dem or height map Europe?

[Dune]

Does anyone know of a dem or heightmap of the continent Europe (not the planet)?

[Dune]

Don't bother, found some: http://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/figures/elevation-map-of-europe Started to download one, but that's 19GIGS, so I stopped that one.

Do bother: this map is in colors from green to red. I wouldn't know how to make that white to black (tried it, not that simple).

Anyone know of a DEM or grey heightmap?

[RArcher]

For covering all of Europe I would go with the SRTM data.  It should be high enough resolution to give you decent landforms, yet not so huge that you have to download gigs worth of data. http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org/

[Tangled-Universe]

This is a nice one too:

http://reverb.echo.nasa.gov/

[Dune]

Thanks guys. But the second one is bloody complicated. Do you have any idea about rough vegetation maps or satelite imagery as well, or should I look in the same sites?

[RArcher]

I would try here: http://glcfapp.glcf.umd.edu:8080/esdi/index.jsp  for both rough Vegetation coverage and Landsat satellite data if you need something more detailed.

In particular take a look at the AVHRR, Continuous Fields Tree Cover Product: http://glcfapp.glcf.umd.edu:8080/esdi/product?productID=11

These data products are available on a global scale or in continental subsets in either Goode's or Lat/Long. Each product contains an overall treecover data file and files separated according to the following tree cover types: broadleaf, deciduous, evergreen, and needle leaf.

If that isn't what you are looking for you can find continental vegetation coverage available in .shp format that you could convert into a black and white mask here: http://www.mapcruzin.com/download-shapefile/europe-natural-shape.zip

[Tangled-Universe]

Thanks guys. But the second one is bloody complicated. Do you have any idea about rough vegetation maps or satelite imagery as well, or should I look in the same sites?

You mean the Reverb site I posted is complicated?

It took me 10 minutes or so to figure out and in retrospect it's all there in the interface (step 1, step 2,...), but like many I'm used to get things presented in a more intuitive way, admittedly.
Normally you first tell/search for the type of data you're interested in, but here it's exactly the other way around.

This one offers good quality data, from what I have seen so far. It's ASTER v2 and that is relatively new/fresh data.
Here's a tiny step by step:

Step 1:
In the UI @ Step 1 I use the zoom/move gizmos from the world viewer to navigate to Iceland. Don't use your mouse to click/drag the map as it will draw the rectange for your region of interest (ROI).
Once you have isolated Iceland draw a big rectangle over it.
In the search field you search for ASTER. (hit enter in the search field if no results show up automatically in the step 2 box)

Step 2:
In the step 2 box you have all the data available for your ROI.
Among those should be "ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V002".
Check the box.

Step 3:
Under "Discover Granules" you should find the data set you have selected in Step 2.
Click on "Search for Granules"

Step 4:
You are now looking at the data available for the ROI and it is presented in square chunks, but of course we have no clue which lat/long coordinates cover what.
So to change that click on the "map view" tab at the top.
Again you will see a map, but this time we actually can use the mouse to drag the map. Head on to your ROI.

Step 5:
You can see a grid-pattern and at the underside and right side you will see the lat/long coordinates.
Find the blocks which cover your ROI.

Step 6:
Add the blocks of interest to your shopping cart using the shopping cart button and click "view items in cart"

Step 7:
If the items are not directly available to download you can order them and you will have a download link being sent to you by e-mail

It can happen though, that data is unavailable, like for Norway and Iceland for example, I found out.

[Dune]

Thanks again guys, also for your step by step, Martin. But your last sentence is enough not to try that, as Norway is one of the countries I actuallly need. But I'll keep this tut in file for future reference.
This is something I found, which looks quite good, but there's something weird; the highest areas are 'negative'. You see nice rivers in western France that are dark, but the alps are darker. It's an index file, and I'm trying to figure out how I can convert these color data to greys.   
I'll look for the vegetation maps now, thanks!

[Tangled-Universe]

Here you are for Norway DEM

http://data.kartverket.no/download/content/geodataprodukter?korttype=3595&aktualitet=All&datastruktur=All&dataskema=All

This one takes a bit of fiddling and sadly I can't remember exactly how to download data from there step by step, but it is easier than Reverb I remember.

Good luck and let me know if you need any help!

Cheers,
Martin

[Dune]

Well, it's a very small (paying) thing, so I don't want to spend days and days on gathering data and working it all into manageble files, and it shouldn't be huge. It's for a book where they want to point out some places in France, Germany, Netherlands and Norway, that's about it. I thought it would be easier to find a heightmap and some nice color scheme for Europe...
Here's what I got so far, but the heights are not very good.

[Oshyan]

If you're rendering from an orbital view just look up the Blue Marble data. The highest resolution terrain map there should work fine.

- Oshyan

[Dune]

You know, Oshyan, I just did that yesterday! They have some good enough stuff. The only issue I now have is that I think these mozaik parts are all to be combined in a spherical projection. I only need part of a part, or it's going to be too heavy, so I cut them up. Now I have to figure out how to project that part so it's realistic enough. Spherical won't work, so I used a camera, but have to move it around a bit to get the 'perfect' projection. I can probably warp the part thru PTGUI, but I have no clue how to do that.

[bigben]

If you only want a part, and it's all in one hemisphere, then geotiff makes the most sense.

I merged the Oct2004 blue marble image into a single spherical file. You can find it here: http://files.bigben.id.au/terragen/terrains/earth/ in 2 different resolution (0.025°/px and 0.05°/px) I think I made a geotiff version of it somewhere.... must check.  [edit] the copy on my computer is a geotiff so the one on my site 'probably' is too. I have a northern hemisphere file if you want to save a bit of RAM

If you're cropping the spherical image it's easy enough to calculate the lat/long of the corners so you can always manually georeference the image in TG.

[Dune]

Thanks Ben.