Introducing TGC Designer Tools and Real Course Recreation Lidar Import

[ChadGolf]

Hi everyone!

I've been hard at work for the last month developing tools that primarily will import Lidar data into TGC 2019 Courses.

There have been a lot of ups and downs, but I'm at the point where I'm ready to accept feedback from the community.

A completed course file is available here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RYW...ew?usp=sharing

Please don't publish this course in game, it's not completed and I call 'dibs' on publishing this course after I finish decorating it.


I've completed the proof-of-concept phases and have created playable, realistic courses. I'm still working on the User Interface and instructions to make this the easiest that it can be, but I wanted to open the tools up for developers to contribute fixes.

The source code is available free on Github and releases will be available there under the "Releases" link. I'm targeting the initial release in a week or two as a Windows download:

https://github.com/chadrockey/TGC-Designer-Tools

https://i.imgur.com/4GnzENd.png

I also am supporting import from OpenStreetMap golf courses ( https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=1...576/-115.28536 ) into TGC as splines if you don't want the lidar elevation or can't get lidar for your course.

https://i.imgur.com/Nza71FG.png

Quick tips if you want to get started on your OpenStreetMap course: use the highest quality sat image available, map greens along the inside of THE FRINGE, map bunkers on the outside lip, map water on the outside lip.

For more information on the process or if you want to support future features of this tool, please read here: https://www.patreon.com/chadgolf

I hope this brings enjoyment to everyone. We all have courses that are personally meaningful to us, and I hope this software inspires you to create something for the community.
- Chad

Special thanks to MTHunt, crazycanuck1985, friendBOMBER, and HTdumps for initial feedback and guidance.

Instructions and a tutorial linked from this page: https://chadrockey.github.io/TGC-Designer-Tools/

[s0707]

You guys were talking about an EPSG number. What are where do I use this with Chad's tool? I think this is the last step before I can start decorating. I'm getting the same error message that Brent was getting

After you determine the right EPSG number to use, you input that on the second tab of Chad's Tool GUI, in the "Force Lidar EPSG Projection" box.

The sometimes difficult part is determining the right EPSG number to use. It is related to the lidar data set you have. For example, you can have two different lidar data sets for the same area, each one using a different EPSG number. It has to do with what type of coordinate projection the creators of the lidar data chose for their data set.

The first place to check is if there is any web page about the lidar data set that will tell you the epsg number to use. For example, the epsg=6343 mentioned in this page for central Texas data: https://data.tnris.org/collection/05...c-28c65df9c70d

If no luck, then investigate in a metadata XML file, if you have one available; the epsg code might be there, but there is no standard for how it is labeled. You have some detective work on it.

If you still haven't found it, one last option is to try web pages like https://epsg.org/home.html, https://www.spatialreference.org, or http://epsg.io, and by trial-and-error give it a shot to different epsg numbers they show for your area. Some folks in this forum are also very helpful in finding the epsg number to use, and they might have more suggestions.

You can tell that you used the right epsg number by looking at two maps that Chad's tool displays for you. It shows a window with a satellite image from MapQuest, and next to it an image of the processed lidar. If you can tell that the images match the same area of your golf course, then you're good to go. These maps show up after you've clicked on the "Select Lidar and Generate Heightmap" button on the second tab of Chad's tool, and you've selected the folder where you've stored your .las or .laz lidar data files.

[William Jenkins]

After you determine the right EPSG number to use, you input that on the second tab of Chad's Tool GUI, in the "Force Lidar EPSG Projection" box.

The sometimes difficult part is determining the right EPSG number to use. It is related to the lidar data set you have. For example, you can have two different lidar data sets for the same area, each one using a different EPSG number. It has to do with what type of coordinate projection the creators of the lidar data chose for their data set.

