A terrain file contains a 16-byte identifier followed by a number of chunks. The positions of the various chunks are not rigidly defined, so if you are writing a terrain file reader it should allow for the flexibility of chunk positioning. However, if you are writing out terrain files, beware that some chunks must appear before others.

All chunks are aligned to the nearest 4 bytes. Each chunk contains a 4-byte marker (eg. "ALTW"), then some data.

Note: The structure of a chunk in a terrain file is different from that of the chunks found in some other Terragen files. Terrain file chunks do not include a "length of data" value.

A terrain file must contain the following:

The "YPTS" marker is followed by a 2-byte integer value ypts, followed by 2 bytes of padding. ypts is equal to the number of data points in the y-direction in the elevation image.

The "SIZE" marker is followed by a 2-byte integer value equal to n - 1, followed by 2 bytes of padding. In square terrains, n is the number of data points on a side of the elevation image. In non-square terrains, n is equal to the number of data points along the shortest side.
Example: a terrain with a heightfield 300 points in the x-direction and 400 points in the y-direction would have a size value of 299.

The "SCAL" marker is followed by three intel-ordered 4-byte floating point values (x,y,z). It represents the scale of the terrain in metres per terrain unit. Default scale is currently (30,30,30). At present, Terragen can not use non-uniform scaling, so x, y and z must be equal.

The "CRAD" marker is followed by one intel-ordered 4-byte floating point value. It represents the radius of the planet being rendered and is measured in kilometres. The default value is 6370, which is the approximate radius of the Earth.

The "CRVM" marker is followed by one unsigned integer. Mode 0 means the terrain is rendered flat (default). Mode 1 means the terrain is draped (and stretched) over a sphere of radius CRAD*1000/zscale, centred at (midx, midy, -CRAD*1000/zscale), where midx=XSIZE/2 and midy=YSIZE/2. (Terrain sizes are one less than the number of points on the side.)
The x and y values are undistorted, therefore the map will still look normal when viewed from above, but geographic distances will be stretched towards the edge of the map if there is a lot of curvature. There is also an implicit limit on the size/curvature radius of a landscape before the landscape becomes unacceptably distorted.
Other curve modes are currently undefined, and reserved for the future.

ALTW stands for 'Altitude in 16-bit Words'. After The "ALTW" marker, the following appear in order:

HeightScale, a 2-byte signed integer value.
BaseHeight, a 2-byte signed integer value.
Elevations, a sequence of 2-byte signed integers.

There are (xpts * ypts) elevation integers, where xpts and ypts will have been set earlier in the "SIZE" chunk or the "XPTS" and "YPTS" chunks. The elevations are ordered such that the first row (y = 0) is read first from left to right, then the second (y = 1), and so on. The values in Elevations are not absolute altitudes. The absolute altitude of a particular point (in the same scale as x and y) is equal to BaseHeight + Elevation * HeightScale / 65536.

Last modified 2003.10.30 by Matt Fairclough