Tool to merge .asc files.
This tool was originally created to combine two Heightfields for ARMA Reforger.
We pulled terrain data from a real-world environment, which had a hard cutoff a little below the mean sea level. So in another software we added some errosion simulations and created underwater terrain.
To not interfere with ongoing mapping, the map should remain unchanged above the mean sea level and therefore needed more advanced merging.
Therefore this tool was created to merge two .asc (ESRI ASCII) files together seamlessly, that slightly missmatch.
The process of combining two terrains relies on a structured sequence to ensure a flawless blend without abrupt visual or topological artifacts. First, the secondary terrain is dynamically resized in three dimensions to mathematically align its cell size, resolution, and spatial bounds with the primary terrain.
Following alignment, the secondary terrain undergoes proportional sinking so its base matches the defined threshold boundary (Z-Cutoff).
Once aligned and sunken, a localized blend is executed along a defined distance (or range) outward from the intersection threshold to integrate the two topologies smoothly.
Lastly, iterative Gaussian smoothing is applied over the exact blend area and the resulting boundary seam to organically relax steep slope discontinuities and prevent jagged Voronoi "stringing" artifacts, rendering the final merged landscape mostly natural.
Tip
The required blending distance mostly depends on how much the terrains to blend originally mismatch in elevation at the boundary. More mismatch = more blending range. I recommend using a beach area for blending as it is less likely to have sharp elevation changes and the blend can appear as natural shorelines.
- Load and Render: Visualize single-band elevation models (Grayscale or Topomap RGB). Allows you to select a specific display range tightly centered around an arbitrary point.
- Threshold Merging: Merge terrains based on strict elevation thresholding with proportional boundary sinking.
- Smoothing and Seams: Features sink area smoothing (anti-stringing) and boundary seam smoothing to keep overlapping edges looking natural.
- Independent Pan and Zoom: Retains state across all interactive terrain viewports. Allowing before and after comparisson and inspection of the merge, before export.
- Proportional Scaling: Scale the terrain vertically around a fixed zero-point (ocean pivot).
- Clamp Elevation: Hard clamp of elevation ranges (min/max).
- Bilinear, Bicubic & Nearest-Neighbor Resampling: Perform clean resolution scaling and cell size modifications, defaulting to Bilinear for smoothness.
- Configuration States: Save and load your UI and math configurations to
.conffiles. - PNG Export: Supports 16-bit PNG export with true elevation-to-brightness mapping.