The first place to check is if there is any web page about the lidar data set that will tell you the epsg number to use. For example, the epsg=6343 mentioned in this page for central Texas data: https://data.tnris.org/collection/05...c-28c65df9c70d

If no luck, then investigate in a metadata XML file, if you have one available; the epsg code might be there, but there is no standard for how it is labeled. You have some detective work on it.

If you still haven't found it, one last option is to try web pages like https://epsg.org/home.html, https://www.spatialreference.org, or http://epsg.io, and by trial-and-error give it a shot to different epsg numbers they show for your area. Some folks in this forum are also very helpful in finding the epsg number to use, and they might have more suggestions.

You can tell that you used the right epsg number by looking at two maps that Chad's tool displays for you. It shows a window with a satellite image from MapQuest, and next to it an image of the processed lidar. If you can tell that the images match the same area of your golf course, then you're good to go. These maps show up after you've clicked on the "Select Lidar and Generate Heightmap" button on the second tab of Chad's tool, and you've selected the folder where you've stored your .las or .laz lidar data files.

I've tried everything and every site listed, for the life of me can't get the correct EPSG code, tried dozens. Either the 2 maps will not show the same image or I end up with a blank page. I used to be able to do this no problem a few months back, I wonder what changed. I've downloaded the LAZ with matching XML files, uncompressed the LAZ to LAS and still nothing.

[jpotas]

What course? Also post the address. I will check it out for you

[William Jenkins]

It's Primm Valley Golf Club, I mapped the Lakes course on OSM already, just need to add the Desert course.
-115.423284°, 35.555219° are the coordinates. Thanks for checking.

[tommygun101101]

If you go into the Lidar and find that there are two sets of lidar (different years). Only use one set ☝️ I ran into the error asking for EPSG code and this fixed it. Ran perfect and didn’t ask for a code any longer.

[William Jenkins]

If you go into the Lidar and find that there are two sets of lidar (different years). Only use one set ☝️ I ran into the error asking for EPSG code and this fixed it. Ran perfect and didn’t ask for a code any longer.

Only 1 set of data to use.

[nickfisher47]

I am not sure who still reads this, and I've been lucky enough to have some help from a great fellow forum member, but I think the community could benefit a ton from a new tutorial video on how to pull Lidar. Jerry did a great one on youtube but it was not for a specific course, rather tor a specific plot of land he built a coure on.

I guess I'm writing this b/c if someone wants to be a hero, and go through the entire process from OSM to Chads Tool and ultimately getting it into TGC2019, you'd get a lot of views and a lot of thank yous!

[jpotas]

It's already been done. Search You Tube for "The lidar king" He is a member of this forum and has incredible videos online. You can learn every single step by watching two of his videos. Here are some to start.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYa4ODgo-Bc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjarhsh-cSc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qjarhsh-cSc&list=PLH7Hk16N_Bu5LQCXx7D_p997IsHkWU9Kr&index=1

[jpotas]

Here is a great one by the Creator of Chad's tool himself!

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/414113375

[nickfisher47]

Thanks jpotas . I've seen The King's stuff, but never the Chad video, which I'm sure will be great! The 2nd and 3rd link above for King seem to be the same - was there a 3rd video I should see?

thanks again

[jpotas]

Sorry, did not realize it was the same. Search his stuff, he used to have tons of tutorials out there. The Chad video is very good though.

[jpotas]

Only 1 set of data to use.

Your EPSG for Lidar off of the National Map website is 6350.

[dehoffe76]

So I just tried my hand for the first time using Chad's tool and by following his twitch video. I'm doing my local course here in SE Columbus, Ohio and when I export it there are a couple of issues I'm running into and was hoping for feedback. The first thing is if I check the box to incorporate trees from lidar, when I open the course in TGC 19 I get an error (HB-RS 1702). Any idea what is causing this error? If I uncheck the tree button I can export the course and open it. This brings me to my second issue. When I open the course everything shows up correctly, however things appear to be muted (hills seem smaller, elevations smaller, and greens are almost completely flat). I know the EPSG says it is measured in ft/US and Chad mentioned in his video that can cause issues, but I'm not sure if he has changed his tool to adjust for that since you can't force lidar unit anymore. The lidar is recent: 2019, 3DEP Quality level 1, 5cm RMSEz Vertical accuracy. Anyone with possible insight?

