Terrain Analysis with Landserf 2.3

        For this project I am choosing to do a Terrain Analysis using a DEM that was obtained from the National Map Viewer website by using the program Landserf 2.3, which was developed by Professor Jo Wood of  giCentre School of Informatics. Again, I am choosing to do the project on a portion of Humphrey's Peak, the same region that I worked with for my previous project on Terrain Visualization, depicted below.

        

        I begin this project by importing the DEM that I obtained from National Map Viewer into Landserf 2.3. Next I converted the DEM into a useable format. Since the image imported had no reliable Latitude/Longitude measurement, I decided to edit the map projection setting to Latitude/Longitude (WGS 84 ellipsoid). I then reprojected the image using the UTM coordinate system. The next thing that I did was create a Hill Shaded Map by changing the surface parameter and choosing the Shaded Relief option.

        From this Shaded Relief Map, I changed the surface parameter again choosing this as my primary raster and created a Feature Extraction Map showing surface network channels and ridges. I then combined the Hill Shaded Map and the Feature Extraction Map by changing the display to Hue-Intensity, choosing the Feature Extraction Map as my primary raster and the Hill Shaded Map as my secondary raster. The result is depicted below with Humphrey Peak's surface network of channels shown in blue and its ridges shown in yellow. I have included a histogram showing the statistical result to go with the map. As we can see from the histogram, planar surfaces have the highest occurrence.

Drainage Network Analysis Map:

The next step in this project is to create a slope analysis map. I will be using the same DEM of the same region for this portion of the project. The first thing that I do is create a slope map by changing the surface parameter to slope and an aspect map by changing the surface parameter to aspect. I then combined and overlay my slope map on top of my aspect map, choosing the blend option with 50% blending of both maps with the primary raster being the slope map, and the secondary raster being the aspect map. Below is a depiction of the final result showing areas with steeper slopes in bright red and areas with slopes that are not as steep in yellow. In addition, the aspect map underneath helps to show the directionality that the slope is facing for this portion of Humphrey's Peak in dark red and blue. I have also included a histogram below to show the statistical result of this map.

Slope Analysis Map:

The final portion of this project is to create an Curvature Analysis Map. I begin this process by creating a Plan Curvature Map by using the surface parameter option Next, I create a Mean Curvature Map also by using the surface parameter option. I then overlay the two by using the blend option putting my Plan Curvature Map as the primary raster and my Mean Curvature Map as the secondary raster showing the degree of curvature on the landscape. My final result is depicted below with lines showing the rate of change of aspect for Humphrey's Peak. Again, I have included a histogram to show the statistical result of the map depicted.

Curvature Analysis Map:

Terrain Visualization with MicroDEM

I chose to do this project on a portion of Humphrey's Peak, which is one of the tallest mountains in central Arizona. Humphrey's Peak have a rocky terrain with treeline around 11,400 feet. It is one of the oldest extinct volcanic peak. Since the area that this project was based on have mainly a rocky terrain with no vegetation or water bodies, all of the map that were created would also have a rocky terrain, which is helpful in this application because we are interested in the elevation. The latitude and longitude extension of this terrain is 35.3920015° N (Northern Coordinate),   35.2761246° N (Southern Coordinate), 111.747437W° (Western Coordinate), and 111.592094° W (Eastern Coordinate). The program that was used to create this project was MicroDEM. For this project, I created 5 maps for this region.

The first map that was created was a Hill Shaded Map that was created of the region. I created this map from the ASTER DEM of the United States. The color scheme is gray with a vertical exaggeration of 2; sun azimuth at 65° NE and sun elevation at 43°. Below is a depiction of what the Hill Shaded Map looks like.

The second map that was created was the Elevation Map. By using the display parameters options, I was able to set the display option to terrain color scale with 5 contrasting colors and no stretching. My elevation map looks like the following.

  
The third map that was created was an overlay of the two previous maps. By showing the grays scale reflectance of my hillshaded map on top of my elevation map, I was able to create a combination showing of both of the above maps. The attribute of the map below would be a combination of the two above it.

 

The fourth map created for this project was a Contour Map. Again, by using the display parameters option, I was able to create a contour map with contour intervals of 50 meters, specified contour colors with red contour lines, contour line width of 1, and index contour width of 4. Each lines of contour are labeled with Font 12 Arial. I then added the Hill Shaded Map, which already have all of its attribute described above, as an overlay by using the terrain shading option in MicroDEM. The final result is depicted below.

The final map in this project would be the Line of Sight Map, which is basically the sketching of a line of sight, showing what an observer would see if he/she is standing on a particular point looking in a certain direction, on the Hill Shaded Map (again, all of its attributes are already defined above in the description of the Hill Shaded Map). My line of sight starting point is at 35.3556480° N    111.703053°W, and my ending point is at 35.3338359°N    111.626769°W. As shown below, the green line shows the portion of the landscape that an observer would see if he/she maintains a straight line of sight all the way across the landscape from the starting point to the ending point, and the red shows portions that the observer wouldn't be able to see at all. The plot of the Line of Sight Map depicts this very well.