a layer in the list of sources), and the Vector layer parameters become available.

The Filter is a set of rules used to pick the specific data from the list of all available vector data. The rules are created using the Attributes — only the objects that fit the requirements of every Attribute are generated based on othis Filter.

Filters are created as follows:

1. Click the Add button in the Filters window of the Parameters panel.

   

   Double-click on the Filter to specify a Filter name. To remove a Filter, use the Remove button. You can add as many Filters as necessary.

   The Share button allows shared use of the Filter among vector data layers. Select the vector data layer that will share this Filter in the pop-up window. Changes in a shared Filter will be applied to it in all vector data layers.

2. Select a slot from those created by you (Sources -> Vector).

3. For each Filter, set an Attribute (or Attributes) to filter certain data from the vector source. The required data is filtered using the Attribute values and a suitable operator. Autocomplete is available — you can type in Attribute names and values.

   The available operators are: =, !=, >, <, ANY. ANY generates all the objects that have any value assigned for the selected Attribute.

   Warning

   When using > and <, make sure that the selected Attribute type is a number. String comparison may cause issues.

   You can also select Attribute values from the Attributes table. The table opens using the sign on the right of the Attribute expression.

   

   Double-clicking on a value in the table adds it to the Attribute value field.

4. To add more Attributes, use the "+" (plus) button. You can add as many Attributes for one Filter as necessary. It is possible to set AND and OR relations between the Attributes in the Filter.

   

   To remove an Attribute, use the button to the right of the Attribute expression.

In this step, we set objects that will be generated and placed across the terrain's surface according to the data filtered by the Filter.

1. On the Sources panel, click + Add Object.

   

2. In the drop-down, select the type of object you will generate according to the Slot data. In our case, it is Points. Click Import.

   

Set the following object parameters:

If you introduce any changes to created objects, click Apply to update them immediately.

Now you need to configure the output settings and generate (or regenerate) the terrain which contains these vector objects by clicking the Generate button.

If the terrain has already been generated and you made no changes to it, you can regenerate only the vector data. In the corresponding settings, disable the data types you don't need to be regenerated.

Here is a terrain fragment with houses generated based on vector data using the primary mesh object: