Your terrain, your way

Screenshot of Leveller with a document open

Leveller, the powerful and friendly heightmap modeler

Intuitive 3D sandbox sculpting with the accuracy of georeferencing, vector shapes, 32-bit pixel precision and 16-bit selection masking. Leveller's affordable, easy to use, and gets your elevation data where it needs to be.
 
Available for Microsoft Windows 7 or higher.
WinTab-based graphics tablets supported (e.g. Wacom).


Leveller testimonial from Darren Vincent of Earth Simulations Ltd.

Features

Some of the tools used in Leveller

A familiar environment

Use tools that you already know from paint and illustration software. The digital sandbox paradigm lets you sculpt in a freeform, natural way.

Selection mask example

Selection masking

Select any arbitrary set of heightfield pixels to limit and focus any modeling operation. Select by shape, by brushing, by searching for neighbouring elevations and colors, by loading from grayscale files, etc.

Custom brush example

Custom brushes

Unleash your creativity. Define your own brushes to make unlimited stroke patterns. Stroke vector shape paths for precise brushing and overlapping. Make temporary tweaks to brushes on the fly to stay in the zone; create new brushes only when necessary.

Map with gridlines

Flexible measurement

Work with realworld coordinates such as UTM or latitude/longitude, or use a custom local coordinate system. Use different measurement units for ground and altitude.

Terraced and deterraced areas

Filters and generators

Create and modify terrain using a variety of effects, from the basic to the very handy to the imaginative. Lakes, craters, hills, random and regular patterns, erosion... all sorts of heavy lifting just a few clicks away.

Cessna airplane

Flyover animations

Create motion paths for the camera and the look-at point, then generate frames using OpenGL or raytracing. Store any number of paths using the vector shape facility.

Script example

Scripting

Create filter and selector plug-ins and macros using Lua. Specify UI dialogs using simple XML.

Contour lines

Contour lines + elevation labels

Keep track of terrain elevations easily with contour lines that redraw in realtime, as you edit. Place elevation labels where you want.

Contour plot

Contour import/export + creation

Directly read in contour data from DXF polyline files, ESRI shapefiles, or from Adobe Illustrator gray-filled paths, and export to DXF. You can also create contour lines from raster terrain and vice versa.

Cut/fill map view

Cut/fill volume analysis

Track differences between new and old terrain automatically, with statusbar readouts showing total cut and fill volumes and relative colormaps highlighting the location of edits. Assess volumes for selected subregions too.

Cross section screenshot

Cross section analysis

Display cross sections along any vector shape's path, and query any point along a cross section for details, including cut/fill data.

Picture of graphics tablet

Graphics tablet support

Gain a natural drawing feel. Apply a light touch to create subtle lifts and depressions or a heavy one to quickly push elevations around. Customize pressure sensitivity mappings individually for each tool.


Leveller testimonial by Charles Fusner and Cees van der Mark, POV-Ray artists

Golf Course Design

Raytraced scene of golf course island

Prototyping golf courses with the sandbox paradigm makes work an intuitive breeze. If you have a scan of the original terrain, Leveller will dynamically compute cut and fill volumes, and you can view cross sections of any arbitrary path to see slope differences. For those needing contour lines, Leveller can show them in realtime with any spacing, and elevation labels can be placed anywhere.

The raytracer includes common scenery objects such as flagsticks, grass, rocks, flowering plants, and deciduous/coniferous/palm trees. The texture library lets you make textures for bunkers, greens, roughs, water hazards, etc. Vector shapes let you precisely define texture splats and distribute objects, and easily reshape/reposition them if needed.

Create flyover animations with custom camera paths.

Use hole routing shapes to simplify planning and layout of fairways.

Screenshot of golf hole routing dialog alongside map showing three routings

Vector Shapes

You can mark up the heightfield with polyline and spline shapes, as a visualization aid or as a modeling assist.

Small screenshot of vector shapes on golf course

Use vector shapes to annotate, to add local texture detail, and to easily fill areas with objects. Illustrator-style controls let you easily create markers (points), lines, polygons, circles and arbitrary curves. You can also obtain raster selection masks from vector shapes for precision modeling. Elevated shapes let you work with contour lines and quickly create heightfield formations. Import shapes from GDAL-supported formats and Adobe Illustrator or SVG, and export to DXF, Illustrator, and to SVG.


Leveller testimonial from Stephan Becker of Beautiful Oceans

3D Objects

You can place objects and apply shader-based ground textures, in areas defined by shape fills or strokes.

Raytraced scene showing coniferous forest and rocky shoreline

Supported File Formats

Leveller can import/export a variety of file formats. Note: the data tables are wide so for best viewing, mobile device users should prefer a landscape orientation.


Signage/CNC Usage

Many people use Leveller for signage and CNC work. Our STL plug-in, for example, exports standard StereoLithography files (solid or surface-only, text or binary) that can drive production equipment.

Example mosaiced and textured heightfield

While Leveller is mostly used by people in the landscape, landsite, and terrain illustration industry, the underlying digital sandbox mechanism lends itself very well to the sculpting of any 3D surface.


Leveller testimonial by freelance designer Paul Kime