Glossary

The glossary contains terminology used throughout the Terrain Developer Documentation.

gradient

Data containing a range of values from 0-1 mapped into world space.

splat map

An image containing surface weights for a single surface type.

surface

A conceptual geometric shell with a set of arbitrary tags.

surface modifier

A geometric volume that can add tags to existing surfaces.

terrain

A combination of height, color, and surface data that represents a ground surface.

terrain system

A system for authoring, managing, rendering, physicalizing, and querying terrain data in the virtual world.


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