For quite a long time I have now been working on a program for generating and manipulating heightfields for use with Povray. I named it Ategeros standing for Advanced TErrain Generator and EROsion Simulator.

Until now I have included the following generation techniques:

• subdivide and displace ("Plasma fractal") with height dependant roughness, see picture 3 on the right
• Fourier synthesis
• Perlin Noise in many different variations

Furthermore I included support for Povray to generate heightfields (the first terrain on the right is an example)

For heightfield manipulation, I have included common functions like rotation, raising/lowering, smoothing/sharpening, slope calculation,...

I am also experimenting with some erosion functions.

The main strength of Ategeros are the classification and object placement capabilities. You can have a look at a screenshot (79k) of the class-editor. Objects can be placed according to these classes.

Ategeros can produce many common image file formats including TGA and PNG. Heightfields can also be saved as Povray mesh definitions and I am working on a VRML writer.

I also developed an OpenGL-Preview shown in the second screenshot (61k).

There are still quite a lot of problems with the program and i don't have much time so i'm not sure when there will be a public version.

Comments and suggestions for for changes and additional functions are welcome, feel free to contact me.

Sample for object placing/classification masks