Hi all,
Info:
I have created and loaded a landscape of a UTM30 zone (in the UK) and my landscape seems to look relatively normal. (Attached is an image of what I created)
My problem:
I am now wanting to place actors on the landscape using their geodetic values, for example a vehicle model I have. (longitude latitude altitude). I am aware that Unreal Engine is using a cartesian coordinate system (X,Y,Z).
Questions:
What is the terraform point actor and how do I use it?
Should I be using the projected coordinates in some way... changing the values does nothing for me?
Can this plugin do a geodetic to cartesian conversion for me, if not, any recommendations for how I do this?
Many thanks,
Jordan
Hi Jordan,
Thanks for the questions. Apologies - we're working hard to catch up with the documentation.
TerraForm Point Actor:
The TerraForm Point Actor is a class of actor that you can import GIS point data into. If you create blueprints of this class, you can read your GIS point data (with attributes) and use it to select, place and set values for any kind of UE4 actor in a landscape (lights, player start positions, static or dynamic meshes, decals etc...). This class gives you huge flexibility, but you need to create blueprints to use it.
(If you haven't created a blueprint and are using this class, setting the values won't do anything...)
TerraForm Point Mesh:
Another type of point class is the TerraForm Point Mesh. This allows you to place static meshes (vehicles/buildings etc) throughout your landscape using your GIS point data. It's ready to go and all you need to do it is select which meshes to import (individual or array).
It gives you the option to then set scale (x,y,z) and rotation (x,y,z) for each of the meshes, either by selecting an attribute from your data, or by selecting 'Value' and setting it manually for all. If you don't set the 'Mesh' attribute, TerraForm will select randomly from your array (if more than 1 static mesh is added).
Regarding importing Geodetic data:
TerraForm will automatically re-project data in most projection/datum combinations (including geodetic) to the landscape's coordinate reference system - it's only the DTM you need to project to a planar coordinate system for now (we're adding re-projection to that at present).
Hope this helps.
Paul
Hi Paul,
That's perfectly understandable, this definitely helps. I created a blueprint from an actor and saw lots more functionality available under the blueprint actions!
I will start by looking through the blueprint action topics below; are there any other key topic titles that hold functions?
GIS
TerraForm Info
TerraForm Units
Many thanks,
Jordan
Hi Paul,
Thanks!
I have another related question and attached the screenshot for reference. When I am using the coordinate display actor I would assume lat,long would come in degrees and the projected x y comes as the cartesian map value. However both come as the same value. I have looked through the blueprint functions but can't seem to figure out what I am doing.
Ultimately I would like to have degrees (EPSG:4326) for the lat long and meters (EPSG:32630) for the x y elevation. Am I missing something with the blueprints/misunderstanding functionality or do I need to do some data prep in QGIS to make this possible?
Many thanks,
Jordan
Craig's looking into this and will provide feedback shortly. (I'd better crack on with the docs!)
Hello.
In our current setup, the actors in question follow their chain of parentage upward until they find an instance of ATerraFormProjectionAnchor, which serves as the basis for all coordinate-space conversions. Have you parented your actor to the projection anchor in the scene?
Thanks both,
Yes, in this instance I had parented my coordinate display actor to the coordinate system from the anchor. My anchor was using EPSG:32630 https://epsg.io/32630
Many thanks,
Jordan
