Ecosystem#

xDEM is but a single tool among a large landscape of open tools for geospatial elevation analysis! Below is a list of other tools that you might find useful to combine with xDEM, in particular for retrieving elevation data or to perform complementary analysis.

See also

Tools listed below only relate to elevation data. To analyze georeferenced rasters, vectors and point cloud data, check out xDEM’s sister-package GeoUtils.

Python#

Great Python tools for pre-processing and retrieving elevation data:

  • SlideRule to pre-process and retrieve high-resolution elevation data in the cloud, including in particular ICESat-2 and GEDI,

  • pDEMtools to pre-process and retrieve ArcticDEM and REMA high-resolution DEMs available in polar regions,

  • icepyx to retrieve ICESat-2 data.

Complementary Python tools to analyze elevation data are for instance:

  • PDAL for working with dense elevation point clouds,

  • demcompare to compare two DEMs together,

  • RichDEM for in-depth terrain analysis, with a large range of method including many relevant to hydrology.

Julia#

If you are working in Julia, the Geomorphometry package provides a wide range of terrain analysis for elevation data.

R#

If you are working in R, the MultiscaleDTM package provides modular tools for terrain analysis at multiple scales!

Other community resources#

Whether to retrieve data among their wide range of open datasets, or to dive into their other resources, be sure to check out the amazing OpenTopography and OpenAltimetry efforts!