Generate Elevation Guide Features (Topographic Production Tools)
Summary
Creates data required for an elevation guide diagram surround element as required by various supported map product specifications. This tool uses existing banding and thinning parameters to generate output elevation band features, spot height features, and hydrology features.
Usage
The tool will create, at a minimum, the following feature classes in the target feature dataset:
EGB_COAST_L
EGB_BANDS_A
EGB_BANDS_L
EGB_HYDRO_A
EGB_HYDRO_L
EGB_SPOTS_P
If input hydrology line or input hydrology area features are provided, the tool will create the EGB_HYDRO_A and EGB_HYDRO_L feature classes as required with a selection of thinned hydrology features as specified by the Minimum Hydro Length and Minimum Hydro Area parameters.
If input spot height features are provided, the tool will also create the EGB_SPOTS_P feature class and will populate this feature class with a selection of thinned spot heights based on the provided search distance.
These feature classes will manage elevation bands and coastlines in a common format that can be used by product templates to preconfigure layers and required symbology for the elevation guide diagram.
The symbology for the elevation band features is intended to be separated between band areas and lines to better support elevation band line masking requirements for overlapping spot height annotation.
The coastline features will only be generated if a set of hydrology exclusion features are available when processing the elevation bands. Without hydrology exclusion features, no hydrology features will be created by the banding tools to identify the coastline, as the area of interest will be assumed to be 100 percent land.
If more than one input raster is used, all input rasters must have the same cell size, band count, and pixel type. All input rasters should also use the same elevation units (meters or feet).
When the area of interest extent is not completely within the raster extent, incorrect bands may be generated.
If a value is not specified for the Number Of Elevation Bands parameter, the tool will create the number of bands that the map product specification describes. For example, the Topographic Data Store (TDS) Topographic Map (TM) specification section 3.3.6.3 about elevation guide diagrams uses zero elevation bands if the range of elevation is anywhere from 0 to 100 meters, three bands for 100 to 600 meters, and four bands for 600 to more meters.
The area of each elevation band depends on the number of bands and whether the area falls under Low, Medium, High, and Highest elevation categories as follows:
Two bands—60 percent for Low elevation, 40 percent for High elevation
Three bands—30 percent for Low elevation, 40 percent for Medium elevation, 30 percent for High elevation
Four bands—20 percent for Low elevation, 30 percent for Medium elevation, 30 percent for High elevation, 20 percent for Highest elevation
Parameters
| Label | Explanation | Data type |
|---|---|---|
|
Input Feature Dataset |
An existing feature dataset that will contain the EGB feature classes. Data created for the elevation guide box is maintained in these feature classes in this feature dataset. |
Feature Dataset |
|
Area Of Interest |
A feature layer with a single selected feature that will define the processing extent for banding operations and a clipping extent for spot heights, and input hydrology areas and lines. |
Feature Layer |
|
Input Rasters |
One or more rasters that will be used to create elevation bands and supply elevation values to the created features. |
Raster Layer; Mosaic Layer |
|
Hydro Exclusion Features (Optional) |
A feature layer that defines a large water body area that will be excluded from the elevation band area computation. |
Feature Layer |
|
Spot Height Features (Optional) |
A feature layer or class that contains spot heights. |
Feature Layer |
|
Hydro Line Features (Optional) |
Hydrology line features that will be used to generate the output of a thinned hydrology dataset. Only the output features will be generalized through this thinning process. |
Feature Layer |
|
Hydro Area Features (Optional) |
Hydrology area features that will be used to generate the thinned hydrology dataset. Only the output features will be generalized through this thinning process. |
Feature Layer |
|
Contour Interval (Optional) |
Specifies the contour interval that will be used to determine the closest available contour when calculating the elevation band area. Elevation bands are created with their limits aligned to the specified contour interval, except low and high values, which will represent their actual calculated values.
|
Long |
|
Minimum Feature Area (Optional) |
The minimum area for output polygons. Features smaller than this value will be removed. The default is 0.00016 square decimal degrees. Note:If you are creating an output dataset with a projected coordinate system, ensure that this value reflects the square units of that coordinate system—for example, square meters for a UTM dataset. Otherwise, the default value may result in an empty output dataset. |
Double |
|
Smoothing Tolerance (Optional) |
The tolerance that will be used by the smoothing algorithm. The larger the value, the more generalized the output band features. The default is 0.002 decimal degrees. |
Linear Unit |
|
Number Of Elevation Bands (Optional) |
Specifies the number of elevation bands that will be generated.
|
Long |
|
Height Field (Optional) |
The field that identifies the elevation values of the spot height features. These values will be evaluated during the thinning process. |
Field |
|
Search Distance (Optional) |
The minimum distance between spot heights. The default is 0 meters. |
Linear Unit |
|
Minimum Hydro Line Length (Optional) |
The minimum length that will be used to eliminate hydrology features. Hydrology features that have a length less than this value will be thinned. This value is used when generalizing input hydro lines and areas. |
Linear Unit |
|
Minimum Hydro Line Spacing (Optional) |
The shortest distance between hydrographic segments that will display at the output scale. If the spacing between two parallel trending features is smaller than this value, one of the features will be hidden. This parameter defines the density of the resulting thinned hydrography. It should correspond to the distance between two parallel trending features that is visually significant to include at the final scale. When the density of features is too high (that is, the features are too closely spaced), at least one feature will be hidden. This can result in important features or features longer than the Minimum Hydro Line Length value being hidden. |
Linear Unit |
|
Minimum Hydro Area Length (Optional) |
The length that will be used to split and classify hydrographic polygons as short or long. Polygons will be split at any location where the edge-to-edge distance is equal to this value. |
Linear Unit |
|
Minimum Hydro Area Width (Optional) |
The width that will be used to split and classify hydrographic polygons as narrow or wide. Polygons will be split at any location where the edge-to-edge distance is equal to this value. |
Linear Unit |
|
Minimum Island Area (Optional) |
The minimum area necessary for an island or hole to be included in the resulting features. |
Areal Unit |
Derived output
| Label | Explanation | Data type |
|---|---|---|
|
Modified Feature Dataset |
The feature dataset with updated EGB feature classes. |
Feature Dataset |
Environments
This tool does not use any geoprocessing environments.
Licensing information
- Basic: No
- Standard: No
- Advanced: Requires Topographic Mapping and Spatial Analyst