Use Follow-me tool on non planar surfaces

Since there is obvious Follow-me talent here, I would like to ask a question if I may. Any way to use the follow-me tool on non planar surfaces? In the attached model I have two elevations that were pulled-down from GoogleEarth. The top one is filled-in. I would like to run a straight, connecting line from the upper level to the lower level so the different terrain levels can be painted with color. GroundContourSample.skp (14.9 KB) Any ideas?
Thanks,
John

I’m not sure what that means. Would you mind explaining in a bit more detail?

-Gully

In the model I attached, I have two elevations showing. (The full model has about 15 different elevation levels spread throughout the model, like rolling hills. Google Earth gives the elevation.) In my example showing only two elevations, the top one is 2057’ MSL and the lower one is 2007’ MSL.(Which can be read using the Utilities plugin.) I would like to paint the terrain with different colors. In my example the top one is filled-in, so I can easily paint it. To paint the ground going from the top elevation to the lower elevation I must first fill it in with something to paint. What I have been doing is adding lines between the two elevations, making planar surfaces that show as solid, and then I can paint them. This is very tedious, time consuming work. If I knew of a way to do it with a tool like Follow-Me, it would save much time.

Here is the same model with the lines connecting the two elevations filled-in. I did not soften the lines afterward so you can see all the many lines that had to be drawn to construct planar surfaces that would show as solid in order to paint them.
what I would like to find is a quick way to solidify between elevations, so they can be painted.
Thanks,
John
GroundContourSample2.skp (83.4 KB)

Well I think you’ve sort of combined two separate areas of consideration into one, namely, constructing a terrain surface from a set of contour lines and then painting or otherwise coloring the result.

You can achieve the stratified color appearance in a few ways. You can, as you are suggesting, simply paint the surface between each pair of contours. You can also project a texture consisting of bands of color onto the terrain from the side. Also, there are a couple of plugins you can download–Color by Z and Color by Slope–which paint the terrain according to those parameters.

As for the “lines” connecting each pair of contours, drawing these in is the job of one of SU’s native tools called the From Contours tool, which is part of the Sandbox tools. The Sandbox tools are used to create and shape terrain. From Contours converts a set of contour lines, as from a USGS survey map, for instance, into smooth terrain. Is that what you’re dealing with?

-Gully

Edit: It sure would be nice if someone with super powers, like @AlexB, would take everything after Box’s last post and dump it into a new thread. @jabonin, no more thread hijacking, okay?

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Until then here is a quick gif of from contour.

Gully,
Thank you so much for your help. works great. Next time I will start a new thread.
What program are you using to make the GIF’s?

No, no. The gifs are @Box’s.

You will love Fredos Plugin TopoShaper for this kind of task…