About xDEM#
What is xDEM?#
xDEM is a Python package for the analysis of elevation data, and in particular that of digital elevation models (DEMs), with name standing for cross-DEM analysis1Several core features of xDEM, in particular coregistration and uncertainty analysis, rely specifically on cross-analysis of elevation data over static surfaces. and echoing its dependency on Xarray.
Why use xDEM?#
xDEM implements a wide range of high-level operations required for analyzing elevation data in a consistent framework tested to ensure the accuracy of these operations.
It has three main focus points:
Having an easy and intuitive interface based on the principle of least knowledge,
Providing statistically robust methods for reliable quantitative analysis,
Allowing modular user input to adapt to most applications.
Although modularity can sometimes hamper performance, we also aim to preserve scalibility as much as possible2Out-of-memory, parallelizable computations relying on Dask are planned for 2025!.
We particularly take to heart to verify the accuracy of our methods. For instance, our terrain attributes which have their own modular Python-based implementation, are tested to match exactly gdaldem (slope, aspect, hillshade, roughness) and RichDEM (curvatures).
Who is behind xDEM?#
xDEM was created by a group of researchers with expertise in elevation data analysis for change detection applied to glaciology. Nowadays, its development is jointly led by researchers in elevation data analysis (including funding from NASA and SNSF) and engineers from CNES (French Space Agency).
Most contributors and users are scientists or industrials working in various fields of Earth observation.
Note
xDEM is merging efforts with CNES’s demcompare to combine the best of both tools into one!
More details about the people behind xDEM, funding sources, and the package’s objectives can be found on the Background reference page.