Download Terrain as OBJ for Blender and 3D Modeling

Turn USGS 3DEP lidar elevation data for any place in Oregon into a 3D mesh you can import into Blender, Cinema 4D, Rhino, Unity or Unreal, from a single building lot to the flanks of Mount Hood.

What is OBJ?

OBJ (Wavefront OBJ) is one of the oldest and most widely supported 3D formats. It is plain text: a list of vertices (points in 3D) followed by a list of faces that join them into triangles.

For terrain, each vertex is a point on the ground with its height, and the triangles between them form the surface. Because the format is so simple, almost every modeling, rendering and game engine reads it.

What you get in the file

• A terrain surface: a grid of vertices joined into triangles, built from the bare-earth elevation model.
• Model units: the longest side of your area spans 1.0 unit; the other side keeps its true proportion.
• Z up: heights are on the Z axis, measured from the lowest point in the area.
• Your vertical scale: 3× exaggeration (the default) or 1× true scale.
• Lean geometry: no normals, materials or texture coordinates, so it imports cleanly anywhere. The mesh is thinned for large areas to keep the file manageable.
• Source credit: comment lines at the top name the USGS 3D Elevation Program as the source.

Software that reads OBJ

3D modeling and rendering

• Blender: free and open source; imports OBJ out of the box.
• Cinema 4D, Maya and 3ds Max: import OBJ for animation and rendering.
• Rhino: imports OBJ meshes for design work.
• MeshLab: free tool for inspecting, cleaning and reducing meshes.

Architectural visualization

• Twinmotion and Lumion: import OBJ, so the terrain can sit as context around a building model.

Game engines

• Unity and Unreal Engine: import OBJ as a static mesh for real-world landscapes.
• Godot: imports OBJ meshes.

CAD

For engineering drawings, contours usually serve better than a mesh. Download contours as DXF for AutoCAD and Civil 3D: 3D polylines in Oregon Statewide Lambert, feet (EPSG:2992).

How to download terrain as OBJ

1. Open the map: go to Download Data and search for a place or peak.
2. Select the area: draw a rectangle, or click a taxlot to select the rectangle around it. The area can be up to 7.5 miles per side.
3. Choose the vertical scale:
   • 3×: the default. Brings out the shape of gentle ground, such as the buttes around Bend’s high desert or the Willamette Valley’s low hills.
   • 1×: true scale. Best for big relief like Mount Hood or the Columbia Gorge, and for anything that must be measured.
4. Choose OBJ among the 3D and terrain formats.
5. Download: the area is free to explore on the map; the file needs a pass.
6. Import: bring the OBJ into your 3D program with Z as the up axis.

Using OBJ terrain in Blender

1. Import: File > Import > Wavefront (.obj), and set Up Axis to Z in the import options.
2. Scale: the terrain arrives 1 unit across. Scale it up (press S) to fit your scene.
3. Smooth: right-click and choose Shade Smooth (or Shade Auto Smooth) for soft hills.
4. Texture: in the UV Editing workspace, view from the top and use UV > Project from View, then add an image texture.
5. Light: a low sun angle brings out ridges and valleys; a Sun lamp at 10–20° works well.
6. Render: use Cycles for realism or Eevee for quick previews.

Common uses

Architectural visualization

Architects place a house or cabin design on the real ground of the lot, so renders show the true slope, the cut into the hill and the view from the deck.

Film, animation and motion graphics

Real terrain makes a believable backdrop: fly-throughs of the Cascades, title sequences over the Coast Range, or a stylized map of a trail race.

Game development

Developers start a level from a real Oregon landscape and sculpt from there, instead of building hills by hand.

Teaching and science

Teachers and researchers render volcanoes, river valleys and fault scarps to explain landforms, with exaggeration where the relief is subtle.

Marketing and real estate

A rendered 3D view of a property and its surroundings shows buyers what a contour map cannot.

VR and AR

Real terrain gives virtual tours and AR sandbox projects a landscape people recognize.

Tips

Reduce the mesh

Flat ground does not need many triangles. A Decimate modifier in Blender or Quadric Edge Collapse in MeshLab can shrink the file a lot with little visible change. Output resolution scales with the size of the area you select. Exports are capped at 1,024 pixels on the longest side, with a floor of 3.3 ft per pixel — so a 900 ft building site is delivered at the full lidar detail, while a block 7.5 miles on a side is resampled to roughly 39 ft per pixel. Select a smaller area when you need fine detail.

Texture mapping

Project textures from the top view so they sit straight on the terrain. Hillshade or slope images make good bump or color maps.

Vertical exaggeration

3× suits gentle country; 1× suits mountains and anything you will measure. You can also scale Z in your 3D program after import.

Lighting

Low, raking light shows relief; overhead light flattens it. Add a little atmosphere or mist for distant ridges.

Level of detail

For games and real-time scenes, make a few decimated copies and switch between them by distance.

OBJ or STL?

Both describe the same terrain. The OBJ is the surface alone, which is what rendering, animation and game engines want. The STL is a closed solid with walls and a flat base, which is what a 3D printer slicer needs. Choose OBJ for the screen, STL for the printer.

About the data

Ground elevations on this site come from the USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP) seamless bare-earth model: 3.3 ft per pixel where lidar has been flown and about 33 ft per pixel elsewhere, with elevations above NAVD 88. The data is in the public domain. Most of Oregon’s lidar was flown through the Oregon Lidar Consortium, run by DOGAMI, the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries. DOGAMI reports about 99% of Oregon covered by at least one lidar project. The mesh shows the ground without buildings or trees. See lidar coverage in Oregon for the project behind your area. More from the USGS 3D Elevation Program and DOGAMI’s lidar program.

Accuracy is inherited from the USGS 3DEP source and the lidar project behind it, not asserted by this tool. Where lidar exists, at 3.3 ft per pixel, vertical accuracy is that of the project: individual Oregon Lidar Consortium projects report vendor RMSE of a few inches or less in DOGAMI’s project records; for example, Metro 2014 reports about a tenth of a foot. Outside the lidar work units the seamless DEM is about 33 ft per pixel and far coarser. Every download states what share of its area fell outside the lidar work units. Values are bare-earth elevations above NAVD 88 from a digital elevation model — they exclude buildings and tree canopy and are not a substitute for a surveyed elevation where a legal or engineering decision depends on it.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

• Terrain as STL – for 3D printing
• 3D print a terrain model of Oregon – from area to finished print
• Download DEM data – the elevation model as a GeoTIFF
• Contours as DXF – for AutoCAD and Civil 3D
• Contour lines for Oregon – overview of every format