I was talking about it both times, Polslad. While of my own experience I'm still getting the hang of it, Brian Z has some really well put together tutorials on his site.
Yes, the programs allow you to access real life terrain models and work on them. It's not perfect. But it does get the general roll of the land. It also quickly establishes a coast line, I think, because all ocean levels are set to "0" elevation, and the ground raises from there, so that's useful.
In terms of a tutorial, I'm not certain I'm the best to explain. You'd start with a site like Geocomm, where you can download the actual DEM files. DEM is for Digital Elevation Model. You need two programs to get this into the Architect. 3DEM loads the DEM into a map, and allows you to trim it, as the DEM can be very, very large. Like I said in "Evolution," I downloaded most of the south fork of Long Island in six pieces. From there, I had to trim it to the roughly 4000 by 3000 yard model I'd base my architect file from.
After that files been trimmed and saved, I load it in Terrain Assist. This program was originally designed for Tiger Woods 2006's course builder. This is where you actually see the file as a mesh, and while you can't edit it, I find a lot from being able to "walk around the land" for the first time. If you are working on a real course, you can also load an overhead photo and draw it in Terrain Assist. Later, these shapes can be imported into PGA. I don't have a great deal of experience with this, but I know it can be done.
Brian Z does a much better job of walking you through this at his website. Here's a link.
http://www.zagerdesign.com/golf_design/ ... /index.htm
It's the closest thing to a step by step process there is. There's a bit of a learning curve, but I've found it worth it. Maybe it's just because I find it's easier to find holes than craft them, but I think working with actual terrain allows me to focus on building a golf course then worrying about the general lay of the land.
Good luck!
Alex
PS, I know that the vast majority of the United States has been mapped into DEM's. I'm not sure where you could find them for the UK, if you wanted to. Though I'm certain they are somewhere.
PS2, I wanted to show you an example of a finished plot. Because it arrives in PGA without any objects, I choose Pebble Beach because I thought it'd be recognizable. It turned out better than I thought.