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