Arma 3 Terrain Height Extractor

A dynamic link library (DLL) for extracting terrain height data from Arma 3 into a .csv file, written in Rust using Brett Mayson's arma-rs crate. The extractor.sqf script contains an implementation to retrieve terrain height data for the entire map at 5-meter intervals.

Download Terrain Height Data

If you prefer not to generate the terrain height data yourself, visit the Releases page to directly download a pre-extracted .csv containing the height data for a specific map.

Generate Terrain Height Data

If you choose to extract the terrain height data yourself, you have two options. You can either download the binary from Releases (only x64 is supported), or you can clone the repository, navigate to the root directory, and then compile the extension yourself using: cargo build --release

1. Place the extractor_x64.dll file inside your Arma 3 installation folder: ...\steamapps\common\Arma 3
2. Launch Arma 3 with Battleye turned off (otherwise, the extension cannot be loaded).
3. Open the Editor, place a player character, start the game, and copy the contents of extractor.sqf into Arma's debug console (accessible from the pause menu). This will initiate the (lengthy) extraction process.

Further Help and Contribution

Don't hesitate to open an Issue for any questions, requests, or contributions. If you feel comfortable making changes directly, feel free to fork this repository, implement your changes, and submit a pull request.

Disclaimer

This tool has been developed and tested exclusively on the 64-bit version of Arma 3 running on Windows 11. The extraction process can be time-consuming (e.g., it took 45 minutes to extract Altis at 5-meter intervals). Lastly, for the freeExtension scripting command to work, you must be on the dev branch of Arma 3.