Although Terragen is a continually evolving work-in-progress, it is already capable of near-photorealistic results for professional landscape visualisation, special effects, art and recreation. Terragen has been used in a variety of commercial applications including film, television and music videos, games and multimedia, books, magazines and print advertisements. For just a small selection of projects Terragen has been used in, please visit the commercial use page.

Despite the fact that Terragen can be used for professional landscape visualisation projects, it is accessible and easy to get started with. You could be rendering your first landscape image in as little as 15 minutes after installation.

Terragen has a native user interface, using facilities provided by the operating system of the respective platform, as opposed to the custom user interfaces used by many similar applications. This means Terragen can follow the usage conventions of each platform as closely as possible, which ensures that it looks and feels just like the other applications you use and means there is no learning curve with respect to the basic operation of Terragen.

• What it can do
  intuitive user-interface - Extremely easy to use layout, along with realistic default settings, allows the creation of good-looking scenes within seconds of starting the program.
  random fractal terrain - Controllable parameters allow extremely varied terrain shapes. Can also be used to 'fill in' realistic terrain on a user-defined landscape.
• high detail foreground texturing - The rendering engine allows extreme close-ups of landscape details with automatic level of detail adjustment.
• depth based occlusion culling - Occlusion culling makes sure Terragen™ renders only what contributes to the final image.
• terrain sculpting tools - Can be used to 'paint' the shape of the landscape, to position mountains and valleys or make changes to random landscapes. Random terrain generation can be used 'fill in' realistic terrain over deliberately positioned mountains and valleys.
• terrain modification tools - Functions for allowing overall modification of terrain shape, such as glaciation.
• combination of terrains - Two terrains can be combined together to produce a new terrain, using a number of different methods such as 'highest', 'lowest', height addition and subtraction, to extend the usefulness of the terrain generation system.
• terrain import/export - Terragen can import and export raw heightfield information in 8-bit greyscale (and soon 16-bit). Possible uses include the construction of terrains from externally created pictures. Terragen can also save terrains as Lightwave LWO files, and files compatible with the 'Import Binary' feature in VistaPro. Import/export capabilities can also be enhanced via the plugin system.
• hierarchical surface colour map - The surface of the landscape is divided into different components, such as grass and rock. Any component (surface) may be divided further, as far as is desired. There is huge potential for very complex, detailed landscape surfaces with this system.
• water - Lakes and seas can be rendered, complete with ripples/waves and soft reflections.
• cloud layer - A 2-dimensional cloud generator and rendering system which realistically shades the clouds to give an impression that they are actually 3-dimensional. Also, an experimental 3-dimensional cloud renderer which can in most cases provide even more realistic results.