sardem 0.7.0

Create upsampled DEMs for InSAR processing

DEM creator

Tool for making Digital Elevation Maps (DEMs) in binary data format (16-bit integers, little endian) for use in Interferometric SAR (InSAR) processing

sardem creates a cropped (and possibly upsampled) digital elevation map:

usage: sardem [-h] [--bbox left bottom right top] [--geojson GEOJSON] [--xrate XRATE] [--yrate YRATE] [--output OUTPUT] [--data-source {NASA,NASA_WATER,AWS}]
              [--convert-to-wgs84]
              [left_lon] [top_lat] [dlon] [dlat]

Setup and installation

pip install sardem

This creates the command line executable sardem

Alternatively, you can clone to build/install:

git clone https://github.com/scottstanie/sardem
cd sardem
make

which will run pip install --upgrade . and create the command line script.

If you use virtualenv

# Optional for using virtualenv
virtualenv ~/envs/sardem && source ~/envs/sardem/bin/activate  # Or wherever you store your virtual envs
# Or if you have virtualenv wrapper: mkvirtualenv sardem
pip install sardem

Command Line Interface

The full options for the command line tool in sardem/cli.py can be found using

$ sardem --help
usage: sardem [-h] [--bbox left bottom right top] [--geojson GEOJSON] [--xrate XRATE] [--yrate YRATE] [--output OUTPUT] [--data-source {NASA,NASA_WATER,AWS}]
              [--convert-to-wgs84]
              [left_lon] [top_lat] [dlon] [dlat]

Stiches SRTM .hgt files to make (upsampled) DEM

    Pick a lat/lon bounding box for a DEM, and it will download
    the necessary SRTM1 tiles, stitch together, then upsample.

    Usage Examples:
        sardem --bbox -156 18.8 -154.7 20.3  # bounding box: left  bottom  right top
        sardem -156.0 20.2 1 2 --xrate 2 --yrate 2  # Makes a box 1 degree wide, 2 deg high
        sardem --geojson dem_area.geojson -x 11 -y 3
        sardem -156.0 20.2 0.5 0.5 -r 10 --data-source NASA_WATER -o my_watermask.wbd # Water mask

    Default out is elevation.dem for the final upsampled DEM.
    Also creates elevation.dem.rsc with start lat/lon, stride, and other info.

positional arguments:
  left_lon              Left (western) most longitude of DEM box (degrees, west=negative)
  top_lat               Top (northern) most latitude of DEM box (degrees)
  dlon                  Width of DEM box (degrees)
  dlat                  Height of DEM box (degrees)

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --bbox left bottom right top
                        Bounding box of area of interest  (e.g. --bbox -106.1 30.1 -103.1 33.1 ).
  --geojson GEOJSON, -g GEOJSON
                        Alternate to corner/dlon/dlat box specification:
                        File containing the geojson object for DEM bounds
  --xrate XRATE, -x XRATE
                        Rate in x dir to upsample DEM (default=1, no upsampling)
  --yrate YRATE, -y YRATE
                        Rate in y dir to upsample DEM (default=1, no upsampling)
  --output OUTPUT, -o OUTPUT
                        Name of output dem file (default=elevation.dem for DEM, watermask.wbd for water mask)
  --data-source {NASA,NASA_WATER,AWS}, -d {NASA,NASA_WATER,AWS}
                        Source of SRTM data (default NASA). See README for more.
  --convert-to-wgs84, -c
                        Convert the DEM heights from geoid heights above EGM96 to heights above WGS84 ellipsoid

The code used for bilinear interpolation in the upsampling routine is in cython/upsample.c, and is wrapped in cython to allow easier installation and ability to call the function from Python. The installation is handled through pip install, or by running make build.

Functions for working with digital elevation maps (DEMs) are mostly contained in the Downloader and Stitcher classes within sardem/dem.py and sardem/download.py.

NASA SRTM Data access

The default datasource is NASA's SRTM version 3 global 1 degree data. See https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/dataset_discovery/measures/measures_products_table/srtmgl3s_v003 . The data is valid outside of artic regions (-60 to 60 degrees latitude), and is zeros over open ocean.

This data requires a username and password from here: https://urs.earthdata.nasa.gov/users/new

You will be prompted for a username and password when running with NASA data. It will save into your ~/.netrc file for future use, which means you will not have to enter a username and password any subsequent times. The entry will look like this:

machine urs.earthdata.nasa.gov
    login USERNAME
    password PASSWORD

If you want to avoid this entirely, you can use Mapzen's data hosted on AWS by specifying

sardem 156.0 20.0 .5 0.5 --data-source AWS

--data-source NASA is the default.

Mapzen combines SRTM data with other sources, so the .hgt files will be slightly different (but often not noticeable)

Warning: Mapzen notes that they are discontinuing some services, which is why NASA is the default.