Holloway, CalebCankaya, Ebru C.2019-07-232019-07-232018-06-299783319942285https://hdl.handle.net/10735.1/6717Full text access from Treasures at UT Dallas is restricted to current UTD affiliates (use the provided Link to Article). All others may find the web address for this item in the full item record as "dc.relation.uri" metadata.We present a novel approach for terrain synthesis where the terrain is created only through procedural techniques and an initial input sketch. We employ a heightmap function that creates a distance map of the source image. The sketch is semantically annotated so that sections of the image are seen as a terrain type. Once a distance map of the source image is created, the algorithm can begin defining the heights inside the heightmap based on the distance values of each underlying pixel, the terrain type of that underlying pixel, and which terrain type that is different from its own it is nearest to. The results we obtain are promising as the terrain creation is fast, and the input system is non-complex. © Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2019.en©2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer NatureArtificial intelligenceHuman engineeringSystems engineeringMap scalesBasic input-output systemsLandformsarticleHolloway, C., and E. C. Cankaya. 2019. "Guided terrain synthesis through distance transforms." Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 787: 57-65, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-94229-2_6787