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  • Introducing TGC Designer Tools and Real Course Recreation Lidar Import

    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:




    Click image for larger version  Name:	 Views:	1 Size:	37.9 KB ID:	184974

    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.





    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/
    Attached Files
    Last edited by ChadGolf; 02-07-2019, 07:06 PM.

  • OK Shooter, you need to use 3745, notice the top RH corner in 6344 is lacking data. Click image for larger version

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    My published Courses, all Lidar:

    My Early Courses:
    Boyne Arthur Hills Lidar2
    Boyne Donald Ross LidarV2
    Boyne Moor Lidar
    BoyneHeather5T Lidar V2
    CalderoneFarmsLidar5T2Pin
    Lake Erie Metro Lidar3
    Marco Island CC Lidar3
    Willow Metropark Lidar5
    Wyandotte Shore Lidar2

    Later Courses:
    Fraserglen Golf Course, British Columbia
    Meadowbrook Northville (L)
    The Glen (Illinois) Lidar
    Deer Park Estate GC, Scotland
    Green Craig Point GC, Scotland
    Red Rock GC Las Vegas MTN
    Ottumwa Country Club
    And Many More...

    Comment


    • jpotas thank you again for looking at it. That is weird. I've included a screen shot and the mask from 6344 when I run it.

      Comment


      • OK Shooter
        OK Shooter commented
        Editing a comment
        I had not previously tried 3745 but when I force the lidar using 3745 it appears to match up as well!!!!!! Is that normal that multiple numbers will work?

      • jpotas
        jpotas commented
        Editing a comment
        I have no good answer for this. I used the same Lidar when running both 6344 and 3745, I can't explain why I have a block of missing data. It is very similar to one of your previous screen shots where you had a blacked out area.

        Your screen shots look good. I would press on and make the course.

    • Ok, so I finally figured out what ESPG number to use for my course in Arizona. I got to the point in the TCG Golf Tools where it processed the Lidar and then opened the screen with the map to highlight (image attached below). This course has two 18 hole courses - for some reason, only one of them shows up - wondering why that might be the case?

      More importantly, I'm able to select the north 18 holes and it process it, including the Lidar tree data, but the course is completely flat! The log in the tool says:

      "Adding trees from lidar data
      Moving course to lowest valid elevation
      Shifting elevation by: -1505.063720703125
      Course Description Complete
      Done Rendering Course Preview"

      I'm not sure why or if it's normal that the elevation changed, but I'm unsure as to why the course is flat. I'm still trying to figure out how to use the design tools in TCG 2019 with a mouse which is driving me nuts, but until I can get the course in with the correct terrain, that's taking a back seat

      Here are the screenshots of the tool. If needed, I'm trying to create Antelope Hills in Prescott AZ. I used the 2019 Lidar available at nationalmap and the EPSG number 6350 which seems to match, even though it seems to be the entire country and not just AZ, if I'm reading that right.

      Comment


      • leibin
        leibin commented
        Editing a comment
        Nothing is too obvious for this newb LOL - I guess I need to figure out how to spline. Is that what makes the course holes appear? Is there a quick lesson somewhere on how to do that? TIA!

      • jpotas
        jpotas commented
        Editing a comment
        Lots of videos out there. So if the course was already splined, it is probably already created!!

      • leibin
        leibin commented
        Editing a comment
        Thanks jpotas- got it mapped out in OSM and I have a corse now! On to figure out the designer in TGC

    • Originally posted by Gonz View Post
      Can someone help me get thru this hurdle? Working on a great course and hung up processing the lidar. I have it mapped out so its ready to rock and roll .. It's a great northern california course at Cache Creek Casino called Yocha Dehe Golf Club

      Alternatively, look for something called EPSG Value in Metadata and provide EPSG and Conversion to Meters (1.0 for Meters, Approximately 0.3048 for Feet
      Gonz, your EPSG is 6350. looks complete. I opened it up in TGC and it looks like it is going to be a great setting and back ground. We don't have anything like that here in Michigan!!!

      Click image for larger version  Name:	california.JPG Views:	0 Size:	20.5 KB ID:	301462 Click image for larger version  Name:	california2.JPG Views:	0 Size:	191.2 KB ID:	301478
      Last edited by jpotas; 12-04-2020, 10:18 PM.
      My published Courses, all Lidar:

      My Early Courses:
      Boyne Arthur Hills Lidar2
      Boyne Donald Ross LidarV2
      Boyne Moor Lidar
      BoyneHeather5T Lidar V2
      CalderoneFarmsLidar5T2Pin
      Lake Erie Metro Lidar3
      Marco Island CC Lidar3
      Willow Metropark Lidar5
      Wyandotte Shore Lidar2

      Later Courses:
      Fraserglen Golf Course, British Columbia
      Meadowbrook Northville (L)
      The Glen (Illinois) Lidar
      Deer Park Estate GC, Scotland
      Green Craig Point GC, Scotland
      Red Rock GC Las Vegas MTN
      Ottumwa Country Club
      And Many More...

