Importing Large Terrain from Google Earth

Question

I am currently using Google Sketchup 2015 Pro to export Google Earth terrain as obj wavefront format. I want to export Mount Everest and its nearby surrounding mountains so I can import it into a game. How can I do this?

I think Google Map Buddy did this, but it got banned, taken down, and it doesn't work anymore because people were downloading all of earth. Is there a better way?

If there isn't a better way to import larger areas on Google Maps, then I'll have to have tons of overlaying areas and I'll have to use the optimize tool in Cinema 4D to get rid of that.

Thanks

Answer 1

The USGS offers a number of digital elevation models (DEMs) at various resolutions with near global coverage which you can use as reference.

Amongst them, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) is the one at the highest resolution (~90 meters for the most part).

You can download GeoTIFF images of the areas of interest and then load them into QGIS to isolate the part of the DEM that you are interested in.

Once you have the DEM as a simple grayscale image, you can then use a program like blender to have the DEM displace the vertices of a plane surface and effectively convert the DEM to the surface of the mountain.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

Skybase has released an alternative for Google Map Buddy, called Map Buddy - http://skybase.ca/mapbuddy/, but it is still a beta version, and requires several in-app purchases to get your work done.

It is worth a shot, though.