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Tutorial: Using 30 Meter DEMs

The 24k (7.5 min/10- or 30-meter) DEMs are not as readily available as the 3 Arcsecond DEMS.  Thus, we need to download them from various sources and change some of the TFMAKE files to accommodate their location and to create images correctly.  This involves the following steps:

1. Download the 24k DEMs
2. Download an updated DEMLIST_30METER.TXT file
3. Update the CONFIG_30METER.CFG file
4. Use TFMAKE_30METER.BAT

If TruFlite is in the same directory as your TFMAKE files, then it will be launched with your newly created files and show you what the 24k quad looks like.  Otherwise, simply launch Truflite and load the scene.trf file and calculate.

1. Download the 24k DEMs

Download one or more of the following DEMs.  These are self-extracting ZIP files that will give you a ready to use DEM file*.  After downloading, when you double-click on the files, they will extract the DEMs into a directory named "dems/arizona_10_meter/" on whichever drive you downloaded them.

You will use the Latitude and Longitude of the files with TFMAKE (see table below).

2. Download the Updated DEMLIST_30METER.TXT File

You will need to update the file "DEMLIST_30METER.TXT" in order to use TFMAKE with these DEMs.  Download (right-click and "Save File As...") the following file and save it in the directory that includes TFMAKE files (it will overwrite the existing file that came with TFMAKE):

     DEMLIST_30METER.TXT

This file adds the references necessary for these 9 Arizona DEMs. The URL for the DEMS in this file is set to:

     "file://D:/dems/arizona_10_meter/<name>.dem"

You will need to make sure that the path is set to where you put the DEMs on your computer, e.g., if you saved them on the C drive, then change the "D" for the nine Arizona DEMs to "C" by opening the file or editing it in Notepad.

3. Update the CONFIG_30METER.CFG File

In order for the palette to work with these files, we need to change one setting in the CONFIG_30METER.CFG file.  Change the 3rd line from the bottom to:

     TF_UPPERELEVATION 15000

Or download (right click and "Save File As...") the following file:

     CONFIG_30METER.CFG

This is from 5000.  If you don't change this setting, your images may not be properly calculated for elevation color.

4. Use TFMAKE_30METER.BAT

With steps 1-3 completed, we are now ready to use TFMAKE to generate our TruFlite files (scene.trf, elevation.trf, and texture.trf).  The following table gives the command line prompt in your Command window (make sure you are in the TFMAKE files directory):

Upon successful completion of the Command Line, TruFlite will launch and calculate the scene.  Here is the scene (trimmed) generated for Cat Mountain with the default settings:

Cat Mountain with default settings.

At this point you can play with the settings to view the scene in a number of ways.  Here are the settings to look straight down, change the size to 480x640 (rather than 640x480), increase the grid, and exaggerate the z-scale a little:

New TruFlite settings for Cat Mountain

And here is the scene (trimmed) that these settings create:

Cat Mountain with new settings.

You will now want to play with the settings and try new things.  You may also want to use a tool like Photoshop to stitch the elevation and texture files together to cover the entire area (although there are some considerations we need to talk about).  Sometime soon I will add a tutorial for this as well.

Recap

To complete this tutorial, you downloaded the DEMs of interest and unzipped them into their default directory.  You noted this location (the drive) and updated the DEMLIST_30METER.TXT file with this information.  You then modified the CONFIG_30METER.CFG file to make the upper elevation 15000 instead of 5000.  You executed TFMAKE_30METER.BAT in your Command Window (in the same directory as your TFMAKE files) and generated the scenery files.  You then saw the scene calculate in TruFlite.  After this you played with the settings and noticed that you could see much more detail than with the default settings.

At this point, you probably called the nearest person to see the cool stuff you just did.  Congratulations, you are now becoming a pro at TruFlite and TFMAKE!

Need Help or Just Have Questions?

To answer your questions or assist you with the tutorial, please contact Brenton White Company by email or phone (970-203-0300).

* Most 24k DEMs available for download from a variety of sources are SDTS DEMs and they must be converted to standard DEMs for use with TFMAKE.  The files here have been converted and are ready for use once they are unzipped.

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