GEOG 493/593: Digital Terrain Analysis

(CRN: 14604/14608, 4 credits)

Course Webpage: http://web.pdx.edu/~jduh/courses/geog493f08/index.htm

(Or go to http://web.pdx.edu/~jduh/ and select “Courses-> GEOG 4/593 (F08)”)

 

Instructors: Geoffrey Duh  (jduh@pdx.edu)

Office: CH 424J     Ph: 503-725-3159    Office hours: Mon 1-3 pm

Course emailing list: digitalterrain@lists.pdx.edu

Lecture and Lab: Tue, Thu 12:00-13:50 (Tue in CH418 and Thu in CH469)

 

Pre-course survey: Go to the website below and follow the instructions to complete the questions by Oct 2, 2pm. http://survey.oit.pdx.edu/ss/wsb.dll/jduh/digitalterrain.htm

 

Course Objectives

This course focuses on the theory and methods of the generation, compilation, analysis, and applications of digital elevation data. Specific topics include GIS terrain data models, photogrammetry and LiDAR DEM processing, terrain surface modeling, digital terrain analysis, terrain visualization, and watershed delineation. The course includes computer exercises in the generation and processing of DEM using GIS and image processing software packages including ArcMap, ArcGIS 3D Analyst, ArcScene, Erdas Imagine and Leica Photogrammetry Suite (LPS).

 

Text and Readings

Required: Li, Z., Zhu, Q, and Gold, C. 2004. Digital Terrain Modeling: Principles and Methodology. CRC Press.

 

Optional: Lillesand, T. M., Kiefer, R. W., and Chipman, J. W. 2004. Remote Sensing and Image Interpretation, 5th edition. John Wiley & Sons. (Instructors will distribute readings from this text.)

 

In addition, students will read articles from peer-review journals. These articles are available in pdf format in the I:\Students\Instructors\Geoffrey_Duh\GEOG4593\Readings folder.  These articles are:

 

Baker, M. E., Weller, D. E., and Jordan, T. E. 2006. Comparison of Automated Watershed Delineations: Effects on Land Cover Areas, Percentages, and Relationships to Nutrient Discharge. PE&RS 72(2): 159-168.

Peng, M-H. and Shih, T-Y. 2006. Error Assessment in Two Lidar-derived TIN Datasets. PE&RS 72(8): 933-947.

 

There are several ESRI digital books that will be used for both the theoretical and practical components of the course. These materials can be found in several subfolders in the I:\Students\data\GIS\ArcGIS9.1_documentation\ESRI_Library folder.

We will also use ERDAS Imagine Field Guide. The document is available in I:\Students\Instructors\Geoffrey_Duh\ERDAS Imagine.

 

 

 

Grading

The instructor will grade graduate and undergraduate students based on separate distribution curves. The components of a student’s grade are:

 

Class Participation

10 %

Midterm

15 %

Lab Assignments

40 %

Project

35 %

 

Class Participation (10%) (Click here for the quiz schedule)

Attendance to this course is mandatory. If you miss more than two class periods then you will be penalized five percent of your final grade per absence. PLEASE DO NOT MISS CLASS. You are expected to take part in the discussions and if you are not in class then you cannot. If you are repeatedly late you will be given an absence. The labs are due by Thursday before class the week after they are assigned (see the course schedule for the exact due dates). You can hand them in class or put them in my mailbox in CH424.

All students are required to select a topic from a list provided by the instructor (see next page) and give a 10 minutes presentation on that topic to the class. You must prepare a powerpoint presentation, 4 discussion/quiz questions and their answers. Students who are responsible for the week’s topics must email the questions to the course mailing list and the questions and their answers to the instructor by 5pm the day before the class. The presentation should be mainly based on the assigned readings. I strongly encourage you to put additional relevant materials you find on the internet or from other references that might help students understand the topic.

 

Exams (15%)

There will be one in-class, closed-book mid-term exam and no final exam. Unscheduled in-class quizzes will be administered without notifications. Results of these quizzes will be counted toward class participation.

 

Lab Component (40%)

You will do practical exercises on the computers. If you do not finish the labs during the assigned time periods (usually every Thursday) the lab also has open hours. The practical exercises provide a way to acquire skills using GIS software packages and to apply the course concepts to real data. Lab exercises are due by the beginning of the next exercise. All exercises require a significant amount of time to finish. Make sure you pace your lab exercises appropriately to prevent from turning them in late. Please refer to the course schedule for specific due dates of the exercises.

