Topographical Map of Earth Mission Completed

dolphin558 writes "The mission to provide a topographical layout of a large swath of the planet Earth was completed after a four year partnership between NASA and NGA. The data was derived from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission launched February of 2000. The map extends from 60 degrees north of the Equator to 56 degrees south with a resolution level (for publicly available data) of 295 feet. The data can be used to set warning guidelines for low lying areas, regulate land use and further refine radar topography for extra-terrestrial applications as in the case of Venus."

the missing link

[Anonymous Coward]

The data is available here: http://srtm.usgs.gov/ [usgs.gov]

Some nice images

[xott]

And a great topological map of New Zealand. You can clearly see the different forces affecting the land here. The upwelling of volcanic activity in the north, and the collision of plates pushing up the Southern Alps in the south Island. And if you look very very close in the middle of the North Island, you can see Hobbiton.

Might help detecting mountains...

[Shane-24]

...and preventing this [earthtimes.org]

Re:Might help detecting mountains...

[Shane-24]

On a second look, it only seems to only map the places above the water. Though I still suppose it would help you not walk into one by accident... Just in case, like

Another link

[Hackenslacker]

http://seamless.usgs.gov/ has the global data for free.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Already obsolete?

[SethS]

Large portions? No. Percentage wise, it's a very small bit of Earth's land area that was hit. And in all likely hood, it's just going to be some coast lines that were changed. No major mountain ranges are going to be swept away!

file formats

[drunken dash]

so where can i get a nice 24-bit JPG? :)

295 feet?

[bill_mcgonigle]

We have 5-meter data of Mars available for download from the Mars Global Survey...

Ah, well, if you want it done right -
Does anybody know of an OSS package that will let me take a whole bunch of waypoints from a WAAS GPS and build a topo map from it?

Re:295 feet?

[Detritus]

There aren't any national security problems in providing high-resolution data for Mars.

Re:295 feet?

[bill_mcgonigle]

There aren't any national security problems in providing high-resolution data for Mars.

GPS does better than 5 meters.

Re:295 feet?

[Detritus]

I think they are more concerned about the data being used for terrain matching guidance systems such as those used in cruise missiles and ballistic missile warheads.

Water features

[RobertB-DC]

If I'm looking at the right data -- a big if -- it looks like the dataset includes some underwater topography, at least to a certain depth. Or is it just that the radar reflects differently from the water, giving the illusion of depth?

I went to http://seamless.usgs.gov/website/seamless/viewer.p hp [usgs.gov], and zoomed in on the local fishing hole (Cedar Creek Lake, near Gun Barrel City, Texas). After picking the appropriate layers (Elevation/SRTM 30m Shaded Relief, turn off the bogus GTOPO60 layer), I could see a pebbly texture where the lake was. The texture looked more realistic on the mud flats on the north end of the lake. Turn on Hydrography/Streams, and you can see where the creek used to be (more or less). Turn on Hydrography/Waterbodies, and the lake is filled in (good for getting your bearings).

Interestingly, though, there are some dropouts visible in the elevation data under the lake. They don't seem related to depth. I wonder if a party barge on water causes a strange echo?

Works on coastal areas, too. However, since the pebbly texture looks the same for the whole area of Matagorda Beach [matagordabay.com] that I looked at, I suspect I'm not seeing anything but a false echo a few feet below the surface.

Re:Water features

[Palomar]

Someone knows a public available data on underwater topography?

Some other countries worked on this,

[Odocoileus]

so who has access to the non-publicly available data? Is it only the countries involved, or is it shared with other countries?