A Procedure for Producing a Terrain Elevation Grid from Map Contour Data

Abstract

A common method of representing the shape of the terrain, for use in various simulations or digital computer assisted studies, is to record the height of the terrain at regular intervals over a 2-dimensional grid and store this information in the computer. Manual interpolation of contour data from surveys maps, to obtain the data for the grid, is a laborious and error-prone process. This report describes an improved procedure for producing the terrain height grid. It involves a sonic digitizer to record a set of (X, Y) coordinates along the contour lines shown on the survey map. This information is stored in a disk file on a computer, and a two-stage cubic spline interpolation procedure is used to determine the terrain height at the intersection points of the nominated grid. The set of computer programs developed to implement the procedure with minimal storage requirements is described and listed.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 1979
Accession Number
ADA078400

Entities

People

  • M. J. Dowling

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Analog To Digital Converters
  • Computer Programs
  • Computers
  • Department Of Defense
  • Digital Computers
  • Electronics
  • Elevation
  • Grids
  • Interpolation
  • Intervals
  • Simulations
  • Simulators
  • Two Dimensional

Readers

  • Computer Science/Computer Engineering/Data Science/Digital Signal Processing.
  • Computer Vision.
  • Finite Element Method (FEM) for solving Partial Differential Equations (PDEs)