Hey Im getting an error when I try to load the DEM to get the grayscale image. In the PullSDTS command prompt it says, "AttributeError: 'unicode' object has no attribute 'open'"
Do you have any suggestions to get past this?

Same problem here as well..Have tried for quite sometime now to get it to work. Would like some input on how to solve this error.

Thanks :)

Im having the same problem here.

Here is the Python Report

Exception in Tkinter callback
Traceback <most last call recent>:
File "C:\Python26\lib\lib-tk\Tlinter.py", line 1410, in __call__
return self.func<*args>
File "C:\Users\Horza\Downloads\pullsdts\pullsdts.py@, line 395, in demview
xfer.getSpecial<'CEL0',w>
File "C:\Users\Horza\Downloads\pullsdts\sdts.py@, line 1419, in get Special
retval = demSpeedReader<fn> \fast kludge
File "C:\Users\Horza\Downloads\pullsdts\sdts.py@, line 354, in demSpeedReader
f.open<'r'>
AttributeErroe 'unicode' object has no attribute 'open'

Ive never used python before and I downloaded it for this tutorial. I also went about the hard way of finding out the Ne Sw statistics as I wanted to learn how to do this the real way instead of using the stats you provided.

Suffice to say, I was a little disappointed when I failed at the next stage : (

Any help greatly received. : )

Can anyone enlighten me as to why my nurbs plane comes out looking like a staccato mess of a mesh?
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=87&t=890059

I had the same problem with pullSDTS, but got it working by opening the tarball (gz) files in it instead of unpacking them with another program. See the documentation for pullSDTS.

I bounced into a couple of the above problems, too. For those who still didn't find a solution:

when the error you get is in loading the DEM infos (from the tar.gz file), my workaround was to pre-unpack the files with 7zip (I'm not sure if it's what Thom Falter suggested, or the opposite; in my case it worked, anyway)
I then filtered the .ddf files with pullSDTS's option "SDTS transfer *iden.ddf" and selected the only available one.

when the error is in loading the DEM image, instead, and you get the message some reported above:
AttributeError: 'unicode' object has no attribute 'open'
what I did to solve (no idea how clean the trick is) is changing line 350 in sdts.py from:
if type(celFile) == type('string'):
to:
if isinstance(celFile, (str, unicode)):

Hope that helps,
s

@Stefano Cieri You Brilliant SOB! It worked! I can't thank you enough. Also, the sole reason I opened an account here was so I could thank you. Thanks again!

Does any one know if it's possible to get the nurbs mesh to match the displacement map?

So, I came across a way to generate a mesh of the surface using photoshop. Once you have the image in photoshop go to 3D> mesh> plane. scale the y accordingly. Then go to 3d> export> obj. Import the Obj in Maya and you'll have a surface.