Forum: Vue


Subject: Question about Importing DEMs

grunthor opened this issue on May 25, 2005 ยท 7 posts


grunthor posted Wed, 25 May 2005 at 8:59 PM

Hi everyone. It's great to be back. I've missed this forum.

I have a little question that I'm hoping some of you can help me with. I'm trying to learn how to use DEMs with Vue 5 Infinite. I went to the USGS site and downloaded what I thought was the right file and then I tried to import it into V5i. V5i didn't even see the file (1626959.DEM.SDTS.TAR.GZ).

OK so I look at the file extensions and they are obviously different, so I renamed the file to comply with what Vue is looking for (1626959.DEM). Now it doesn't recognize the format.

Did I download the wrong fomat from USGS? What SHOULD I have done?

Thanks,
Jim

Message edited on: 05/25/2005 21:00


animajikgraphics posted Wed, 25 May 2005 at 9:42 PM

Just an observation, but did you UnTar the file first? Judging by the filename, it looks to be in a compressed format.



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grunthor posted Thu, 26 May 2005 at 4:08 AM

OK I must have had a senior moment there. I hadn't unzipped the files yet. However, now I have the same problem but with 18 new files. These all look similar to "7517CATD.DDF." They import but they all seem like flat planes. The area I selected is quit hilly (I grew up there).

Message edited on: 05/26/2005 04:11


Collateral_Damage posted Thu, 26 May 2005 at 4:24 AM

I am pretty sure you need to convert the file format using a program like 3DEM or Blackart.


LordWexford posted Thu, 26 May 2005 at 6:43 AM

As an alternative to having to convert, try the US Geological Survey - they have high res DEMs covering all of the continental US of A available for both free download & purchase. http://www.usgs.gov/pubprod/digitaldata.html


nanotyrannus posted Fri, 27 May 2005 at 11:54 AM

Download 3dem anyway just to have it, you can open up the tar files directly and save them out to the usgs .dem format from there to be imported into Vue.


grunthor posted Sun, 29 May 2005 at 7:10 PM

Yeah it works better after convertion.