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High resolution data updates to Living Atlas World Elevation Layers and Tools (December 2022)

By Rajinder Nagi

ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World provides foundation elevation layers and tools to support analysis and visualization across the ArcGIS system. These layers get updated quarterly with high resolution elevation data from federal agencies, open sources, and community maps program. Esri is providing these datasets as ready to use services that benefit the GIS community and extend the use of data in new and innovative ways. In this release, world elevation layers and tools are updated with a few high-resolution elevation datasets.

Terrain and TopoBathy layers are updated with:

  • Poland’s LiDAR derived high-resolution DTM’s of 1 meter covering most of Poland. This brings 24 times more details than previously available data.
  • Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland’s (OSNI) 10 meters DTM covering entire country of Northern Ireland.
  • Land Information New Zealand’s LiDAR derived 1 meter DTM’s covering partial areas of New Zealand. In this release, 11,751 sq kms of new data was released bringing total coverage to 70,650 sq kms (see map below).
New Zealand coverage
  • Expanded coverage of USGS 3DEP 1 meter lidar derived DTM’s covering areas of the conterminous United States. In this release, approximately 156,000 sq kms (~ 60,231 sq miles) of new coverage of USGS 3DEP 1 meter has been added. The graphic below shows the new addition (magenta) along with previously available coverage (green).
USGS 3DEP 1m coverage

Let’s see a few examples highlighting the improvements.

Gdynia, Poland – improvements over Gdynia region depicted with lidar derived 1-meter DTM in comparison to 24 meters WorldDEM4Ortho

Gdynia, Poland

Tautuku, Otago, NewZealand – details depicted in hilly region with LINZ 1-meter DTM in comparison to 24 meters WorldDEM4Ortho

Tautuku, Otago, NewZealand

Hot Springs, South Dakota, USA – details in urban area depicted with USGS’ 3DEP 1 meter data in comparison to 10 meters

HotSprings, South Dakota, USA

Ready-To-Use Elevation Tools:

Ready-To-Use Elevation Tools (ProfileViewshed and Summarize Elevation) are also updated with 10 meter DTM’s of Northern Ireland.

These data updates will be rolled out to the world elevation tiled services – Elevation 3D (Terrain3D and TopoBathy3D) and Hillshade (World Hillshade and World Hillshade (Dark) ) by the next quarter.

To see the coverage extents of each source comprising World Elevation services, check out the Elevation coverage map.

You can help in improving these services by contributing high-resolution elevation data to Living Atlas of the World. To participate and learn more, check out the Esri Community Maps for Elevation program.

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