Some guys wanted to know something about Michigan terrain. Which areas are included and how far the project is gone today.
To beginn. There is a small problem with the GOTOPO30 database, which is the basic of terrain making. As more you come to north as more "warped" is the terrain data. The north to south distances are shorter as in reality while the west to east distances are more or less correct. For instance, the Lake Michigan is around 500 km long in north south direction, while the GOTOPO30 gives it a lenght of around 300 km. I have tried to equalize the data to get the correct distances. On the first view the result was promissing, but then i found strange artefacts on the terrain heightmap, like hundrets of 50 meter high hills in the Lake areas and other strange things. Thatswhy i decided to use the data, which i got from Terrain Editor.
The hightfield you see in the right part of the following screenshot. As you surely see is that the dimensions of the Big Lakes are not so, how we know it from the map. But we will have to live with it, so as it is.
The left side of the screenshot shows the tiling of the map at the moment. As you see Lake Michigan is done. The rest is farmland, with one exception, at the left lower part of the Lake you see the first Citytiles, at the place were Chicago will be.
The next step will be to bring Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Superior on the map.
The next 3 screenshot showing the Citytiles and how the looks from different altidues.