Creating an Image Mapping

Create Image Mapping lets you map images in .bmp, .jpg, and .tif formats on a terrain mesh or surface.

This task shows you how to:


Before you begin: Specify Shading with Material in the View mode (available in the View section of the action bar).

Map Images

You can define the textures of the terrain with the Terrain Image Mapping command including the coordinates of all the mapped images.

  1. Select an element to apply the image mapping to.

    An element can be either a terrain mesh or a surface.

    Notes:
    • Mutiselection is not available.
    • If you select a terrain mesh, the Optimized mode must be turned off.
  2. Select one or several images by clicking in the Terrain Image Mapping dialog box.
    You can use the Content Chooser to select and import objects easily from session or from 3DEXPERIENCE through a direct selection.
  3. Import one or several images.
  4. To display the texture in the Windows viewer, click the image preview.
  5. Expand the Destination Coordinates section.
  6. Specify the upper left and lower right coordinates by either:
    • Modifying them directly or
    • Clicking the select point button and pick a point in the scene.
  7. Verify that the element, the image, the geolocation parameters, and the coordinates are correctly defined.
  8. Click Apply to map the image on the terrain.
  9. To hide the image mappings, click Hide All Image Mappings from the View section of the action bar.
  10. To propagate image mapping parameters on the leaf levels having the same terrain as input, and modifying it, select the Propagation option in the Terrain Image Mapping dialog box.
    In the activated part, all the features having Terrain.1 as input, and modifying it, are reviewed. Only the features at the leaf level are kept and mapping information is propagated on them.

    If you run the Terrain Image Mapping command on a feature on which mapping information has already been propagated, the image selection/removal/reordering commands are grayed out. Only mapping information removal is allowed.

  11. To propagate the mapping information, defined on the current terrain, on one or several selected terrains, click the empty box next to and select one or several terrains (a cloud of points, a mesh or a polyhedral object) in the tree or 3D area.

    Click to obtain the list of the selected terrains and you can delete some of them.

    The image, defined on the current terrain, is mapped on the selected terrains. The texture and its coordinates are visible on the selected terrains. The information of image mapping is linked to the initial terrain, therefore it cannot be edited.
    Tips:

    You can edit the information of image mapping on the source feature by clicking Edit mapping information on linked terrain . The propagation link between the source terrain and the target terrain(s) is kept. After the mapping information edition and when you click Apply, the modification is propagated to all the linked terrains.

    If you want to break the link between the target terrain and the source terrain(s), click Isolate propagated mapping information . You can edit information directly on the target feature.

  12. To populate all the leaf features with the propagation information automatically, click Add Terrain Modification .

    Click to obtain the list of the detected terrains and you can delete some of them.

    The terrains that will be populated with the terrain modification must:
    • have the current terrain as input
    • be visible
    • be the features that modify the current terrain during the last modification step. The modifying feature (leaf feature) must be in the same part.
  13. Once you have defined the textures of the terrain with the Terrain Image Mapping command, click Link Spreadsheet to create a spreadsheet (a .xlsx or .csv file) including the coordinates of all the mapped images and set them onto the terrain's.
  14. To edit/manage texture coordinates through an Excel file thanks to the command Link to spreadsheet, do the following:
    1. Select a terrain.
    2. Select the terrain in the Selected objects panel on the left side. The coordinates of the mapped images appear in the Object attributes on the right side. The Upper Left X, Upper Left Y, Lower Right X, Lower Right Y of each image are displayed in the list. They are not the right geolocation values and you enter you own data in the spreadsheet.
    3. Click Add All to select all the image attributes to be managed through the spreadsheet. Or select one or several Object attributes and click Add .
    4. Click to remove an image attribute in the list.
    5. Click Create and save a new linked spreadsheet .

      The Create Linked Spreadsheet panel displays the Name, Comment and Destination information. Only the Destination box cannot be edited.

      The linked spreadsheet is saved at the terrain's location. It contains the image mapping coordinates (upper left x / y, lower right x /y) of the selected images.

  15. To edit the spreadsheet with Excel, click Edit the spreadsheet , enter new values for image coordinates and save.

    In the Name box of the Link Spreadsheet window, you can select another linked spreadsheet created before and use the same commands.

  16. To update the image mapping parameters set on the terrain with the new content of the spreadsheet, click .
    The mapped images are updated according to the Excel modifications.
  17. To update the spreadsheet parameters with the selected image attributes, click .
    If you had selected the Propagation option, the mapped images displayed are the one defined on the terrain aggregated under the Road Stretch feature set. The modification on the input terrain is taken into account by the mapping.

Copy Image Mapping

  1. Select the terrain mesh or surface on which you want to copy the image mapping.
  2. Click Copy Image Mapping and select the reference image mapping you want to copy.

    In the right pane of the Terrain Image Mapping dialog box, the reference mapping displays the image geolocation and coordinates. In the 3D area you can visualize the images and their positioning on the initial surface, represented with this pointer in the upper left angle and in the lower right angle.

  3. To display the copied mapping, click Apply or OK.

    In the Terrain Image Mapping dialog box, the same information is retrieved on the selected entity:

    • The geolocation and coordinates of the images
    • Quality
    • Transparency

    There is not synchronization link between both mappings. You can edit image parameters in the duplicated mapping without impacting the reference mapping. On the contrary, if you want to recover, in the copied mapping, the modifications made in the reference mapping, click again and reselect the reference mapping.