Artifacts when importing real world data

Help! How do I...
#1

Hi,

I imported real world geotiff data into Worldmachine.
On very steep cliffs there are these spikes artifacts.
Is there a way to reduce these artifacts before or after importing it into worldmachine?

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image1561Ă—1147 343 KB

Thanks.
Marcel

#2

Hey, this could very well be caused by the data itself, as steep areas are known to cause problems.

I’ve no real experience with cleaning up this kind of artefacts, but I suppose you could use roughness map to detect the areas and then slightly blur them using that mask, but again, no experience with this kind of stuff.

#3

@hanselmarcel You need to approach the problem artistically, there’s no “one workflow to rule them all”. That said, I’ll outline one below.

  1. Connect the slope selector node, select “75-90” degrees slope. Use “exponential” falloff, and smooth the selection about 20%.

  2. Connect “blur” filter to your import, and use “Precise” mode. Blur about 10 meters, do it via perception. If the influence still looks like “sudden dropoff”, lock preview on blur device, and increase “slope faloff” until dropoff seems smooth. Once it’s done, unlock preview.

  3. Start adding details only once your heightmap has been cleared of all these artifacts.

There are also ways to use this import more as a “guideline” for wm noises, but that may become complex for you if you’re new to this. Experimentation is the key here, no two cases are the same. I do this for a living, full time.

#4

Thanks to you both!
Both solutions worked.

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