I was wondering if anyone had any experience extracting topology from google earth, converting it into a mesh that would be usable in Rhino. We are in thing to put a certain mountain range or section of a mountain range and flow it on to a ring surface.
You mean topography? What country?
It used to work for me through SketchUp but it fails in my current 2017 version…
Switzerland for example has accurate lidar data available for free in a grid of up to 25 centimeters. For my projects in Switzerland I do not waste my time going through SketchUp anymore.
Something like this? If you’re open to using Grasshopper, the definition below uses Heron for Mac. The source of the topography is USGS.
-Brian
There is also a plugin for blender, but it will get you not only the topography but the complete 3D data with houses, trees, etc. You can export it from blender as obj and then import it into rhino.
If you want a “clean” topography surface, you can place points on the right parts of the google mesh, then patch your topography.
I used it successfully a few times.