Basemap and elevation settings (the non DEM approach) - comments and questions

Hello:

So I've been piling up my Base maps on boards for the route I am developing in Niagara. I believe to counteract the issues with Google Earth I'm trying a uniform crop size of 1402 x 1402 pixels from Paint. This seems to be pretty close to filling the 720 x 720 accurately based on measurements I took in Google Earth over a flat area. This method works good when dealing with things such as rivers and canals which I'm dealing with now. I may find I want to tweak the 1402x1402 size though it's pretty accurate within a meter from what I can tell.

But I have questions regarding elevation when you elect not to use DEM. Google Earth Pro has a rough elevation if I want to put in contour lines. Unfortunately most of the topographic maps in Canada are at minimum 5 meter intervals and I'm trying to get it down to a meter. Which is why I will likely draw them in and change the elevations gradually.

The issue of course is the basemap itself. I'm aware of the F9 trick of seeing through to the bottom when elevation is raised. However, I am finding that once the elevation is raised and it becomes the dominant (most area at that elevation on the tile) the basemap will shift that new height. This of course makes it very difficult to see any base map images below the height of the new threshold.

I suppose I can leave the elevation to last, but I'm afraid of screwing things up with some of the assets etc. Any suggestions is greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Sean

Basemap is an object so you can raise or lower it with the object height tool.

Funny I never thought of that Wonder why it adjust automatically to the most dominant plane.

I'll try that and see.

Thanks

Sean

Put your base map assets on a separate layer and lock it in place once you get them where you want them.

Yeah I've got them on it's own layer and locked. As far as I know once I start playing around with elevation too much the basemap changes elevation to the dominant plane or elevation.

As for adjust height I just tried it. But I might be doing something wrong here. I know there is the Adjust Height H, but is there another keyboard shortcut for changing elevation of an object? I thought I recalled seeing another keyboard shortcut.

Speaking of shortcuts I tried searching that on the Wiki and had a hard time finding them. Search came up with an endless list of articles.

Anyways appreciate the help.

Thanks

Sean