Obtaining High Fidelity Triangular Regular Network from Only DEM Points

Abstract

When the source data for the digital elevation model (DEM) are not known and any additional information or features such as skeleton lines of terrain is not available, a triangular regular network (TRN) is constructed with simple subdivision using one or two diagonals uniformly. Such a model gives inaccurate directions for interpolation because of the inaccurate diagonals used in triangulation and thereby, results in inaccurate contours representing artificial terrain features. In this study, a new method is developed based on slope information computed at DEM points determining accurate diagonals in the subdivision process, which is beneficial not only through the skeleton lines of a terrain but also all over the DEM. Consequently, it is shown that the proposed method is able to build a high fidelity TRN from a DEM without any additional information or features.