[91:an]

Spline in Google map?

I am looking into designing my home courses when lidar will be released this or next year.
Until then I am going to try to learn designing a course I never played where lidar is available. There is a course guide, aerial photos and a drone video for all the holes that helps. After splining a few holes in openstreetmap and using the designer tool to get it together with lidar I noticed in the course designer that mapping was around 8m off.
I first thought lidar was off but I converted OSM to KML (Mygeodata.cloud) and uploaded data to a google map and realized it was the bing-image in openstreetmap that was dislocated and my mapping was off. I looked through all the satellite options in OSM and some are close but still off a bit and image quality on all image options where quite bad. I did the imagery offset on Bing to adjust for the dislocation and did the mapping. Would liked to have done mapping in google map as the image quality was good but if was not possible to convert KML back to OSM in the tool I use. It gave me however a thought for designer tool. Howabout enabling the tool to use mapping data done in a personal google-map? It is possible to add personal data labels to lines and points similar to what is used in OSM!

I uploaded the OSM-mapping converted to KML in map on the link.
Some features are shapes after the conversion that messes things when panning around in the map but it is not necessary for closed areas to be shapes when you draw them manually.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/1/ed...18847984954335 &z=18

[jpotas]

If the whole course is off location you can shift it in Chad's tool. It works great. I actually use it on every course that I recreate. By shifting it you get the sand traps to sit perfectly within their pockets.

I use whatever map in OSM has the best imagery, and I will spline the entire course using that specific map. By doing this you remain consistent and can then shift the entire course. It takes a little bit of trial and error but after a few attempts you quickly realize how far you need to shift it.

[myrison]

jpotas - could you describe a bit more the process you follow in the designer to see by how far the OSM is off and how you adjust and test to make sure the offset is correct? I’ve done 3 courses and perhaps I’ve just gotten lucky bit all have seemed to be well-aligned with no adjustment. It also could be that I just don’t know how to check, so any tips are appreciated. Cheers.

[jpotas]

myrison, send me a PM with your email address and I will send you a power point that I made that explains how to shift the course. I have sent it to several members of this forum.

[dugue4]

If im only finding .laz files instead of .las am i doing it wrong?

[s0707]

Chad's tool can use either .laz or .las files. .laz files are compressed versions of .las files.

[Brettster]

Another quick question. I've downloaded 4 LAS files. Then I see in Chad's Tutorial he mentions this:

I will eventually create a good tutorial on how to make courses on OpenStreetMap, but here is a short video where it does a bad job of mapping the course, but explains the basics: https://blog.mapbox.com/mapping-a-go...e-4f5bc88ca59b

Important tips to keep in mind: Map greens along the inside of THE FRINGE Map bunkers on the outside lip Map water on the outside lip.

So, my question, is the OpenStreetMap part required or what am I going to be missing if I do not do it? Also, what is the easiest way to do the OpenStreetMap mapping, or is it just outlining the fairways, traps, greens, in OpenStreetMap?

TIA,
-Brett

[myrison]

Yes the OSM part is mandatory. Google for Chad’s twitch stream covering the process end to end. It’a an hour plus long video that will explain it all to you.

[s0707]

Just to answer the question of what would happen if you don't use OSM: you would have to manually locate every tee box, fairway, bunker, green, etc in the tgc19 designer. All you would get is the terrain contours from Lidar data, but it would be hard to accurately locate where the golf features go, IMO. It's much easier with OSM. The Lidar King has a good tutorial for using it.

