IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jmathe/v11y2023i6p1522-d1103230.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Application of Finite Element Method to Create a Digital Elevation Model

Author

Listed:
  • Eduardo Conde López

    (Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Caminos, Canales y Puertos, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain)

  • Eduardo Salete Casino

    (Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, 28040 Madrid, Spain)

  • Jesús Flores Escribano

    (Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, 28040 Madrid, Spain)

  • Antonio Vargas Ureña

    (Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, 28040 Madrid, Spain)

Abstract

The generation of a topographical surface or digital elevation model for a given set of points in space is a known problem in civil engineering and topography. In this article, we propose a simple and efficient way to obtain the terrain surface by using a structural shell finite element model, giving advice on how to implement it. The proposed methodology does not need a large number of points to define the terrain, so it is especially suitable to be used with data provided by manual topographical tools. Several examples are developed to demonstrate the easiness and accuracy of the methodology. The digital terrain model of a real landscape is modeled by using different numbers of points (from 49 to 400) using a regular mesh or a randomly generated cloud of points. The results are compared, showing how the proposed methodology creates a sufficiently accurate model, even with a low number of points (compared with the thousands of points handled in a LiDAR representation). A real case application is also shown. As an appendix, the sample code to generate the examples is provided.

Suggested Citation

  • Eduardo Conde López & Eduardo Salete Casino & Jesús Flores Escribano & Antonio Vargas Ureña, 2023. "Application of Finite Element Method to Create a Digital Elevation Model," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-16, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jmathe:v:11:y:2023:i:6:p:1522-:d:1103230
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/11/6/1522/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7390/11/6/1522/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Zhongmin Xiao & Longfei Wu & Dachang Zhu & Wenqiang Wu & Chunliang Zhang & Fangyi Li, 2023. "Rib Reinforcement Bionic Topology Optimization under Multi-Scale Cyclic Excitation," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(11), pages 1-12, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jmathe:v:11:y:2023:i:6:p:1522-:d:1103230. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.