Seamless and free height-maps for the whole world, now at Tangram Heightmapper. It’s very easy to use. Once you’ve dived down to your location, and exported such a map, these height maps can be imported into 3D software. There they can then be used as the basis for making new elevated terrain maps, and as pretty as you care to make them.

How to use…

1. Go to Google Maps. Find your chosen location, and position it. Copy the current Google Maps URL to Notepad.

2. Now use this Google Maps URL co-ordinate data to craft a new URL for the Height Mapper. An example Google Maps URL would look like…

../maps/place/Your_place/@53.0220219,-2.2297826,12z/

Therefore the needed Tangrams Height Mapper URL would be…

https://tangrams.github.io/heightmapper/#12/53.0220/-2.2297

The #12 appears to be the zoom-level, with #13 zooming the satellite down another mile or so nearer to the ground. It appears to correspond with the ,12z bit of the Google Maps URL. It thus seems someone could easily cook up an URL-converter UserScript for Google Maps, but for now it needs to be done manually.

3. Paste your newly-crafted URL into Tangrams Height Mapper. Allow time to load. Once you’re happy, press “Export” to get the heightmap in PNG.

If needed, zoom-in further and grab multiple adjacent sections for export, then stitch these with the free Microsoft ICE. Although this does not appear to add detail. It just makes the final image larger. Nor can the upres-er AI Gigapixel add much new detail.

4. View in your chosen 3D landscape software by loading up your new height map. For a quick look, the Aerialod freeware is simple and will do the trick.

You will then likely find the height map has “terraces” (aka “stairsteps” or “steps” or “zippers” or stepped “waterlines” or “tidelines”). These look like the tiny lines following the contours of a drawn map. These are not actually drawn-on contour-lines, but rather the unwanted artefacts of the relatively low-resolution heightmap. If you want high-resolution heightmaps you’re assumed to prospecting for oil or gold and you generally have to take out a mortgage to afford them.

Seen here in Aerialod, this “stepping” effect is actually not unappealing when rendered crisply. Though here with a bit too much of the Minecraft game about it. You can hide this effect somewhat by switching Aerialod to display in ‘Poly’ or ‘Surf’ mode, but these modes make the terrain look like a plaster-cast and seem far from ideal.

5. Most will then want to find a method of smoothing these tiny terraces, but without removing too much detail from the real bits of the terrain. Sadly it appears there’s there’s not really any way to do that, without smushing the other details, other than to cover the terrain with a satellite map or apply textures.

One simple free option that I find works for mesh export is Height Map to OBJ. This gives a smoother 3D mesh as it exports, though also regrettably smushing fine details, rather than trying to smooth the height-map pixels first. It’s old but, like most good Windows freeware, still works and it will get rid of the ‘terraces’. Just note that the height maps you feed it must have exactly square dimensions. On import of the resulting OBJ into 3D software you may find you have to re-set the scaling, to something like 700% on the Y axis.

With a vastly steeper learning-curve, TerreSculptor is now free and will also import a height map and export an OBJ.

I’m pleased to see that the vital WordPress.com edit post redirects UserScript has updated, and it handles the current changed arrangements at the WordPress.com free blogs. It’s working fine for all functions (start new post, edit post from side-link on existing post, edit post from wp-admin list, etc). It briskly takes you and your post to the Classic Editor, rather than to the awful Block editor.

I had coded a Lua script for the StrokesPlus mouse-gestures freeware to provide a workaround for the current problem, which was working. But it’s now no longer needed. Here it is anyway, for what it’s worth…


-- A LUA SCRIPT for a STROKESPLUS mouse-gesture.
-- TITLE: Auto-load the Classic Editor at WordPress.com
-- DATE: October 2020.
--
-- Your Web browser is at ../wp-admin/edit.php and you do the mouse gesture.
-- First the script pauses, to ensure wp-admin has time to fully load itself
acDelay(1500)
-- select and copy the current browser URL
acActivateWindow(nil, gex, gey)
acSendKeys("^l{DELAY 100}^c")
url=acGetClipboardText()
-- process the browser URL, trimming it back
new_url=string.gsub(url,"(.+)/.+/?","%1")
acSetClipboardText(new_url)
-- load the new trimmed URL in the browser
acSendKeys("^v{DELAY 100}{ENTER}")
-- copy the current browser URL again
url2=acGetClipboardText()
-- append the posting URL and thus effectively go to New Post
new_url2=string.gsub(url2,".+/?","%1/post-new.php")
acSetClipboardText(new_url2)
acSendKeys("^v{DELAY 100}{ENTER}")
-- delay 7 seconds to allow the sluggish Block editor to load
acDelay(7500)
-- type the word draft in the post title, and Ctrl + S to save as a Draft post
acSendKeys("draft")
acSendKeys("^s")
-- pause 3 seconds for WordPress to switch to the new numbered URL
acDelay(3000)
acActivateWindow(nil, gex, gey)
-- copy this new URL to the clipboard
acSendKeys("^l{DELAY 100}^c")
url3=acGetClipboardText()
-- append the vital &classic-editor slug to the end of the URL
new_url3=string.gsub(url3,".+/?","%1&classic-editor")
acSetClipboardText(new_url3)
-- take the Draft post into the Classic Editor and finish.
acSendKeys("^v{DELAY 500}{ENTER}")


And to handle the additional “Edit” side-link on posts, you’d use a second Lua script with its core being…

-- look at the current URL, keep only the post number
new_url=string.gsub(url,"[^0-9]","")

… then prepend and append the required URL structure around the post number, to get a working URL back again, then load that URL.

Will either of these solutions last beyond 2021? Perhaps not, as I suspect the Classic Editor will then be killed off totally as previously announced for that date, rather that effectively hidden from the mass of users. As such it’s probably best to just start learning the free Open Live Writer and try to use free blogs in WordPress.com that way. That assumes, however, that in 2021 WordPress.com doesn’t also block offline-editing using such blogging software.