Planetside

Terragen 2 allows you to create and manipulate highly realistic terrains, both heightfield and procedural. You can load existing heightfields to replicate real-world terrains and gain additional control by using a 3rd party terrain editor, or leverage the powerful built-in procedural functions to achieve global-scale terrains of nearly infinite detail, from the smallest pebble, to the largest mountains. You can combine the benefits of both terrain types in one scene, seamlessly. Even your heightfield terrains can be enhanced with the power and flexibility of procedurals. 

Using 3D procedural functions, go beyond the limits of heightfields to create truly realistic terrains, including sheer cliffs and even overhangs. Let your imagination run wild and create out-of-this-world terrains.

Georeferencing of digital elevation data is a snap. This works automatically with certain GeoTIFFs, including those downloaded from the National Map Seamless Server, an excellent resource from the USGS. Lat-long values can be entered manually if automatic georeferencing is unavailable or needs to be adjusted. Fractal details can be added automatically to imported elevation data.

Terragen™ 2 Mars Animation

This animation was entirely rendered with Terragen 2. Minor colour adjustment and filtering was done outside of TG2. Elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) was used to displace the surface of a Mars-size sphere. Because the resolution of the data is limited, fractal noise and procedural rock strata functions provided additional (but fictional) detail to render pleasing images from very close to the planet's surface. Atmosphere and surface colours are purely fictional. Fractal noise shaders and relief-dependent shader distributions were used to colour the surface. The satellite Phobos is approximately to scale in the animation, but its shape is not real.