Trimble SketchUp Pro can generate 3D terrain models using elevation data from many regions around the world. Sometimes the resulting geometry needs cleanup and refinement for better flexibility. Below as a summary of how an application called Side Effects Houdini (a beloved procedural powerhouse of the visual effects and game industries) can help.

Ingredients:

• Trimble SketchUp Pro 19.1 (With internet access for geospatial data)
• Side Effects Houdini 17.5 (Indie used here, but the free Apprentice might also be sufficient.)
• Google Earth Pro for higher-resolution aerial images (texture mapping is beyond the scope of this particular discussion.)

Summary:

1. Obtain terrain geometry using SketchUp.
2. Import SketchUp’s terrain data into Houdini.
3. Clean and and refine terrain using Houdini’s virtually limitless toolset.
4. Import the refined terrain back into SketchUp.

Get Terrain

First, fetch some terrain data, which in this case originates from SketchUp’s Geographic Location network service. (This appears to require a paid version of SketchUp Pro, as Trimble no longer offers a standalone version like SketchUp Make.)

Pressing the “Add More Imagery…” repeatedly might lead to a more data density than necessary. Each blue tile is a discrete object with no knowledge of its neighbors. Redundancy abounds.

These tiles could benefit from some reorganization. To begin, unlock each of the “Location Terrain” geometry objects, then select them. (Note: the 3D layer is called “Location Terrain,” not “Location Snapshot,” which just contains raster aerial images.  And low resolution, at that.)

Next, choose File > Export > 3D Model… and specify a Wavefront geometry (obj) file format. 

In the Export Options dialog box, enable “Swap YZ coordinates” so that the Y axis points upward.  Stick with meters as the units format.  Enabling texture maps seems to be of limited use, as each tile gets its own jpeg file.  (Houdini’s compositing system (COPs) could probably handle a procedure to recombine the individual images.)

As an aside, routing the .obj file through Pixologic ZBrush’s DynaMesh system produced something resembling the aftermath of a termite infestation.

Clean Terrain

Below is a sample Houdini node network for importing the SketchUp terrain, cleaning it up, then exporting a refined version. This method harnesses Houdini’s heightfield model, a system of portraying detailed terrains using surface-like 2D volumes.

Houdini’s heightfield operators can emphasize major contours for illustrative purposes.

The final nodes in this network convert the terrain to polygons and saves the geometry as an AutoCAD Drawing Interchange Format file (dxf).

Back to SketchUp

Next, import the newly-minted dxf back into SketchUp. Enable drawing origin preservation to ensure that the freshened terrain slab remains positioned exactly where it should.

Finally, enable edge smoothing in SketchUp to hide the model’s gridlines and make the terrain look more natural.

Optionally, project a higher-quality aerial texture onto the fresh terrain.  Google Earth Pro can be a good source for such imagery.  (SketchUp’s finicky process for texture mapping is worthy of its own discussion.)

Summary:

SketchUp > terrain > obj > Houdini > heightfield > dxf > SketchUp > heightfield > dxf > SketchUp

This isn’t necessarily a practical or advisable solution to cleaning up a slab of virtual terrain. But it turned out to be a fairly quick and repeatable approach in this case.

Many of the Wacom drawing pens I’ve used over the years have failed in the same way, gradually developing a stress fracture within the plastic barrel. When that crack widens, the stylus’s internal circuit board can slip out of place and cause the drawing nib to retract unexpectedly.

That crack in the plastic casing leads to a mushy feel to the pen, loose enough to make the pen feel wobbly and unsteady. An unstable nib produces unreliable drawing results, spewing digital ink all over like an irritated cephalopod.

Reseating the barrel will temporarily fix the problem, as will a dab of plastic glue. So far, a more reliable solution has been a simple nylon cable tie.

Unsightly, but effective.

Other stylus models like the rotation-aware Art Pen don’t seem to be as susceptible to such a break, though the inner structural design looks identical.

In the 1990s, playing full-screen digital video often required specialized computer hardware. One such solution was a PCI card called miroMOTION DC20, which supported video capture, editing, and playback at a pixel resolution of 640 x 480 at a smooth 60 fields per second in 24-bit color.

The DC20 encoded video data using a proprietary motion JPEG format, readable only on computers also containing a hardware decoder. Computers without the appropriate hardware would display blank video or fail altogether.

Fortunately, there are some workarounds to recover orphaned DC20 video files.  If software solutions like the DC30 Xact Driver for Mac G4, Morgan M-JPEG codec for Windows, or OS emulation are unsuccessful, the approach below may help.

Legacy QuickTime Pro + Handbrake

This method relies on access to a Mac running OS X 10.6 or older using QuickTime Pro.  If such a machine is unavailable, it might be possible to run a virtualized copy of OS X within VMware instead.

First, open an unplayable DC20 video file in QuickTime Player.  Ignore any error messages about missing software.  If the application refuses to even open the video, you may have to try an even older version of QuickTime.

Next, re-save as a self-contained movie.

Then open the newly-exported movie in a video transcoder like Handbrake.

Inspect the image quality using Handbrake’s video preview.  Try exporting in a more recent video format like H.264.

Sadly, no transcoding process can rescue old video files from filesystem bitrot, the silent corruption of electronic data over time.