Quality Control in Digital Terrain Models
Publication: Journal of Surveying Engineering
Volume 131, Issue 4
Abstract
This article is based on digital terrain models (DTMs) and their applications in civil engineering carried out at the Public University of Navarre. One of the drawbacks of the use of these synthetic surfaces is the need to characterize their quality, a very important issue for its economic importance but difficult to determine in a nonempirical manner. We will review the techniques most commonly used to estimate the quality of the models and propose a new method for the control of the quality of DTM in applications for which a high accuracy is required. Among the advantages of this method is that no reference model is needed, and there is a possibility of estimating the errors obtained when using a DTM. The proposed method offers good results and adequately allows one to characterize the roughness of the surfaces evaluated. The sensitivity analysis of the model shows that the volumetric errors are highly sensitive to the density of points sampled, while the height errors remain highly stable.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The work presented in this paper is part of the research developed by the surveying group of the Projects and Rural Engineering Dept. of the Public University of Navarre, in the context of the DTMs. The first author acknowledges the encouragement and support of François Peyret and David Bétaille from the Laboratoire Central des Ponts et Chaussées and of Laurent Polidori of the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement of France.
References
Deren, L., and Xiao, C. (1991). “Automatically generating triangulated irregular digital terrain model networks by mathematical morphology.” ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 46, 283–295.
Förstner, W. (1983). “On the morphological quality of digital elevation models.” Proc., International Colloquium of Mathematical Aspects of Digital Elevation Models, International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Stockholm, Sweden.
Frederiksen, P. (1981). “Terrain analysis and accuracy prediction by means of Fourier transformation.” International Archives of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, 23(4), 284–293.
Li, Z. (1991). “Effects of check points on the reliability of DTM accuracy estimates obtained from experimental test.” Photogramm. Eng. Remote Sens., 57(10), 1333–1340.
Loon, J. C., and Petros, G. P. (1985). “Digital terrain elevation model analysis.” Report ETL-0393, The Ohio State University Foundation, U.S. Army Research Office.
Makarovic, B. (1973). “Progressive sampling for digital terrain models.” ITC. J,1973(3), 397–416.
Makarovic, B. (1977). “Composite sampling for digital terrain models.” ITC. J,1977(3), 406–433.
Makarovic, B. (1980). “Automatic off-line generation of digital terrain models.” ITC. J,1980(3), 408–419.
Makarovic, B. (1984). “Structures for geo-information and their application in selective sampling for digital terrain models.” ITC. J, 1984(4), 285–295.
McCullagh, M. J. (1988). “Terrain and surface modeling system: Theory and practice.” Photogramm. Rec., 12(72), 747–791.
Pike, R. J., and Rozema, W. J. (1975). “Spectral analysis of landforms.” Ann. Assoc. Amer. Geog., 65, 499–516.
Ternryd, C. O. (1972). “Fundamental examination of concepts of accuracy in terrain data and earthwork calculations.” Proc., of NATO Advanced Study Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark, 66–82.
Zink, D. M. (1991). “Accuracy assessment of interpolation procedures for digital terrain modelling.” PhD thesis, Univ. of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Surveying Engineering
Volume 131 • Issue 4 • November 2005
Pages: 118 - 124
Copyright
© 2005 ASCE.
History
Received: Feb 12, 2004
Accepted: Dec 29, 2004
Published online: Nov 1, 2005
Published in print: Nov 2005
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.