DEMTools from TerraSim®
DEMTools from TerraSim

DEMTools from TerraSim® is a digital elevation model (DEM) management tool enabling rapid and accurate fusion of multiple DEMs from a variety of sources that cover an area of interest, producing a single composite DEM. DEMTools gives you complete control over DEM extent, post spacing, and the coordinate system of the composite DEM. This product is available as an extension to all versions of the ESRI ArcGIS Desktop (ArcView®, ArcEditor®, ArcInfo® ) family.

Building upon the import and export capabilities found in ESRI's ArcGIS Desktop suite, DEMTools greatly simplifies the process of producing a single DEM for your project area. For example, DEMTools can be used to embed high-resolution LIDAR or photogrammetric collections into a single composite DEM file, which includes all available DEM sources, regardless of the original collection of data, map projections, or post spacings.

Together, these capabilities can cover a wide range of DEM construction problem situations, and allow users to rapidly correct, edit, and refine multiple source DEMs into an improved single DEM to more accurately support further analysis.

  • Fusion of multiple DEMs with different blending options
  • Holes and gaps filled in automatically in DEM data
  • Fully automated DEM registration
  • Special processing for bathymetric data
  • DEMs are flattened in user-defined polygonal regions
  • DEMs can be controlled for consistency with project requirements
  • DEM metadata utilities

Windows XP / Vista® workstations with ESRI ArcGIS 8.3, 9.0, or 9.1 installed:

  • Minimum 1GHz processor
  • 512MB RAM
  • 20MB of available hard drive space
  • OpenGL compliant graphics card

DEMTools Utilities

Using an arbitrary number of DEMs, DEMTools merges them into a single DEM, performing automatic hole filling and DEM reprojection as necessary.

DEMTools can convert coastline vector data into an areal polygon covering the lake/ocean region, using a DEM as the basis for determining the extent of the polygon.

DEMTools will combine two DEMs that cover the same region, using an areal shapefile as a binary mask to decide which of the two DEMs to use for each elevation post. This feature is useful for blending land and bathymetry into a seamless composite DEM.

DEMTools automatically identifies key matchable points in each source DEM, saving users from time- consuming manual selection and measurement. DEM registration applies a novel least-squares matching algorithm for attributed point matching to bring one use-selected DEM into registration with respect to the second DEM.