No solution here but some advice:

- subtract a constant from the x and y coords so that they start with 0,0 at
a corner.  this will make the numbers more readable and allow you to scale
correctly.

- Each of your lines is a point in 3d space on the surface of your ground.
sence they are not nesecarly in order I would suggest putting them in order.
(This could be the real tricky part)  A spread sheat with Graphing ability
like excel might work well here.

- After the points are ordered you need to fit a surface to them.  most
likely this will mean some type of mesh, but I can also see using the poinst
to make a height field.  It would go something like this (I think) :

  asume an N x M Grid of pixels.  For each pixel, asign a height based on
the weighted averge of all known points (you original data) using the
1/(distance fom Point)^2  as the weight.  Again a spread sheat or Perl
script would help here.

I know this isn't real clear but, maybe it will help
JFMILLER


"Lare Lekman" <lar### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:web.3d5f9303bffdb24ae31a93b30@news.povray.org...
> Hello,
>
> I've read the documentation, FAQs, and gone through the Tutorial, but
> haven't yet figured out the solution to my newbie problem.
>
> I have a GPS receiver and an accurate altimeter, and wish to create a
> simple, realistic 3D terrain model of about 300x300 meter land area by
> walking around the area, while recording the X, Y, and Z (height)
> coordinates.
>
> GPS receivers typically produce WGS84 (geographic, lat/lon) coordinates,
but
> I have configured mine to provide Finnish KKJ (rectangular, XYZ)
> coordinates, to make them compatible with POV-Ray's (rectangular)
> coordinate system. The recorded "field data" files look like this:
>
> <start of file>
> 6679290, 3385285, 30
> 6679296, 3385273, 26
> 6679275, 3385267, 42
> ....
> <eof>
>
> Each row describes a single measurement, where the first column is the
north
> coordinate ("X") in meters, second is the east coordinate ("Y") in meters,
> and the last is height ("Z") from the sea level in meters.
>
> Since there can be thousands of measurement points, I assume I should
first
> create a Java, Perl, etc. macro that automatically creates the .pov code
> from the field data file. To make the .pov code generating as simple as
> possible, I'd like to ask what is the simplest/best-suited POV-Ray's
> "Terrain Object" to create this kind of realistic terrain in .pov syntax?
> (Note: The field data is not necessarily in consequent order to easily
> create "triangle mesh" by merging every 3 rows. Should it be to make .pov
> generating easier?)
>
> My goal is to produce something that looks like the Height Field Object's
> example at http://www.povray.org/documentation/images/pvhfield.png - just
> little more realistic :).
>
> Thank you!
>
> Lare Lekman
> Finland
>

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