      Comment


      • Gonz
        Gonz commented
        Editing a comment
        Thank you so much!!!! This course is a beauty .. its at a resort that was built in ca called Cache Creek .. casinos, resorts and and an amazing golf course! I think it will be really enjoyed by all who play it. Back in the lab on it now thanks to jpotas! I'm working on another course that plays on the side of a mountain that is located in Burlingame CA Crystal Spring that over looks a reservoir very fun course as well.

    • noob here, i have all my lidar fiels for the course i want to do my first design to, and i have managed to walk myself through this tutorial it took me sometime but i got it figured out and i am not good with computers. the elelation and everything seems alright but it does not add the water hazards into the editor. they are labeled as mulch? in OSM they are labeled as water hazards. do i need to add the water in tgc using the add water future?

      Comment


      • Justin Traill
        Justin Traill commented
        Editing a comment
        I found the twitch video and helped huge, with lots of things. But my last question is do spline points count towards your object limit?

    • Originally posted by Justin Traill View Post
      noob here, i have all my lidar fiels for the course i want to do my first design to, and i have managed to walk myself through this tutorial it took me sometime but i got it figured out and i am not good with computers. the elelation and everything seems alright but it does not add the water hazards into the editor. they are labeled as mulch? in OSM they are labeled as water hazards. do i need to add the water in tgc using the add water future?
      Hi when you label water features as such in open street maps, they show as mulch in the course designer.

      This is to show you where exactly to place the water for your course.

      You manually add the water yourself in the designer.

      Good luck with your course

      Comment


      • jpotas
        jpotas commented
        Editing a comment
        There are many online videos showing how to place water. Ponds and lakes are pretty straight forward, streams can get pretty tricky.

      • Justin Traill
        Justin Traill commented
        Editing a comment
        I found the twitch video and helped huge, with lots of things. But my last question is do spline points count towards your object limit?

    • When using the Import tool and selecting ( Add Trees From Lidar) when doing this does the lidar match up what trees it finds to see if those tress are part of the theme and only add tress that are from the theme you picked your base course from?

      Comment


      • My guess is no....the lidar data is a 3 dimensional space. So, it see's something is there, but that's about it. When I was building my course out, I changed the theme and it changed all the trees to different kinds of trees...I undid it and my trees turned back into pine trees. They were all still in the correct place, although I had to play through the holes as there were a few trees here and there that didn't actually exist in real life - but again, I think it's just that the lidar data says there is something there and the software is trying to place trees there where it thinks it sees them.

        More interestingly, my trees were mostly pine trees, which is sort of true. I'm not sure how the import worked out like that. Maybe it took my elevation or location in OSM and decided they were pine type trees?

        Comment


        • Justin Traill
          Justin Traill commented
          Editing a comment
          I have been playing around and yesterday when loading data from osm and lidar when i check add tress from lidar (experimental) i got loads of tress now today none when masked.

      • The trees come from the classification of the Lidar data. A Lidar data point has other info associated with it besides the lat/long/altitute. https://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap...sification.htm

        There is the other branch of Chad's tool that allows more control on the height and width of the trees generated by the tool: https://github.com/MTBehnke/TGC-Designer-Tools/releases

        It allows you to set parameters for generated trees (max height, max width, etc). I find that with the Countryside theme I use for courses here in Central Texas generated trees are always taller than what we have IRL here and I'm always having to choose the smallest oaks and birches and sometimes burying the trees in the ground to get something closer to the real course.

        Comment


        • Help team! I am absolutely loving the tool even though I am only one week into TGC ownership and obviously have ALOT to learn. One issue I am experiencing is that all of my greens and maybe even fairways are importing as flat and not showing the proper lidar elevations and undulations. I noticed in some of the previous tutorial videos, there used to be an option to Smooth Greens and Smooth Fairways in Course Tools, but these are no longer there. Is there another setting somewhere that may be flattening my greens and fairways by default?

          Thanks everyone, especially to Chad and anyone else who has contributing to tool development and those of your who have produced some incredible tutorial content!

