MAX subscribers may choose between Terrain and Photorealistic modes from the settings panel on the 3D page when first-person view mode is enabled.****
Terrain mode displays TPE’s own 3D rendering of various user-selectable datasets, such as digital elevation models and buildings, with custom-built lighting and shadow simulation. Use this to understand how the light falls on the land and buildings at any given time, and to plan high-precision compositions where your target (Sun, Moon, stars) are in the shot.
Photorealistic shows 3D tiles from Google. These are based on Google’s own digital elevation sources, satellite imagery, and for many locations, photogrammetry. Photogrammetry is the technique of building a 3D model from multiple individual photographs. Google’s Photorealistic 3D tiles combine all these techniques into one global model that fuses terrain and buildings into a single 3D mesh model with photographic textures, allowing individual features to be modelled accurately and recognisably.
Should I use Terrain or Photorealistic Mode?
Access to these features varies by subscription level:
- PRO: Terrain mode with standard buildings
- MAX: Terrain mode with enhanced buildings + Photorealistic mode
If you need an accurate assessment of how the light will fall on the land from the Sun or Moon, Terrain is probably the best choice. Because Photorealistic tiles “ bake in ” the lighting conditions at the time the imagery was captured, they cannot be accurately “ re-lit ” in a simulation. Terrain mode can do this, meaning you will see accurate shadows and, where a building’s materials are specified, reflective light effects or specular highlights.
If you use TPE for advanced planning modes that are highly sensitive to ground conditions (e.g., confirming that a line of sight is clear of trees or making high-precision alignments against buildings with complex shapes), Photorealistic is probably the best choice.
Note: Photorealistic tiles are subject to reasonable use limits. Avoid repeatedly reloading the site to stay within limits.
Climbing Trees: Behavioral Differences between Terrain and Photorealistic Mode
In Terrain mode, the 3D model contains separate geometry for the ground and buildings. In Photorealistic mode, they are combined into a single ‘mesh’. The effect of this is important to understand:
- Terrain: when you ‘walk’ through the scene, you will maintain a constant height relative to the ground, and will walk through buildings
- Photorealistic: you will walk over buildings – and trees, park benches, etc.
This means that the camera position viewed in Terrain vs Photorealistic may differ if, for example, you had the pin on top of a tree. The Photorealistic FPV view below shows a tree directly in front of the camera:
If we walk forward a few steps using the up-arrow key on the keyboard (be sure to click somewhere in the 3D scene to give it focus), we end up on top of the tree. TPE includes a local ground detection algorithm that will then warn you that you may be inadvertently elevated above the ground:
The easiest way to check is to zoom out wide (mouse-wheel or two-fingers up/down on a trackpad) and then look down at your ‘feet’:
In this case, one step backwards puts us back on the ground.
Warning: if you plan a long telephoto composition, it’s IMPERATIVE to be certain that you are shooting from the correct height above the ground. If you plan the shot while standing on a tree, then attempt to shoot it from the ground, the alignment will not match your plan.
Quality Settings
Terrain Mode
In Terrain mode, you can choose the 3D terrain quality level using a slider. Highest quality levels are limited to PRO and MAX subscribers. Increasing the terrain quality does not change the data source used to construct the terrain mesh: that is an independent choice based on the selected Elevation Model.
Instead, increasing quality constructs a higher resolution model of the terrain from the selected digital elevation source. Generally, higher quality is better, but it comes with two trade-offs: (i) bandwidth and data requirements and (ii) performance. If you’re on a slow connection or concerned about bandwidth usage, you may choose a lower quality level. Additionally, on older computers, particularly those with an older integrated GPU, performance can be improved by lowering the quality level.
The same bandwidth and performance considerations generally apply to ALL the quality settings discussed here.
Buildings can be turned off entirely: for landscape photographers working in wilderness locations where buildings are of no interest, turning them off is recommended because it will improve the app’s performance and avoid pointless “ Loading buildings… ” progress indicators. Otherwise, you can read more about the various building data sources in this article: 3D Buildings in TPE – What’s Available on the Maps and 3D Pages
Photorealistic Mode
Here’s the short version:
TL;DR: Use Balanced unless you REALLY need the detail of High. Choose Performance to save on bandwidth (at the expense of model detail).
When Photorealistic mode is selected, the settings change. As terrain, buildings, trees, etc. are all part of the same unified 3D mesh, there is no separate control for Buildings.
Instead, a “ photorealistic quality ” slider allows you to trade off scene fidelity and resolution for bandwidth and performance. The default “ Balanced ” mode attempts to strike a good balance between the two. “ Performance ” is for low-bandwidth situations where a rough impression of the scene will suffice. “ High ” is for exacting long-telephoto use cases where the level of detail is required to achieve high-precision results. Here’s a comparison showing Performance, Balanced, and High from left to right:
At 800 mm focal length, here’s how a Moon alignment appears in each of the three modes – you might be pleasantly surprised by how well the lower-quality “ performance ” mode holds up (top: Performance, middle: Balanced, bottom: High):
Flatten Foreground
The flatten foreground option allows you to deliberately cause surrounding terrain to be rendered flat. There are two primary use cases for this:
- Situations where Google 3D Tiles show artifacts in the mesh that don’t really exist and you want to see past them
- To assist with positioning for your planned shot – sometimes it’s tricky when you can’t see the wood for the trees, and a little digital timber-felling can be useful
In this example, the camera is on the shoreline near Long Island. The raw 3D tiles show water artifacts obstructing the view, which do not exist in reality:
By nudging the “ Flatten foreground ” slider by one stop, we can clear the view and plan the shot:
Note: The Flatten foreground setting is not saved and restored between settings to avoid it being left enabled inadvertently and misleading you into thinking you have a clear view when you in fact do not.
