GEOG 493/593: Digital Terrain Analysis

 

 

(CRN: 11344/11364, 4 credits)

Course Webpage: http://web.pdx.edu/~jduh/courses/geog493f09/index.htm

(Or go to http://web.pdx.edu/~jduh/ and select “Courses-> GEOG 4/593 (F09)”)

 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: 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. (ISBN-10: 0415324629)

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.)

Journal article: (pdf in I:\Students\Instructors\Geoffrey_Duh\GEOG4593\Readings folder.)

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.

Software documents: 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 on lab computers and 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 to 15 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. Students will form project groups to investigate a particular research problem using the software packages that we use in class. The project should involve some types of digital terrain analysis.  The deliverable is a digital copy of Powerpoint presentation that student groups will present to the class. 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.

PSU H1N1 flu information: Classroom policies & Information sheet.

 

Student Discussion Topics

Week

Tuesday

Presenters

2

Oct 6

Geometric distortions of aerial photo

Basic aerial photography geometry

Relief displacement

Image parallax

Juan Gonzalez

Sean Pickner

Lesley Bross

Stephen Pilson

3

Oct 13

Single Frame Orthorectification and Block Triangulation

Image resolution and scanning resolution

Coordinate Systems: pixel coordinates

Coordinate Systems: image coordinates

Coordinate Systems: image space coordinates

Coordinate Systems: ground space coordinates

Amanda Stolnacke

Joey Roberts

Kristina Thorneycroft

Beth Chappell

Bethany Pratt

Donald Waldo

4

Oct 20

Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) systems

Range distance of ALS

Range resolution of ALS

Lidar laser beam “returns”

Laser point cloud and DTM

Ryan Lynch

Jacob Macdonald

Kari Kimura

Lisa Utz

Sarah Shewell

5

Oct 27

No readings

 

6

Nov 3

Delaunay triangulation

Triangulation from DEM

Bilinear interpolation

Least-squares fitting of a local surface

Point-based moving averaging

HeatherAnn VanDyke

Brain McLeer

Jesse Nett

Tess Harden

Jana LaFrenier

7

Nov 10

Slope, aspect, and curvature

Fractal dimension

Spatial autocorrelation – semivariance

Flow direction and flow accumulation

Sinks

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

Matt Tofte

Kim Biafora

Lily House-Peters

Angie Cirello

Lowell Anthony

Scott Montegna

8

Nov 17

Watershed delineation: Stream burning

Watershed delineation: Normalized excavation

Watershed delineation: AGREE

Comparisons among different watershed delineation methods

Maren Murphy

Daniel Lyvers

Scott Parker

Steve Sobie

9

Nov 24

Variables for visualization

Basic principles of rendering

Terrain animation techniques

Tomoko Kanai

Whityn Owen

James Stevens

 

Course Schedule

 

Week

Tuesday

Thursday

1

Sep 29, Oct 1

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

Lab 1. Digital Terrain Data Models (Due by noon Oct 8)

2

Oct 6,  Oct 8

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 22)

3

Oct 13, Oct 15

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

Continue Lab 2.

4

Oct 20, Oct 22

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 29)

5

Oct 27, Oct 29

Project Proposal Due

LiDAR Applications (No readings for this week) Slides

Lab 3b. LiDAR Data Processing Part II (Due by noon Nov 5)

6

Nov 3, Nov 5

Midterm Exam

TIN and Surface Interpolation (Ch 5 & 6) Slides

Lab 4. Surface Interpolation (Due by noon Nov 12)

7

Nov 10,  Nov 12

Derived surfaces, Viewsheds, and Watersheds (Ch 2 and Ch 13) Slides

Lab 5. Terrain Visualization (Due by noon Nov 19)

8

Nov 17, Nov 19

Watershed delineation methods (Baker et al. 2006) Slides

Lab 6. Watershed Delineation and Terrain Descriptions

 (Due by noon December 1)

9

Nov 24, Nov 26

Terrain Visualization (Ch 12) Slides, Google Earth Slides

Thanksgiving – University Closed

10

Dec 1, Dec 3

Digital Terrain Applications (Ch 14) Slides

Final presentation

Dec 10 (Thu)

Final Presentation & Project Deliverables Due

Final presentation (10:15 ~ 13:00)