using 3d analyst to convert a 3d terrain mesh to a DEM/16bit grayscale image/TIN/

TimBranan — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 16:40:18 GMT

I'm stuck in a weird situation and trying to find a solution. I'm not familiar with 3D Analyst at all, but some searches seem to suggest that there is a slight possibility that it may do what I want.

the issue:

I have a request to insert a chunk of artifical terrain into a piece of real geography with real world coordinates. The only way I could think to blend this seamlessly was to convert it to 3d models in 3D Studio Max, and edit them together.
The resultant output needs to be also in DEM format, and a 16bit grayscale image.

the huge glaring problem:

I have no idea how to take that resultant 3d model and convert it. All the software I'm familiar with is a one way pipeline. I can't see a way to solve this. I thought maybe if I could take that mesh and someone convert it into a TIN, possibly 3d analyst could then use that to create the final output. But there is that tricky first step of creating a tin out of my 3d model.

I thought maybe I could take two grayscale images and edit them together in Photoshop but that doesn't work either as there is simply no way to get it to blend without a thousand iterations.

Am I hosed, or is there a way? I am totally stuck.

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using 3d analyst to convert a 3d terrain mesh to a DEM/16bit grayscale image/TIN/