{"id":896,"date":"2015-10-24T14:20:05","date_gmt":"2015-10-24T06:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/people.utm.my\/shahabuddin\/?p=896"},"modified":"2015-10-24T14:20:05","modified_gmt":"2015-10-24T06:20:05","slug":"q-how-can-i-create-a-dem-from-contour-lines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/shahabuddin\/?p=896","title":{"rendered":"Q: How can I create a DEM from contour lines?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Answer<\/h2>\n

Depending on what you want to use the resulting raster for, there are a few alternatives. It is possible to generate a DEM from a contour line shapefile, though some methods will tend to have “stair-step” artifacts and lower spatial resolution than the original data. Adding data from other sources and pre-processing your contours can reduce these problems.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. You can use the contour lines as input to build a TIN, and then export the TIN to raster<\/strong>.
    \nSee these ESRI Webhelp pages:
    \nhttp:\/\/resources.arcgis.com\/en\/help\/main\/10.2\/index.html#\/What_is_a_TIN_surface\/006000000001000000\/<\/a>
    \n    http:\/\/resources.arcgis.com\/en\/help\/main\/10.2\/index.html#\/Creating_TIN_surfaces_from_vector_data\/006000000002000000\/<\/a>
    \n    http:\/\/resources.arcgis.com\/en\/help\/main\/10.2\/index.html#\/Fundamentals_of_editing_TIN_surfaces\/006000000004000000\/<\/a>
    <\/li>\n
  2. If you have the 3D Analyst extension<\/strong> use the “Topo” tool<\/strong>. It is designed to create hydraulically correct surfaces, but requires additional input data; see this ESRI webhelp link:

    http:\/\/resources.arcgis.com\/en\/help\/main\/10.2\/index.html#\/Topo_to_Raster\/00q90000000s000000\/<\/a>

    The additional data, such as streams, local high points (hilltops), lakes, and sinks, will help you create better results both in Topo and in generating a TIN.
    <\/li>\n
  3. If you only need a rough approximation of the terrain you can convert the contour lines to points (e.g. their vertices become points with the height attribute) and then subsample the points and interpolate a surface with a Spatial Analyst or 3D Analyst interpolation tool<\/strong>, such as IDW:

    http:\/\/resources.arcgis.com\/en\/help\/main\/10.2\/index.html#\/IDW\/00q90000001s000000\/<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Created by MIT GIS Services<\/a>. Email gishelp(at)mit.edu<\/a> for more assistance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Answer Depending on what you want to use the resulting raster for, there are a few alternatives. It is possible to generate a DEM from a contour line shapefile, though some methods will tend to have “stair-step” artifacts and lower spatial resolution than the original data. Adding data from other sources and pre-processing your contours […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6946,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24,5],"tags":[67,66,65],"class_list":["post-896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-knowledge","category-teaching","tag-arcgis","tag-contour","tag-dem"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"slider-thumb":false,"pop-thumb":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"Dr. Shah","author_link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/shahabuddin\/?author=6946"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Answer Depending on what you want to use the resulting raster for, there are a few alternatives. It is possible to generate a DEM from a contour line shapefile, though some methods will tend to have “stair-step” artifacts and lower spatial resolution than the original data. Adding data from other sources and pre-processing your contours…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/shahabuddin\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/shahabuddin\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/shahabuddin\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/shahabuddin\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6946"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/shahabuddin\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/shahabuddin\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/shahabuddin\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/shahabuddin\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/shahabuddin\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}