Deriving contour lines from a surface

Contour lines are a familiar way of representing surfaces on maps. A contour is a line through all contiguous points with equal height (or other) values.

You can create contour lines for a raster, triangulated irregular network (TIN), or terrain dataset surface. You can use the following geoprocessing tools to create contours from a surface.

Creating contour lines from a raster surface

Creating contour lines from a TIN or terrain dataset surface

NoteNote:
  • The geoprocessing tools used to create contours from surfaces require ArcGIS Spatial Analyst and/or 3D Analyst extensions.
  • In certain instances, the last valid contour line might not be produced when creating contours using TIN surfaces. This is an algorithmic limitation common to computer contouring software. To ensure that all valid contours are generated, add a very small negative value to the base contour field to slightly shift the data.

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6/11/2012