DEMEDITOR: A Tool for Editing DEMs

A system to visualize and edit digital elevation models based on interferometric synthetic aperture radar data is presented. The visualization and exploration of digital elevation models has been traditionally achieved through the use of two-dimensional interfaces. As virtual reality interfaces have increasingly proven to offer a high degree of presentation realism and several interaction facilities, they become an appropriate approach to visualizing and interacting with objects such as terrain models. The realistic presentation of the height component of this type of object is primordial for its comprehension. Digital elevation models often present elevation errors due to problems occurred during the imaging process or data processing. Several methods have been developed to correct these errors, but a total elimination remains difficult to achieve. The visual data interpretation, the subsequent use of tools to assess and analyse such interpretation, and the manual edition of error areas in the digital elevation model are important components the error reduction procedure presented by this work. The proposed system offers both a two and three-dimensional interfaces to visualize and manipulate the digital elevation models. Furthermore, it and allows the selection of error areas in the terrain in order to eventually remove them. The removed areas can then be interpolated and smoothed.