Daylon Leveller

Daylon Leveller is a heightfield modeling program made by Daylon Graphics Ltd. of British Columbia, Canada. It was written by Ray Gardener in 1998 and is now at version 2.3. Leveller began as a fork of Gardener's earlier NavCam utility for the POV-Ray raytracer.

Leveller documents appear in a two-paned window showing a nadir (top-down) view of the heightfield upon which sculpting and other tools can be used, and an OpenGL-based view showing the heightfield (and related elements) in 3D. Edits are reflected immediately in both views, providing an interactive feel to the modeling process. Modeling is based on a paint-program metaphor similar to Adobe Photoshop, with brushes, selection tools, etc. Textures and water level can be applied also. Heightfields can be planar (flat) or distorted using UV displacment mapping onto spheres, sphere sections, cones, cylinders, etc.

Leveller can export scenes to POV-Ray, Renderman, and VRML. It uses plug-ins to handle other file formats and filter processes.

Leveller also supports raytracing, animation, and reference shape placement, although these features are secondary to its modeling abilities and were added mainly as prototyping conveniences.

Platforms

Leveller is available for 32-bit Microsoft Windows. Some related utilities are available for Mac OS X and Linux.

References

Daylon Graphics: http://www.daylongraphics.com

Leveller site: http://www.daylongraphics.com/products/leveller

Supported file formats: http://www.daylongraphics.com/products/leveller/tour/index.htm#impexp

Development log: http://www.daylongraphics.com/worklog/current/index.htm