 

Project Component (35%)

A term project is required for all students. The project should investigate a particular research problem using the software packages that we use in class. You should acquire spatial data and if necessary digitize the data and the project should involve some types of digital terrain analysis.  The deliverable is a digital copy of Powerpoint presentation that you will present to the class. Individual graduate students also Each project group must submit a final paper that describes the project in a publishable style/format (see guidelines here). There are two stages to the project (the dates they are due are listed on the course schedule):


Project proposal: Submit a one page project proposal. It should include a project title, a research question, a list of the spatial and attribute databases you will use, and a conceptual description of the methods you will use. Please make appointments with the instructor to discuss your proposal if you have any questions. Here is a list of criteria for reviewing a proposal.

 

Oral presentation: Includes the essential information described in the proposal, data sets used, the analyses performed, and display the maps and tabular output derived from the analyses (see presentation rubric).

 

 

Click here for the information on the requests for academic accommodation and the policy on academic honesty.

 

 

 

Student Discussion Topics

Week

Tuesday

Presenters

2

Oct 7

l    Basic aerial photography geometry

l    Relief displacement

l    Image parallax

Nadia Jones

Nate Barrons

Sarah Thompson

3

Oct 14

l    Single Frame Orthorectification vs. Block Triangulation

l    Image resolution and scanning resolution

l    Coordinate Systems in photogrammetry

Vicky Teeters

Mike True

Derrak Richard

4

Oct 21

l    Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) systems

l    Range distance and range resolution of ALS

l    Lidar laser beam “returns”

Loren Meagher

Caroline Rouwalk

Samantha Barker

5

Oct 28

No readings

-

6

Nov 4

l    Delaunay triangulation

l    Bilinear interpolation

l    Point-based moving averaging

Bill Wessinger

Al Klein

James Manzione

7

Nov 11

Veterans Day

-

8

Nov 18

l    Slope, aspect, and curvature

l    Fractal dimension

l    Flow direction and flow accumulation

l    Viewshed analysis: point-to-point (area) visibility

Denisse Fisher

Kate Clark

Minott Kerr

Mike Martello

9

Nov 25

l    Variables for visualization

l    Hill shading

l    Basic principles of rendering

Alan Devenish

Kate Mickelson

Jana Tracy

 

 

Course Schedule

   

Week

Tuesday

Thursday

1

Sep 30, Oct 2

Course Overview & Digital Terrain Data Models (Ch 1 & 4) (Slides)

Lab 1. Digital Terrain Data Models (Due by noon Oct 9)

2

Oct 7,  Oct 9

Photogrammetry 1 (Ch 3, pp 31-39 & Lillesand, Kiefer, and Chipman. pp. 149-183) (Slides)

Lab 2. Digital Photogrammetry: DEM Extraction (Due by noon Oct 23)

3

Oct 14, Oct 16

Photogrammetry 2 (ERDAS Field Guide Ch 8: Photogrammetric Concepts pp 291-337) (Slides)

Continue Lab 2.

4

Oct 21, Oct 23

LiDAR (Ch 3, pp 50-56; Lillesand, Kiefer, and Chipman. Chapter 8, pp 638-639 & 725-732) (Slides)

Lab 3a. LiDAR Data Processing Part I (Due by noon Oct 30)

5

Oct 28, Oct 30

Project Proposal Due

LiDAR Applications (No readings for this week) (Slides)

Lab 3b. LiDAR Data Processing Part II (Due by noon Nov 6)

6

Nov 4, Nov 6

Midterm Exam

TIN and Surface Interpolation (Ch 5 & 6) (Slides)

Lab 4. Surface Interpolation (Due by noon Nov 13)

7

Nov 11,  Nov 13

Veterans Day – University Closed

Lab 5. Terrain Visualization (Due by noon Nov 20)

8

Nov 18, Nov 20

Derived surfaces, Viewsheds, and Watersheds (Ch 2, Ch 13 & Baker et al. 2006) (Slides)

Lab 6. Watershed Delineation and Terrain Descriptions (Due by noon December 2)

 

9

Nov 25, Nov 27

Terrain Visualization (Ch 12) (Google Earth Slides, slides)

Thanksgiving – University Closed

10

Dec 2, Dec 4

Digital Terrain Applications (Ch 14) (Slides)

Final presentation

Dec 11 (Thu)

Final Presentation & Project Deliverables Due

Final presentation (10:15 ~ 12:05)