ArcGIS 3D Analyst – Techniques to Drape High-Resolution Image Over DEM for High Quality Results

3d-analystarcgis-10.0drapevisualisation

I have a High resolution Georeferenced Orthomosaic, as well as a DEM of that area. The pixel size of both is 20 cm. The data is in Tiff format.

I tried to drape the Image on the DEM in ArcScene, but the output doesn't have the resolution of the input Image.

enter image description here

You can see that the image appears blocky and pixelated. This pit must be about 40 meters in diameter, and looks much better in the orthomosaic.

Are there any other software which can be used to drape a georeferenced image over a DEM ?

While I'll prefer a free software, I don't mind a proprietary source, paid software.

Best Answer

To add to @Neil's answer, you also need to increase the resolution of the DEM over which the image is being draped if you want to drape over a full resolution DEM. This is controlled under Propoerties -> Base Heights ->Floating on a custom surface -> Raster Resolution.

By default ArcScene will assign very course resolution so that you can see the data quickly.

Initially, both increasing the rendering and raster resolution will take potentially a VERY long time to render but after rendering is finished you will be able to navigate and rotate the model quickly.

enter image description here

Related Solutions

Methodology for Creating Accurate Drainage Networks from High Resolution LiDAR DEM

Have you consider to use GRASS GIS analysis? I have expirience that GRASS algorithms have very good accurance on hydrology analysis. For example, I want to generate something like drainage network on DTM with resolution 5x5m. I had compared tools from ArcMap (including ArcHydro Tools) and you can view the result on first picture (red lines). Then I tried to use GRASS GIS function 'r.stream.extract' and I had got result shown on picture 2 (red lines). Both drainage lines are generated with cathement area 3 hectares.

It is really different, and it has pretty accurance in comparsion with real streams (picture 3, real streams are blue). And GRASS GIS has many hydrological tools, i.e. for generate catchement area too.

[GIS] ArcGIS – Geoprocessing creating temporary files (e.g. “g_g193”). What produces these and how can they be cleaned up

Sorted this out, finally.

Map Algebra and other Spatial Analyst operations that do not explicitly invoke the Geoprocessor object have an environment setting (IRasterAnalysisEnvironment) different from that of the standard GP.Environment. This environment must be set, or else it will default to the location of the extension (e.g. the binary folder). You'd think it would use the same default geodatabase as the other Spatial Analyst tools, but this is clearly not the case.

Here is a simple example from the ESRI documentation.

    Public Sub UsingRasterMapAlgebra()
    'Get rasters.
    Dim inRas01 As IRasterDataset
    inRas01 = OpenRasterDataset("c:\temp", "degs")
    Dim inRas02 As IRasterDataset
    inRas02 = OpenRasterDataset("c:\temp", "negs")
    'Create RasterMapAlgebraOp.
    Dim mapAlgebraOp As IMapAlgebraOp
    mapAlgebraOp = New RasterMapAlgebraOpClass()
    'Set environment.
    Dim env As IRasterAnalysisEnvironment
    env = mapAlgebraOp
    Dim workspaceFactory As IWorkspaceFactory = New RasterWorkspaceFactoryClass()
    Dim workspace As IWorkspace = workspaceFactory.OpenFromFile("c:\temp", 0)
    env.OutWorkspace = workspace
    'Bind rasters.
    mapAlgebraOp.BindRaster(inRas01, "Ras01")
    mapAlgebraOp.BindRaster(inRas02, "Ras02")
    'Execute script.
    Dim rasOut As IRaster
    rasOut = mapAlgebraOp.Execute("[Ras01] + [Ras02]")
    'Save output raster.
    Dim saveAs As ISaveAs2
    saveAs = rasOut
    saveAs.SaveAs("outMA", workspace, "GRID")
End Sub

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Methodology for Creating Accurate Drainage Networks from High Resolution LiDAR DEM

[GIS] ArcGIS – Geoprocessing creating temporary files (e.g. “g_g193”). What produces these and how can they be cleaned up

Related Question