Downloading and setuping the Blueprint input data.

You can setup 4 input data files to your blueprint document to generate a scene.

Input data setup

For all five sets of files, the right button opens an action specific to the file : either the browser where you can download your files, or setup options, etc.

OpenStreetMap File

The OpenStreetMap file is mandatory, and you can only setup one OpenStreetMap file per blueprint document.

Note:

OpenStreetMap is a free, editable map of the whole world that is being built by volunteers largely from scratch and released with an open-content license.

To download your file :

Once the file is downloaded :

QGIS File(s)

The QGIS files are optional, but can either add precision or customization to the OpenStreetMap data, or completely replace the OpenStreetMap file.

Interesting QGIS files you may want to import if you're working on a French Scene :

In NDunes, it is not possible to directly import QGIS shapefiles, they must be converted into geojson files using QGIS or another software.

The files supported by the blueprint must respect the following criteria :

Make sure to set all these things when exporting your QGIS layer into a geojson file as shown in the image below.

After importing the QGIS files in NDunes, your must open the QGIS classifier widget by clicking on the button at the right of your QGIS files, in order to convert your imported QGIS objects into blueprint objects. Otherwise, you won't see anything on your blueprint.

The QGIS classifier is divided into 2 sections :

QGIS Classifier - Parsing Section

In the parsing section, you will let NDunes know what QGIS files you have imported and how you want to exploit them. Contrary to Open Street Map objects, a QGIS object can represent anything the QGIS user had in mind. So NDunes does not know if a particular polygon is a lake or a forest or a sidewalk, etc.

If you have imported a supported file from the source list, just select the correct source and the parsing options will automatically be set. If you have imported a custom file, select the "CUSTOM" source. You will then have to type the "CLASS NAME" property yourself.

Note:

What is the Class name property ? Your QGIS objects have a set of attributes called "properties". Any given property can be used for parsing as long as it is of type String in QGIS. The property you chose for "class name" will determine how the blueprint classes will gather objects. Two objects that have the same value for the chosen "Class name" property will end up in the same class in the blueprint, which means they will be generated with the same templates in 3D in NDunes.

Once every source file and "class name" property are set, you can hit the Parse files button. The section below will then fill with all the classes found in your QGIS files.

QGIS Classifier - Conversion Section

Then in the conversion section, for each class of objects (grouped together if they had the same "CLASS_NAME" property value in the QGIS file), you can select if you want them converted as blueprint classes, and under what kind of NDunes object. Options depend on the geometry type of the QGIS object :

Once you have chosen the NDunes conversion type for every QGIS object groups, clic OK and the blueprint classes will be updated instantly. They will appear in purple color on top of OSM objects.

Cadastre File(s)

The cadastre files are optional, but without a cadastre file, you will not be able to generate the gardens and sidewalks automatically from the blueprint. You can add as many cadastre files as you need to cover all the buildings of your OSM file (for instance if you have 3 villages in your zone, it is likely that you will need 3 cadastre files).

Note:

Cadastre files are free for download and availiable for all towns of France from a gouvernment website.

To download a cadastre file of one town :

Note:

An archive or zip is a compressed file or folder, used to take less space for download. Before using it, you have to unzip the file/folder using a specialized software. If you don't have one installed yet, you can download 7-zip or any other you like. Once the software is installed, you can right clic on your downloaded cadastre archive file and select "Extract here" to unzip it.

Once the file is downloaded :

ASC File(s)

The ASC files are elevation maps that the Blueprint uses to generate the real terrain underneath your town. These files are optional, you can choose to keep your scene flat or to use an artistic terrain that will not match the real relief of your area.

Note:

ASC files are free for download from the IGN website, constructed from a LIDAR technology, and are availiable in 3 different precisions : 25m, 5m and 1m. We advise the 5m for NDunes rendering, but all 3 area supported.

The ASC files are classified per department, so you have to download an entire department folder with all the ASC files covering the department:

To create your primary soil from the ASC files, we have developped a tool to make it as easy as possible. In the Blueprint view, click on the light bulb icon next to "ASC files:"

In the "ASC Files" helper pannel:

Troubleshooting :

After clicking on "Create Soil", you could get the following warning pannel if NDunes has not found in the folder all the necessary ASC files to cover the requested area.

It can happen in two cases :

Blueprint Stylesheet(s)

What is a blueprint stylesheet

A Blueprint stylesheet (or Blueprint template) is a particular type of Blueprint document that saves the association between a 2D category ( from OpenStreetMap, IGN, QGIS... ) and NDunes associated documents.

For instance here, an OSM land area of type "Rock" will be generated in NDunes as a decal area with a Soil document named Rocky_Soil_1. The "Bog" OSM area will have the biome "Wetland" spawn in it. For general scene specifications, we can see here the biome SparseForest will spawn in the outskirts of the scene.

How do I get a Blueprint Stylesheet ?

1) Blueprint stylesheets can be directly created in NDunes. To learn about creating your own stylesheets, please refer to Creating your own stylesheets.

2) Or you can download a ready-to-use stylesheet from the NDunes' store. Our stylesheets are setup by artists to respect a visual coherence, as well as optimize the balance between perfomances and rendering quality in NDunes. To download an NDunes stylesheet:

Once you've hit the download button, you will be invited to open NDunes : accept. In NDunes, the download of the stylesheet will begin. Downloading a stylesheet means downloading all the documents (soils, biomes...) that this stylesheet is using. This operation can take a while as there is a lot of 3D data (up to 30 minutes depending on your internet connection). NDunes will be freezed during this process, please wait and dont try to cancel the download by killing NDunes.

Now that you have your stylesheet

Now that you have a Blueprint stylesheet, you can select it using the "Blueprint template" document selector. As soon as you have set the Blueprint template, all the OSM categories and Scene parameters of your blueprint will fill up automatically.

Note that if you had already changed valus in the Scene Parameters of Customization of classes sections, they will be overriden by the new stylesheet values.

You can add several stylesheets in your blueprint, to cover data from different sources (OSM, QGIS...). If 1 category is covered by 2 different stylesheets, the settings from the last stylesheet in alphabetical order will be applied.

If you want to customize the stylesheet values, please refer to Customization of classes and Scene parameters. If you want to generate your scene based entirely on the style defined by the template, you can skip those two steps and go directly to Generating the scene

Redefining your area

Once you've imported all the input data you need, you may want to restrict the area you want to export in 3D from the blueprint. For this, you have 2 options : creating an export area, and/or cutting objects that continue outside your bounds.

Export Area

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Creating an export area

If you don't define an export area, all the objects contained in your OpenStreetMap and QGIS files will appear in your blueprint view, and will be exported in 3D at generation. If your files cover an area that is too big, you can reduce it by using the export area function.

To create an export area, click on the Create button, and start drawing a rectangle in the blueprint view. All objects that are completly outside of this rectangle will disappear from your blueprint. To delete your export area, click on the Delete button. You must delete an existing export area before creating a new one or modifying it. There can only be one rectangle at a time.

Cut objects by the bounds

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Cutting objects by the export area

By default, imported objects area kept whole, and are exported as long as the have at least a portion of the object inside the export area.

However, some imported objects (especially OSM landuse area or rivers and roads) may be very big and go way beyond your area of intersest. If this is the case, it can be intersting to cut them and remove the parts of the objects that go beyond the export bounds you have chosen. To do this, toggle the "Cut Objects" button.

Note:

Please note that buildings are not cut by this functionnality, because we want to preserve their shape and size. Moreover, buildings are not usually the really big objects that cause issues.