DIGITAL ELEVATION MODEL PRODUCTION FROM SCANNED TOPOGRAPHIC CONTOUR MAPS VIA THIN PLATE SPLINE INTERPOLATION

GIS (Geographical Information System) is one of the most striking innovation for mapping applications supplied by the developing computer and software technology to users. GIS is a very effective tool which can show visually combination of the geographical and non-geographical data by recording these to allow interpretations and analysis. DEM (Digital Elevation Model) is an inalienable component of the GIS. The existing TM (Topographic Map) can be used as the main data source for generating DEM by amanual digitizing or vectorization process for the contours polylines. The aim of this study is to examine the DEM accuracies, which were obtained by TMs, as depending on the number of sampling points and grid size. For these purposes, the contours of the several 1/1000 scaled scanned topographical maps were vectorized. The different DEMs of relevant area have been created by using several datasets with different numbers of sampling points. We focused on the DEM creation from contour lines using gridding with RBF (Radial Basis Function) interpolation techniques, namely TPS as the surface fitting model. The solution algorithm and a short review of the mathematical model of TPS (Thin Plate Spline) interpolation techniques are given. In the test study, results of the application and the obtained accuracies are drawn and discussed. The initial object of this research is to discuss the requirement of DEM in GIS, urban planning, surveying engineering and the other applications with high accuracy (a few decimeters).