Online Merging and Gridding of Topographic and Bathymetric Data Sources

Digital Elevation Models (DEM) provide details of the earth’s surface and are used for visualization, physical modeling, and elevation change analysis. Creating DEMs in coastal environments is complicated by the highly ephemeral nature of the coast and the need to span the land-water interface. This requires merging multiple bathymetric and topographic datasets that have been collected at different times, using different instrument platforms with varying levels of accuracy, and with variable spatial resolution and coverage. Because coastal change can occur over relatively short time scales (days to weeks in the case of storms), rapid updates to coastal DEMs are also needed. These challenges and the lack of available tools to create [...]