SUMMARY OF DIGITAL ELEVATION MODEL TECHNOLOGIES AND APPLICATIONS : THE DEM USERS

MANUAL BOOK

Nifa Anzalta Minfadlika Failusuf

151 14 095
Faculty of Earth Sciences and Technology, Institute of Technology, Bandung, Indonesia
nifanzalta@students.itb.ac.id

As used by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), DEM is the digital carthographic representation of the elevation of the
terrain at regularly spaced intervals in x and y directions, using z values referenced to a common vertical datum. It is
called “model” because computers can use such data to model and automatically analyze the earth’s topography in 3-
dimensions. Other related terms are defined as DTM, DSM, TIN, breakline and mass point. DTM may be similar to DEM
but they may also incorporate the elevation of significant topographic features on the land, mass point and breaklines that
are irregularly spaced. DSM also similar to DTM and DEM, except that a DSM depicts the elevations of the top surfaces
of buildings, tree, and towers. TINs are excellent for calculation of DEM when it is critical to preserve the precies location
of small surface features. Breakline is a linear feature that describes a chane in the smoothness or continuity of a surface.
Mass point are irregularly spaced points, each with an x/y location and a z-value used to form a TIN.

In order to achieve a uniformly spaced DEM, data producers typically start with mass points and breaklines where mass
points are irregularly spaced and breaklines follow linear surface edges. TIN is derived from the mass points and
breaklines, then interpolate the TIN triangles to obtain elevations at the DEM’s pre-calculated x/y coordinates. There are
three data structures commonly used to 3D surface modelling : TIN, Gridded Surface (DEM, DTM, DSM) and contours.
TIN is a digital terrain model that is based on an irregular array of points which form a sheet of non-overlapping
contiguous triangle facets. The TIN’s vector data structure is based on irregularly-spaced point, line, and polygon data
interpreted as mass points and breakline. The simplest interpretation of the model, in terms of defining a continuous
surface is a linear approach and is based on the principal that a flat plane can be fit to any three non-collinear points. For
example, a triangle record contained in a TIN may maintain explicit reference to the three nodes that define it ad the three
associated triangles that share its borders.

Grid is a rectangular array of cells, each of which stores a value. The cells of a grid can be interpreted in two ways. When
used to represent surfaces, the grid cell value represents the surface value at the centroid of each cell. When used to
represent an area, the entire cell is assumed to be of the same value and changes in value only occur at the border of cells.
There are many techniques for creating a gridded surface from sample data, generally referred to as interpolation. There
are two classes of interpolation, deterministic (i.e Inverse Distance Weighted Interpolation, Natural Neighbor
Interpolation and Spline) and probabilistic (i.e Kriging).

Inverse Distance Weighted Interpolation determines new cell values using a linearly weighted combination of values
from nearby points. The weight is a function of inverse distance. IDW interpolation is useful when the variable being
interpolated decreases in influence with distance from the sample location. Natural Neighbor Interpolation uses an area-
based weighting scheme to interpolate heights. The key is finding appropiate input samples (neighbors) to use when
interpolating a height for a given point. Spline use a mathematical formula to create a surface that minimizes the overall
surface curvartures, resulting in smooth surface that passes through the input points. This method is very useful for
creating elevation models of areas with gently varying terrain with smooth slope transitions. Kriging is a similar to
deterministic interpolation that it weights the surrounding measured values to derive a prediction for each location. A
specific type of kriging known as “ordinary kriging” is most appropriate for interpolation of terrain data. Ordinary kriging
recalculates a local mean for each location to be estimated.

Reference :

Maune, David F. (2001). Digital Elevation Model Technologies And Applications : The Dem Users Manual. Maryland,
USA. 1-22.