FYI ReDEM users

[thecanadianrail]

just a FYI guys, i tried going onto the server to download some data that i want and im gettng an error saying the server is down for mantinance.

[TDHenderson]

Posted just a bit ago to the viewer site.

"The National Map Viewer, download platform and related basemap services have been experiencing persistent problems since November 2. We apologize for the inconvenience and are working diligently to rectify the problem and restore services as soon as possible."

[Bananarama]

Looks like we're still SOL.

[TDHenderson]

It's working as of right now, I am downloading .BIL's as I type.

Trevor

[thecanadianrail]

For crying out loud - what an absolute pain! Who designed this goofy thing?

Steps to downloading DEM (pardon me if I missed anything):

1. Go to the National Viewer page: http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/
2. Zoom to an area encompassing the sections you wish to download (Tip: double left-click your mouse pointed at the area you're interested in until you reach the desired extent)
3. Click on the "Download Data" button in the upper-right of the viewer
4. Click the link in the popup window "Click Here to download current map extent
5. From the new popup, check the box for "Elevation" and from the drop down menu to the right select "BIL_16INT" and click the "Next" button
6. In the next window, select from the available packages and click "Next"
7. The selection will appear in the left menu - click the "Checkout" button
8. Enter your email address to receive the links to the data download

Whew!

ive tried doing this multiple times but it fails to give me the file that redem uses. only once i got it to give me the needed file but i cant remember how i did it? can anybody give any suggestions or help please?

[Ccarruth]

Thecanadianrail -
Any luck getting terrain data for Canada into Railworks? Or are we stuck free handing anything north of the border?

Would love to do a Crowsnest Pass in S.E. BC, but having a 3 month old at home is cutting into my time to try and learn how to get the elevation data into the route.

Chris

[thecanadianrail]

Thecanadianrail -
Any luck getting terrain data for Canada into Railworks? Or are we stuck free handing anything north of the border?

Would love to do a Crowsnest Pass in S.E. BC, but having a 3 month old at home is cutting into my time to try and learn how to get the elevation data into the route.

Chris

the terrain is avalable from the USGS but its only 1 arc/second which does not show any sort of detail anywhere. you can use it as a rough guide but it was not satisfactory for me.

[Bananarama]

FWIW, 1 arc sec is equivalent to SRTM DEM. I could swear, however, that there was a means on obtaining Canadian 1/3 arc sec DEM, but I seem to have lost that bookmark.

[philmoberg]

FWIW, 1 arc sec is equivalent to SRTM DEM. I could swear, however, that there was a means on obtaining Canadian 1/3 arc sec DEM, but I seem to have lost that bookmark.

I lost my bookmark when my system crashed a year ago, but I think that one was out-of-date, anyway. It appears that this is the current source:

http://www.geobase.ca/geobase/en/data/cded/index.html

[dfcfu342]

For what it's worth I found that none of the 1/9 Arc Second data was downloadable for me when viewing in 24K sections, but if I switched to the 100K sections all of it was available for download. I'm not sure the conversion to SRTM will keep that definition but the better the template to copy from, the better the final results will be (In my mind anyway).

[bnsfsubdivision]

Note: As part of the National Geospatial Program's geospatial data delivery plan for delivering data from a public internet cloud provider by the end of 2013, The National Map is preparing prepackaged, staged products for faster and more efficient downloads. Beginning December 18, 2012, NED 1- and 1/3-arc-second data will be available through prepackaged, downloadable, 1- degree tiles in ArcGrid and GridFloat formats only. Users can still define custom areas of interest. However, all tiles intersecting the area of interest will be included in the delivery.
In addition, beginning with the April 2013 release of the NED, it is anticipated that all elevation products (1-, 1/3- and 1/9-arc-second DEMs) will be available as prepackaged, downloadable files in .img format, a robust format easily read by nearly all GIS software. Due to 1/9 arc-second data's very large size, it will only be available as prepackaged data in '.img' format through online download starting with the April NED release. And while USGS continues to offer ArcGrid and GridFloat formats through our bulk order process, all other format options for on-line download of 1/9 arc-second DEMS will no longer be available after the move to staged products is completed.

We are considering offering a second prepackaged format for 1/9 arc-second data if budgets allow. We will be posting more information about the change to prepackaged products soon. If you have questions or concerns about these changes, please contact us at tnm_help@usgs.gov.

So we'll have in the near future only the possibility to download the data in ArcGrid and GridFloat format which is not compatible with ReDem.

[RCAP]

I've had some success in using Microdem and converting GridFloat to BIL format (FWTools is also required). ReDem read the files and generated the needed tile, but I did compare the results to that of the original BIL files I downloaded prior to the update. Some extra hoops, but appears to be sound.

That said, we hope to have tutorials on all aspects for creating for RW, including converting existing USGS formats to something that ReDem can handle. Stay tuned.

[bnsfsubdivision]

I've had some success in using Microdem and converting GridFloat to BIL format (FWTools is also required). ReDem read the files and generated the needed tile, but I did compare the results to that of the original BIL files I downloaded prior to the update. Some extra hoops, but appears to be sound.

That said, we hope to have tutorials on all aspects for creating for RW, including converting existing USGS formats to something that ReDem can handle. Stay tuned.

Nice! This will definitely help newbie's to start on their own content for RW.

Regards,
Kevin

[gurugordon]

I've had some success in using Microdem and converting GridFloat to BIL format (FWTools is also required). ReDem read the files and generated the needed tile, but I did compare the results to that of the original BIL files I downloaded prior to the update. Some extra hoops, but appears to be sound.

That said, we hope to have tutorials on all aspects for creating for RW, including converting existing USGS formats to something that ReDem can handle. Stay tuned.

I was just about to post something about this. I noticed their site announcement too about IMG format files. Looking forward to seeing the new tutorials.

[RCAP]

We haven't played with IMG formats yet, but apparenty Microdem (along with FWTools) will read the files and convert them to BIL.