Exercise 1: Creating Elevation Surface

Introduction

The first activity was to create an elevation surface and record points on the surface using X, Y, and Z fields. The elevation surface was made in a planter box/sandbox. Each group had to make land features. These features were a ridge, a hill, a depression, a valley, and a plain. The box was separated into grids which were the group’s X and Y points. The X points were either the highest point of a square or the lowest point depending on the elevation feature.

Methods

The first step for the activity was to create a coordinate system. Our group marked out 8 centimeter incriminates on the box. Our X coordinates were the width or the short-side of the box with the length or long-side being our Y coordinates. The group ended up with 13 points on the X and 29 on the Y. The top of the box was used as sea level.

Photo 1: The planter box before surface creation

The next step was to create the features. Again, these features were a ridge, hill, depression, valley, and plain. The group compacted the snow to higher elevations to create the ridge and hill, the valley was created by making a meandering feature at low elevations, the depression was created by digging down below the designated sea level, and the plain was made flat at sea level.

Photo 2: Completed surface

After the creation of our survey area the group made a grid. The grid was made using the 8 centimeter incriminates and string. The string ran across the X and Y coordinates. The grid was used to locate the elevation of the X and Y coordinates. The group used centimeters on a meter stick to record the elevation. The elevation range was from -12 cm to 14 cm. To measure the elevation our group used the base level and either added for the ridge and hill or subtracted for the depression and valley. The plain was consistent at 0 throughout.

After the data collection we entered all the data into an Excel spreadsheet and formatted it for importation into ArcGIS.

Photo 3: Completed surface with grid

Discussion

This was activity was very interesting and fun to do. Even though it was cold I feel that our group had a solid area made. I have never done anything like this before and it will be useful to have when I look for further endeavors. I think that using negative numbers worked well because then we can see the spread of elevations much easier in Arc. The toughest parts were the cold and the snow which had a hindrance of the project from the get go.

Conclusion

The exercise was a good learning experience which is always useful. Using a grid for X and Y coordinates a good idea. Collecting data like this brings a whole new knowledge and experience to people. I am willing to bet that not many have done this before. The next step is to place all the points into Arc and create various elevation models.