Targetware: Terrain Development

MapMaker User's Guide

Loading and UnLoading Data

Loading Elevation Data

Your first step in creating a terrain with MapMaker is to load in all the elevation data sets applicable to your region of interest. To load the data, select File -> Load from the menu. Once selected, a window will open and ask you to navigate to the location(s) where your data is stored. Hopefully you have renamed your downloaded files so that each file's contents are obvious. Although file extentions will be:

.DEM - Elevation Files (GTOPO 30)
.E00 - Roads, Railways, Rivers, Coastlines, Hypsology, point data
.img - Land Cover

MapMaker, however, will automatically identify the type of file as it is loaded. So, to load an elevation data set, select the file name for your region, then click Open.

Multiple files can be loaded by highlighting them via control+left mouse click (CMD + mouse click on Macs).

As elevation files are loaded into the tool, you will see those regions appear in the working area, such as in the illustration below:

Note: if you have loaded a DEM but it does not appear in the working area, go to Layers in the menu bar and make sure Elevation has been selected (check mark appears next to it).

Loading Land Cover Data

Use the same process as you followed for elevation, but this time navigate to the location where you stored your land cover data (if different from where elevation data is stored), select the file name, then click Open.

Once loaded, the working area of the MapMaker window should contain a map of the land cover for the entire world and look like the image below:

Note: if you have loaded the land cover data but it does not appear in the working area, go to Layers in the menu bar and make sure Land Cover has been selected (check mark appears next to it).

Loading Road, Rail, Coastline, River Data, etc.

As you did with the elevation and land cover data, continue loading all data files that you want included in your terrain.

UnLoading Data

If you wish to remove a data set from your terrain, select File -> Unload File from the menu bar. After making this selection, a window will appear containing a list of all data files currently loaded.

To unload a particular file, select/highlight the file then select "ok". Multiple files can be unloaded by highlighting them via control+left mouse click (CMD + mouse click on Macs).

Normally you will not need to unload any previously loaded data. But should you load in a data set that isn't needed, or outside the region of your terrain, removing that data set will permit faster MapMaker operations and lower memory requirements during your session.