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/

[PatPapania]

Just found and read through the entire thread. I can not wait to give this a try!!! I've been wanting to recreate my favorite local course, and have spent over 20 hours in TGC just getting the course lined up perfectly (literally, just the end points from back of tee to back of green, nothing else). I have 16 tee to green points done, and they are perfect, but no tee boxes, greens fairways, elevation.

I'm going to check out the tutorial and start a new one from that. I'll report feedback as I go through it. Time has always been the issue for me, and this looks to be a game changer!!

ChadGolf - thanks for your help!

[thorin33]

Does anyone know a good source for Canadian lidar files?

[Whiskeyjack]

Yeah was wondering about that myself.

[colinjm18]

I don’t have tgc 19 yet on any platform but I’m very disappointed as my local course has two 18 hole courses and there is only 3 holes with lidar that I can find.

[Craig118]

This is totally game changing. What used to take countless hours to create elevation changes now takes a few keystrokes. I completed a plot of Champions Golf Course in Columbus, Ohio this morning in a little over 2 hours. Pretty much completed the 10th Hole in under 30 minutes. This is a hole with a 50 foot elevation change that I never would have gotten right. Hope they can figure out how to eliminate the wavy fairways when you spline them on OSM. Even if they don't the touch up is not too time consuming. Heres a couple pics of # 10 with about 1/2 hour of work

[ChadGolf]

Craig118 can you send me screenshots of your completed splines or re-done fairways that you like? I need to see examples of the spline handles in game to determine how I can generalize the fairways to look decent on all courses and themes.

[Solstice72]

That's it, I'm going home to try too. How do you get the Xbox controller plugged into the PC, cable or Bluetooth do you have to buy a new one that looks like an Xbox controller?

[ChadGolf]

@Soltice72 you probably want this one with the PC Adapter. The PC Adapter is much easier to pair and you can move it from computer to computer:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/microsoft-xbox-wireless-controller-wireless-adapter-windows-10-black/6185207.p?skuId=6185207

A USB cable would probably also work fine in all cases.

[Laboroflove]

Craig118 looks excellent! Leads me to ask, what are people doing for trees? Are you 1) using an auto generated forest plot to start, dropping in Lidar and OSM data on top then cleaning up noticeable trees or 2) starting with a totally blank course and adding in every tree manually?

[ChadGolf]

I usually start with no autogenerated objects.and then import the lidar and check out the fine details and alignments.

You can add in the autogenerated objects at anything in Course settings or change the amount of trees at any time. Thankfully it's not a final decision so you can always change your mind. My only comment is that the Remove Generated Objects or Remove Generated Tree Brushes are sometimes hard to find after you've painted them in, so try to make sure you get those right.

There's also the new "Tree Clusters" ability. I forget the exact controls but CrazyCanuck mentions it in his tutorials, you can stamp and paste a section of trees to get a lot of trees in the exact shape and density you want. I think this is becoming one my favorite ways to add trees.

[Craig118]

Craig118 looks excellent! Leads me to ask, what are people doing for trees? Are you 1) using an auto generated forest plot to start, dropping in Lidar and OSM data on top then cleaning up noticeable trees or 2) starting with a totally blank course and adding in every tree manually?

I'm starting with a blank flat plot, no trees, rocks, holes...etc. Here's a pic of the plot

[Craig118]

I've done quite a bit of experimenting regarding the wavy fairways. I believe the root cause is when you are zigzagging your waypoints. You need to make sure they are making a smooth curve and not too many inflection points. Hopefully that makes sense. Once I started cleaning up my OSM waypoints my fairways are looking MUCH better.

I'm getting jaggies in the straight section, the curves are fine. The straight sections are where I am getting most of the jaggies. I went back to OSM and tried to redo a fairway that was pretty bad with points every 5 yards or so, that did not help either.

[Craig118]

This is what I am seeing, the points are in a straight line

[ChadGolf]

vrpunk I added a fallover case to try to produce images that look decent even if the lidar is missing the brightness data. Will come out in the next release.

[vrpunk]

Thanks ChadGolf, software developer myself, understand the iterative process, great to have a lot of test data to solve 80+% of the problems and evolve the application. Can see the toolset developing into something special as each stage is broken down and refined.
Looking forward to OSM tutorials and TGC19 tutorials as it evolves and becomes easier for the end-user.

[andygg1986]

Is there a physical size limit on the course? When I go to make my mask, it shows the whole thing. But when I go to the Course Tools tab the top and bottom get cut off and it won't fit any better by rotating or shifting. In case it matters, the water running down the middle of the mask is an artifact from OSM having a creek that runs through the course. It looks like it was already defined as a path instead of an area. But the tool doesn't seem to get confused by it.

[ChadGolf]

andygg1986 as long as the water isn't tagged as a golf:water_hazard or a golf:lateral_water_hazard, it won't get imported. OpenStreetMap is pretty lenient, so you could probably delete it and make it right "for playability".

As for the course not fitting, I thought you would have had to build courses like this in two sections. BUT it turns out that the in game map size will expand IF AND ONLY IF there are holes defined outside of the normal 2000x2000 meter limit. So if you add your holes in OpenStreetMap and import them, then load up your course, it should be fine.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the preview being cut off. The expanding course thing is a little bit undefined so I don't know exactly how much to expand.

[mthunt]

This is what I am seeing, the points are in a straight line

Craig, I believe the jaggies are causes by over laying rough and heavy rough.

[Wang]

I just set up the plot for Old MacDonald at Bandon Dunes to see how it would do. I have always considered that to be about the most undoable RCR in the game due to the billions humps and bumps. It is going to take some time for me to get over what a different universe we are now going to be designing in.

[ChadGolf]

Did you find recent lidar data? I am planning on doing a community collaboration (I'll produce high quality lidar/base and then the community participates in decorating/fine tuning and testing before rleease) for Bandon Dunes, Pacific Dunes, and Bandon Trails. I think the latest lidar I could find was from 2008. There's some newer stuff along the coast but it didn't capture the Punchbowl which would have been another great one to do. :\

[frodaddy00]

The only thing I am noticing in TGC 2019 is that balls bounce way too hard off of hills like this. I put heavy rough all over my course and slid the bounce/roll all the way down to 0 yet a ball that bounces on a high hill typically rolls all the way down and back into the fairway.

The elevation is spot on but it just seems like the game doesn't handle true elevation that great right now.

[Fhacker]

frodaddy00. The high first bounce in 2019 was happening on many courses in the alpha resting. I don't think it's an issue just with Chads tool created courses, IMO

[ChadGolf]

Hi everyone, for those who have been having issues or want to test new features, I'm posting a Release Candidate (0.1.0rc) on the downloads page:

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

If you find any issues please report them on Github or this thread.

The patch notes and examples are going to take a few hours to create, so look for those tomorrow.

- Chad

[Genghis]

Thanks Chad. This took care of the course "acne" that I had due to the undefined points.

[Solstice72]

ChadGolf A community collaboration is a fantastic idea. And thanks for the Xbox controller tip. I don't know how your doing it. Tool building and question answering. It's too prolific. We need to test for performance enhancing drugs I guess in this Forum.

[McBogga]

This is absolutely amazing. Complete game changer!

There needs to be a patreon or something set up to have some way to reward this man for what he has done here!

[htdumps]

https://www.patreon.com/chadgolf