          Comment


          • It's possible your lidar data is not matching the green locations as defined in OSM, which my guess would result from using the wrong epsg in the tool. For example, it may be creating a green where the lidar data is for a fairway. Look at the created bunkers and see if they match the terrain as you know it. The TGC designer does sculpt the inside of bunkers, but you might find what should be the terrain for the bunker in real life (mounds, undulations) a few feet/yards away.

            Comment


            • Stlouisdj
              Stlouisdj commented
              Editing a comment
              Thanks for the response! I'll take another look, but everything looks really spot on and I reviewed it with a few folks who are also very familiar with the course and there were amazed at the accuracy but also noticed how flat the greens all are.

            • Stlouisdj
              Stlouisdj commented
              Editing a comment
              Sorry...one more follow up. I didn't input an EPSG in the tool as I thought that was optional. Do I need to track down an EPSG no matter what?

          • Originally posted by Stlouisdj View Post
            Help team! I am absolutely loving the tool even though I am only one week into TGC ownership and obviously have ALOT to learn. One issue I am experiencing is that all of my greens and maybe even fairways are importing as flat and not showing the proper lidar elevations and undulations. I noticed in some of the previous tutorial videos, there used to be an option to Smooth Greens and Smooth Fairways in Course Tools, but these are no longer there. Is there another setting somewhere that may be flattening my greens and fairways by default?

            Thanks everyone, especially to Chad and anyone else who has contributing to tool development and those of your who have produced some incredible tutorial content!
            It sounds like you haven't actually created a lidar data heightmap and are using just the OSM data which would result in a mostly flat course file. Yes, you always need an EPSG code when creating the lidar data heightmap. This code may be determined by the tool from the information contained within an xml metadata file or the las/laz file may provide suitable projection data for the tool to automatically determine where to match with Openstreetmaps. But an EPSG code is required one way or another. The easiest way to assist you is for you to post the name/location of the course you are working on and which lidar data file set you are using.

            Comment


            • myrison
              myrison commented
              Editing a comment
              I laughed when I read the part below about "maybe I'm just that bad of a putter" as I was having the same thoughts about a course I recently imported (also my first effort). The rest of the course has height changes throughout so I've definitely gotten the heightmap in, but the greens really do seem a lot simpler than I remember them.

            • mal
              mal commented
              Editing a comment
              Regarding greens. Chadtools sets the green speed real slow and also makes the surface very soft. This can cause even difficult sloping greens to seem tame. Go to course settings - greens and change the speed to 7-8 and crank up the firmness. Now you should have a more realistic green and also you want to make sure you have fast green speeds when you are setting your pin positions to ensure they are legal no matter what the end user decides to play at.

            • myrison
              myrison commented
              Editing a comment
              Awesome tip on green speed thank you. What does it mean that you have to be sure your pins are legal? How is this determined and what effect does it have if they are not legal ?

          • Hello all -- I'm creating my first course and have learned a ton in the last week but am to the point where I want to ask a few questions to avoid wasting time on the next steps.

            I've successfully imported the LIDAR data, found the right EPSG code, pulled in the trees from LIDAR, and done a bunch of OSM work to map out the front 9 of the course I'm working in (link: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/41.4786/-97.3939 if anyone wants to provide tips/critiquies on the work I've done so far).

            My main questions are these:

            * Once I start editing the course file from within TGC 2019 to additional tee sets and other features that can't be added via OSM, how do I change the OSM data further (i.e. when I want to map the back 9) and still pull the OSM data back in without overwiting the work I've done in the version on my computer to add tees, buildings, etc.? In the future, must I unselect certain options in the TGC tools software to avoid overwriting work I've already done? Tips in this area would be appreciated please.

            * I'm currently using mouse & keyboard in the editor, and see the numbers in brackets next to each option in the editor in ascending order that appear to mean that you can direct select that option by pressing a number on your keyboard (i.e. new tee [1], move tee [2], etc.), but pressing those numbers does nothing. Is this what it's supposed to do, or is something wrong on my end that the keyboard shortcuts don't work?

            Thanks!

            Comment


            • Originally posted by myrison View Post
              Hello all -- I'm creating my first course and have learned a ton in the last week but am to the point where I want to ask a few questions to avoid wasting time on the next steps.

              I've successfully imported the LIDAR data, found the right EPSG code, pulled in the trees from LIDAR, and done a bunch of OSM work to map out the front 9 of the course I'm working in (link: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=16/41.4786/-97.3939 if anyone wants to provide tips/critiquies on the work I've done so far).

