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Downloading US DEMs for Terrain Assist
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Bobby Bolin
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Posted: Tuesday, April 21, 2020 at 10:09:54 PM | IP Logged

Here's a quick step by step on how to download DEMs and Orthoimagery for use in the Terrain Assist Program. Note: this is a bit of a longer process than before due to a couple extra steps. I am also going off memory right now, but I will update when I get a chance.

1. Go to Earth Explorer: https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/

2. Find the course that you would like to design under search criteria. You can search, use the map, enter coordinates, etc.

3. You will need to find the coordinates that you want to work with. Make sure you write down the top left and bottom right coordinates latitude and longitude. You will need this for both the orthoimagery and the DEM.

4. Go to Data Sets and select both High Resolution Orthoimagery (under Aerial Imagery) and all the SRTM boxes (under Digital Elevation)

5. Go to Results

6. This is where it gets much more difficult. You will need your aerial image and the DEM to have the same coordinates. There are many ways to do it, but here's what worked for me.

The DEM

1. Find your DEM by locating any SRTM that encompasses the whole course. If you click on the footprint, it will highlight the area the DEM covers. You will notice that the DEM will be much larger than the area you need. I will tell you how to cut it later on. Download that DEM. It should download as a .tif file. If there are two DEMs that come together in the middle of your course, you will not be able to complete this process. Chances are that won't happen (unless you do the Atlanta Athletic Club).

2. Open the 3DEM program. Load the .tif file that you downloaded. You may need to change the "Geo Coordinates" to either degrees or decimal, depending on what system you are using. I prefer the decimals.

3. Go to Operation and go to choose a smaller area. You will need to draw a box based on the coordinates of your plot. Then hit enter.

4. Under Operation, change to a UTM Elipsilloid. If that is grayed out, use UTM Projection. Select NAD 27.

5. Under File, you will want to save your Terrain Matrix Save it as the ASCII Text String.

6. You should now have a .hdr file for the TA program.

The Orthoimagery

1. This is not very fun to do. You may be able to trim your orthoimagery using Photoshop based on your coordinates. You may have to eyeball it a bit. I've also had to combine two orthoimages into one. The key is to make the image the same size as your coordinates. Do that however you can. Make sure it's a high resolution file. Save it as a .tga file.

Terrain Assist

1. Create your new project.

2. Select the .hdr file that you created.

3. Follow the TA commands to create your new .tca file and import the elevation data to the .tca.

4. Import your orthoimage.

5. Draw your shapes the same way as you always have.

(The TA part is the same as in the original tutorial, so I abbreviated it. Please consult the original tutorial for a more detailed version.)

 
 
 
 
 

 
Bobby Bolin
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Posted: Tuesday, April 21, 2020 at 10:17:53 PM | IP Logged

This will take a lot of tinkering with. It may not end up being perfect, but it's still a huge help if you can get it to work.

So far I've gotten it to work with two courses and it did not work for one (Atlanta Athletic Club) because the course was split between two separate DEMs.

Good luck!
 
 
 
 
 

 
Gunpower61
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Posted: Wednesday, April 22, 2020 at 6:04:27 AM | IP Logged

Nice work Bobby, thanks for sharing, it can help other designers.
I made it a sticky topic now. 
 
 
 
 

 
TimBoch
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Posted: Tuesday, December 12, 2023 at 4:27:04 PM | IP Logged

Hello,
I am pretty late to the game here, but thought I would give it a go with the TW Course Architect. I had designed about a dozen courses for Links 2003 back in the day.
I thought I would start with something small like a par 3 course. Though I would download the elevations for Augusta Par 3 area to get a little help with the layout. Unfortunately, the .tif file that I was able to download from the USGS, was not recognized in 3DEM. Any idea what might be the issue? I followed the instructions here very carfully, but don't doubt that I could have missed something.

Thanks for any help you can give.

Tim 
 
 
 
 

 
Gunpower61
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Posted: Wednesday, December 13, 2023 at 11:09:48 AM | IP Logged

Hello Tim,

Not sure why the .tif is not recognized, maybe one of the designers will know the answer.


Important note: when you are compiling your new course with the course architect, then you will have to compile your course on a windows xp system.
in the beginning compiling will work on Win10 or win 8 or win7, but when you add trees and houses etc...then you will come to a point that the compiling will fail on win8 or win10 or win7.
At that point you will have to compile your course on a windows xp system. 
 
 
 
 

 
Quietly
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Posted: Wednesday, December 13, 2023 at 2:13:42 PM | IP Logged

At the moment I don't have access to the programs and files in question, but I recall in the past running in to a similar problem. If I remember correctly, you have to download both a file that has the elevation data and also an image that has the satellite photo of the area. I was trying to open the wrong file. TIFF is a graphics file format normally, yet in this context it's just a series of elevation numbers in the file. Make sure you're not opening the wrong file. 
 
 
 
 

 
TimBoch
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Posted: Wednesday, December 13, 2023 at 7:42:08 PM | IP Logged


Gunpower61 said:
"Hello Tim,

Not sure why the .tif is not recognized, maybe one of the designers will know the answer.


Important note: when you are compiling your new course with the course architect, then you will have to compile your course on a windows xp system.
in the beginning compiling will work on Win10 or win 8 or win7, but when you add trees and houses etc...then you will come to a point that the compiling will fail on win8 or win10 or win7.
At that point you will have to compile your course on a windows xp system."


Thanks for the information. The Course Architect is very different from the Arnold Palmer Course Designre I used for Links. Never got all that good with Unity when I tried to design courses for Perfect Golf.

I actually am using a very old XP laptop of mine to run both TW 2006 and the Course Architect, so that shouln't cause any issues correct?

Thanks again for the help.

Tim 
 
 
 
 

 
Gunpower61
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Posted: Thursday, December 14, 2023 at 4:13:47 AM | IP Logged

Don t forget to read Quietly his post above.
Yes running TW06 and the course architect on your XP system should work fine. 
 
 
 
 

 
Bobby Bolin
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Posted: Saturday, December 16, 2023 at 8:28:16 PM | IP Logged

The CA will work on any operating system but you will run into problems compiling if it's not on XP.

You need the geotiff file for elevation data and a .tiff file for the ortho image. I have had to download large images and trim them to get it to work. The elevation data will be somewhat okay but you will still need to do a lot of work to get it perfect. 
 
 
 
 

 
 
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