In an earlier post we wrote about the terrain awareness function of enterprise drones for maintaining a consistent GSD. In that article, we touched on SRTM as a source for a DEM and how in mining operations, they could be considered “stale” resulting in incorrect flight geometry when flying over an open pit. So, you ask what can I use as an alternative?

If you’re unfamiliar with the “Elvis – Elevation and Depth – Foundation Spatial Data” website, you should explore it. Elvis holds cloud-based elevation and bathymetric data over portions of Australia. This data is developed under the management of the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping (ICSM).  It can offer an alternative in parts of Australia to NASA’s SRTM data. NASA’s data can be outdated with respect to topographic changes that have occurred since the date of original capture.

When using Elvis, make sure you check the available data. Some regions will offer information at multiple points in time. The formats and resolutions can differ depending on the original source.

Using the Elvis viewer to decide what’s available for an area is simple.

There are various ways to find your location using the viewer.  One of my favourites is to simply load a site boundary from a KML files using the “Order Data / Load File” option. This will automatically direct the map viewer to your area of interest, along with displaying the various forms of data that can be ordered for download.

Once you’ve checked out the components you require, download your order from the email link sent to you.

Subscribe to get notified about our upcoming post on how QGIS can be used to merge raster data sourced from Elvis and elsewhere into a single GeoTIFF file that can then be filtered and clipped to a flight boundary, providing a DEM source for use in your flight controller for terrain awareness.

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