Some Cool News

[ADC]

I wanted to thank all of you for your help with my architect block. It's been immeasurable. But a distraction accord the other day in the form me me finally getting 3DEM and Terrain Assist working! I am so excited, because this throws a realm of design open for me that's never been there before...(hopefully) justifiable renditions of real courses.

Merionic is on the burner, once again, and truth be told, I was getting a little burned out with it, struggling just to get a routing down. So, I loaded up some DEM terrain and working on my first real course. I'm going to be recreating Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, in Southamptopn, New York. Thanks all for your support, and being my favorite online community!

[Mike New]

Sweet. I played around (a little) with the 3Dem stuff, Shinnecock Hills included, but couldn't get any good results. That'll be a fun one when your done and by the sounds of things, one of the most accurate real courses out there. Full steam ahead!

[ADC]

We'll see on the accurate, it's my first time round this way, lol.

[Mike New]

For me, elevations are the hardest part. If you can take the guess work out of that (as I have done with the topo maps on real courses), everything else will quickly fall into place.

Get the overhead photos from Google Maps. That'll give you terrain shapes and provide shadows from which you can tell the heights of trees, flag poles and other objects.

[ADC]

I got it from Google Earth. Things might be off by about 10 yards either way, which, granted, is enough to not truly be Shinnecock, but I'll do the best I can, drawing in the shapes in Terrain Assist and exporting them to the Architect. All 18 should be done by the New Year at latest, as I finals are only 6 weeks away, and I really can't do too much until then. But then I'll get a month off. Hello, Shinnecock.

[SteveHorn]

ADC! I think your estimate of being done by New Years is a little off. I'm not saying you can't do it but I think you'll find out that doing a real course rendition takes more time then a fantasy course. Exspecially since your still going to school and won't get much done for awhile.

[ADC]

Thanks for the great point, and you are right. I think one thing I'm going to do the next few weeks (or however long it takes) is just to make absolutely certain I have that course photo over the proper areas. I did a good 3D tour this morning and didn't realize how...off I was in places. Oh, well, measure as many times as it takes, right?

[Indy Anna Jones]

ADC, take your own sweet time. Very few have the ability to toss a good course out in a few weeks ala Robert@. I've got 2 months of work into mine and it still has a long ways to go before I'm satisfied with it.

[Mike New]

Google Earth used to have a 'terrain' feature (perhaps it still does and I just get too frustrated to look properly) where you could toggle the 3D terrain on and off. You always want to have the terrain off. Otherwise, it adds perspective and will throw your scale and distances off. That's why I suggest you use Google maps.

Remember that the architect also shows 3D perspective with terrain elevations and 3D objects, but renders floating shapes in a 2D way, as if the plot was flat.

There was another thread recently about this issue, too, but I couldn't find it again to explain it.