[Brettster]

I dropped the .las files in my Course directory, but when I try to import it with Chad's tool, nothing happens as it does not see any files in the folder? Is it looking for a certain extension? Do I have to get these files in .laz format?

TIA,
-Brett

[s0707]

It's looking for .laz or .las extension. Have you selected your course directory (top buton) prior to clicking the "Select Lidar and Generate Heightmap" button?

I normally create a work directory different from the tgc19 Courses directory to run the Chad's tool on. I copy the course file from the tgc19 directory to this working folder, and I even rename the course file from the garbled name to something meaningful while keeping the .course extension (for example, ji3993jj9x7.course to jimmy_clay_v3_input.course), and from then on you can keep this meaningful name in your design. Even when you bring it back to the tgc19 Courses directory (for example jimmy_clay_v3_output.course), tgc will read and work normally with the renamed file.

In summary, this is what I do:

1. create a new work directory
2. copy from the tgc19 Courses directory the garbled-name course file into my working directory and rename it to something meaninful
3. copy the laz/las file to the work directory, plus any metadata xml file I may have.
4. run Chad's tgc tool
5. Click on Select Course directory and point it to my working folder
6. Click on Import Course and select my renamed .course file (takes a few seconds to load)
7. On the 2nd tab, enter my EPSG code and click on Select Lidar and Generate Heightmap
8. If all goes well, when the satellite images show, define the red rectangle to crop out terrain outside the golf course, but be careful no to crop too tight otherwise it can miss some of the intended terrain (I would say leave at least 200 yards outside the course)
9. If all goes well it will produce the internal files (heightmap) and the bitmap image you can draw the red areas to further crop out terrain
10. etc (on to work on tab 3, etc).

When all is done I export the file with a meaningful name (jimmy_clay_v3_output.course, for example) and copy that file back to the tgc19 Courses directory. The tgc19 designer recognizes the file without problem, as long as it has the .course extension.

Hope this helps.

[Brettster]

s0707 - I've done all of what you say, the only thing I have not done, is this:

7. On the 2nd tab, enter my EPSG code and click on Select Lidar and Generate Heightmap

I've seen others asking up here, but WHERE do I get the EPSG code from? I don't remember it being mentioned at all in Chad's video? I'll re-watch some to check... but that's a very long video... I know this is the hardest part of the LiDAR process, but it sure is a pain, I'm surprised someone has not found a better way to do this, such as have the LiDAR files pull automatically? Scripting the NationalMap, if it is even possible would be one way to do it, but man, this is a crazy amount of work to just pull LiDAR files!

P.S. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

TIA,
-Brett

oops, there is one last thing I also forgot to mention. I never got that menu when downloading the LiDAR files form the national map, I only get a list of 4 LiDAR files, with <download links> next to them all, I downloaded all 4 of them, but I never saw all that stuff about matching 'M'eters, to 'M'eters, and picking the exact data type, etc, etc.? Will I be ok, I wonder if the downloads offered are already setup properly, or if there is some configuration part I am missing before downloading? Once again, what a PIA, just to get LiDAR files.

[mthunt]

There's no good way to do it. Sometimes the code is in the metadata file. You can google it and there are some sites but you may have to try a lot of codes.

[s0707]

s0707 - I've done all of what you say, the only thing I have not done, is this:


I've seen others asking up here, but WHERE do I get the EPSG code from? I don't remember it being mentioned at all in Chad's video? I'll re-watch some to check... but that's a very long video... I know this is the hardest part of the LiDAR process, but it sure is a pain, I'm surprised someone has not found a better way to do this, such as have the LiDAR files pull automatically? Scripting the NationalMap, if it is even possible would be one way to do it, but man, this is a crazy amount of work to just pull LiDAR files!

