5.1. Mesh |
The tools described in this chapter allow one to generate attractive three-dimensional representations from meshes or elevation and slope surfaces, as well as to assign materials to apply quality rendering.
A mesh file is a set of 3D coordinates that are planimetrically defined in a regular square mesh. MDT works with two types of mesh files: ASCII (.MLL extension) and binary (.MLB extension) files. The former has the advantage that the file’s contents can be viewed with a text editor, and they can easily be processed by other programs. Nevertheless, the large size of the files is a disadvantage. In order to avoid this, binary mesh files can be used to provide quicker and more efficient access, although they do not have the aforementioned advantages.
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