Having used Terragen exclusively for these sorta things I wanted to see if I could replicate some scenarios in Houdini and sure enough it wasn’t all that hard. Mind you this was just a quick test for what I needed and by far doesn’t encompass all of TG’s functionality.

DEM projected on grid

grid procedurally shrunk 2 u sable tile

extruded based on color values by 5

extruded based on color values by 29

extruded based on color values by 5 DEM color removed

closeUp showing DEM artifacts in height extrusion

clseUp showing fixed artifacts only in flat areas, so no detail is lost in peaks

visualizing flat surface groups – adjustable via slider

visualizing steep surface groups – adjustable via slider

wideshot fixed DEM

wideshot added slope detail

wide shot added detail in slopes and flats