P.S. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

TIA,
-Brett

oops, there is one last thing I also forgot to mention. I never got that menu when downloading the LiDAR files form the national map, I only get a list of 4 LiDAR files, with <download links> next to them all, I downloaded all 4 of them, but I never saw all that stuff about matching 'M'eters, to 'M'eters, and picking the exact data type, etc, etc.? Will I be ok, I wonder if the downloads offered are already setup properly, or if there is some configuration part I am missing before downloading? Once again, what a PIA, just to get LiDAR files.

Yeah, it's a process of trial and error, trying different epsg codes until one works. I wish there'd be someone in our forum deeply knowledgeable about GIS's that could guide us on the best way to find the epsg codes

In the meantime, jpotas has been really helpful. He's shared a method he's used to find epsg codes to try: Use a text editor that can open the las or laz file and display strings within it. In other words, las or laz are binary files, but they have character strings embedded. At the beginning of the file there are a number of strings that point out epsg codes to try. You can try opening it in Notepad, but the thing is that las or laz files are really large and it may take a long time to load (minutes), or not work at all.

There's another way to display strings in a binary file: download the 'strings' program from sysinternals: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sys...nloads/strings - this is a DOS-Command Prompt program that will scan a binary file and show the character strings embedded in it. After you download 'strings', open a DOS Command Prompt window and do

<drive-where-strings-program-is>:\<directory-of-strings-program>\strings.exe -b 3000 <path-to-las-or-laz-file>

For example:

C:\temp\downloads\strings.exe -b 3000 C:\chads_tool\my_course\working_folder\stratmap17-50cm_3097511d4.laz

"-b 3000" is the number of bytes to scan. If I do that on that central Texas lidar file, I get the following:

LASF
RIEGL
LIDAR1 tiled
{IA
.a@
LASF_Projection
OGC WKT Coordinate System
COMPD_CS["NAD83(2011) / UTM zone 14N + NAVD88 height - Geoid12B (metre)",PROJCS["NAD83(2011) / UTM zone 14N",GEOGCS["NAD83(2011)",DATUM["NAD83_National_Spatial_Reference_System_2011" ,SPH EROID["GRS 1980",6378137,298.257222101,AUTHORITY["EPSG","7019"]],AUTHORITY["EPSG","1116"]],PRIMEM["Greenwich",0,AUTHORITY["EPSG","8901"]],UNIT["degree",0.0174532925199433,AUTHORITY["EPSG","9122"]],AUTHORITY["EPSG","6318"]],PROJECTION["Transverse_Mercator"],PARAMETER["latitude_of_origin",0],PARAMETER["central_meridian",-99],PARAMETER["scale_factor",0.9996],PARAMETER["false_easting",500000],PARAMETER["false_northing",0],UNIT["metre",1,AUTHORITY["EPSG","9001"]],AXIS["Easting",EAST],AXIS["Northing",NORTH],AUTHORITY["EPSG","6343"]],VERT_CS["NAVD88 height - Geoid12B (metre)",VERT_DATUM["North American Vertical Datum 1988",2005,AUTHORITY["EPSG","5103"]],UNIT["metre",1,AUTHORITY["EPSG","9001"]],AUTHORITY["EPSG","5703"]]]
NIIRS10
NIIRS10 Timestamp
NIIRS10
NIIRS10 Tile Index
laszip encoded
by laszip of LAStools (171215)
x<+
8 ;
~6o

As you can see there are several epsg codes listed (search for 'epsg' with a text editor): 7019, 1116, 8901, 9122, 6318, 9001 (appears twice), 6343, 5103, and 5703. In my case, 6343 was the good one.

About the other question of 'M'eters to 'M'eters, I've never dealt with that. I just downloaded the lidar files and processed them without problem. You may not have an issue either, but I do remember from Chad's video him mentioning an issue with units of imperial feet vs. geodesy feet, or something like that... I'd say just try it.

[jpotas]

Brettster , I emailed you my Power Point that explains how to shift a course. Did you ever find the EPSG that you were looking for?

[William Jenkins]

Can I get that same PP? I've done a few courses but have noticed some water and bunker features are off.