              My main questions are these:

              * Once I start editing the course file from within TGC 2019 to additional tee sets and other features that can't be added via OSM, how do I change the OSM data further (i.e. when I want to map the back 9) and still pull the OSM data back in without overwiting the work I've done in the version on my computer to add tees, buildings, etc.? In the future, must I unselect certain options in the TGC tools software to avoid overwriting work I've already done? Tips in this area would be appreciated please.

              * I'm currently using mouse & keyboard in the editor, and see the numbers in brackets next to each option in the editor in ascending order that appear to mean that you can direct select that option by pressing a number on your keyboard (i.e. new tee [1], move tee [2], etc.), but pressing those numbers does nothing. Is this what it's supposed to do, or is something wrong on my end that the keyboard shortcuts don't work?

              Thanks!
              You really need to have your OSM 100% before you start making changes within the designer. Any object placement and manual changes to elevation may disappear and/or cause strange behavior to terrain if you re-run chadtools on this modified course file.

              The TGC2019 editor can be strange with mouse/keyboard. Some menus work with the number selection, some with mouse selection and some menus, not at all. I am a mouse/keyboard designer and I have moved everything over to a pga2k21 workflow which has much better m/k support, though there are still some odd instances where I need to use an xbox controller.

              Comment


              • mal
                mal commented
                Editing a comment
                myrison: I looked at your OSM. You may want to clean it up and put more nodes in your splines. Have a look at a Palm Beach OSM I did yesterday. https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit#m...4307/-80.03554 Not everything I have done there lines up to Bing perfectly since I am using some different image data than what OSM has available, but hopefully you get the idea.

                On fairways, you want to trace inside the line a couple of meters since the fairway spline will render an additional 3 meters on the outer side plus you will have light rough that is an additional couple of meters or so. Bunkers you want to set your splines pretty much right on the lip/edge, but you will need to manually adjust these splines in the designer with certain shapes. Greens need to be traced just inside the fringe since the spline will render out about 2 meters in the game and fringe populates to the inside of the edge so you do not need to add any extra for fringe. The transition from fairway to green can be tough, and I do that a few different ways depending on what the course calls for. In the case of your course, I'd run the fairway spline all the way around the green putting the nodes directly on the green nodes since this is easy and needs no modification in the designer.

                Have you made sure your splines line up perfectly to the lidar data?

                You may want to also use the splines.json file, but that is a little more advanced and this course looks like it will import just fine with the default chadtools settings.
                Last edited by mal; 12-19-2020, 05:16 PM.

              • myrison
                myrison commented
                Editing a comment
                Thanks mal. That was super helpful to compare how you are doing it. I see I am massively "under-budget" on spline points and can see how it results in a lot smoother outlines on your fairways. To your question, I think I've got the LIDAR lined up with the splines (I've checked for a green I know is elevated and it is in the game file), but this early on in my experience I can't say I'm positive about anything. Is there a best practice way to check? Maybe looking around one of the lakes once I pull the OSM data in to see what the elevations look like? Or is there a better way to be sure.

                Thanks for the rest of the tips on how fairways and greens add distance outside the spline points. Great to know!

                Edit: I forgot to ask... I noticed a number of OSM outlined "buildings" in your Palm Beach course. Will these appear in game like a clubhouse does or was this someone else's work to outline the buildings that are along some of the fairways of the course? Thanks.

              • mal
                mal commented
                Editing a comment
                This was all my work. All buildings import in as a flat gray square or whatever shape you outlined. This is used as a location placeholder so you know where to put your buildings.

                Checking your spline alignment is best done on a single hole that has multiple bunkers and a green or tee boxes that are elevated. Then check the fit and finish on each element. If everything is off, it is probably an OSM image alignment issue. If it is just one of the elements then that spline may be off and it should be redrawn in OSM.

            • I am trying to design a local course. I have done several courses. After starting it in the TGC2019 I save and exit. I see it in my my files where my previous courses are. I change the name like you are suppose to. I open Chads tool software go to Select course Directory and I see the place where it is suppose to be but the new course is not there to proceed. I see my old working file and course names but not the new one. I have the latest version 0_3_2 exe. of Chads program. It has been a bit since I tried this. Did something change? When I look in my files outside of the tool the course is there. It is like the tool is blocking the new course. It worked earlier today. TIA

              Comment


              • myrison
                myrison commented
                Editing a comment
                Are you copying/moving the course file out of the TGC course directory and into your working directory before you send Chad's tool to scan the directory for the course file? I didn't see that step listed in what you're doing, so I'm just making sure you're not missing that step. I have been keeping a separate working folder for each course just to make sure only the file I need is there and doesn't get mixed up with anything else. Sounds like you've done this before... so this may not be the problem, but it's the only thing obvious I saw missing in your description.
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