On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 9:35 AM, Martin Spott wrote:
> James Turner wrote:
>
> > I've idly wondered about pulling the water out of the generated
> > scenery, and instead creating 'ground' down to the low tide line. The
> > water surface could then be created at runtime, allowing for tides,
> > waves, and other effects depending on the GPU/CPU power available.
>
> Secondly, <PROPER DESIGN> using bathymetry 'elevation' data we'd
> certainly be able to create seabed 'Terrain' for "Ocean" and probably
> also for "Lake" areas </PROPER DESIGN> - probably not as detailed as
> the regular surface but sufficiently accurate to model the seabed for
> example within the twelve mile limit (just to put a figure). This would
> allow for simulation of tides and the resulting effects at a later
> development step.
My sense is that there are many areas in the world where the slope of the
shore line is very shallow. Also don't forget that our SRTM data has a
resolution / random noise element of about +/- 5 to 10 meters. I think that
these things combined together could lead to some extremely inaccurate
shorelines and odd contour artifacts if we try to physically model the water
level and the terrain elevation to create a shoreline.
It's a neat idea and certainly could be worthwhile territory to explore, but
I'm pretty sure it will yield highly inaccurate shorelines with ugly
artifacts in many areas of the world. And there are many hidden dangers I
would think. If we get the ocean level off by a meter or two and the land
off by a meter or two, we could have unintended side effects such as putting
all of KSFO under water at high tide.
So I agree that this is a very intriguing idea to explore, but I would stop
short of calling it <proper design> compared to what we are doing right now.
Regards,
Curt.
--
Curtis Olson: http://baron.flightgear.org/~curt/
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