Tag Archives: Channel
Purdue’s River Channel Tools for ArcGIS
The anisotropic nature of meandering river morphology poses unique challenges in analyzing and modeling river channel data using GIS. Standard GIS tools that use Cartesian (x,y) coordinates are not appropriate for dealing with river channels because of their inability to handle river anisotropy – the unequal physical properties along different axes. However, researchers at Purdue University have created custom tools to handle river channel related data in ArcGIS. Those tools compute river attributes, perform spatial analysis and communicate with external hydraulic models. A few examples of the capabilities of Purdue’s river channel tools are given below.
Interpolating Cross-sections to Create a 3D Mesh
The figure below shows how cross-section (black) lines are interpolated to create a 3D (blue) mesh, and then this mesh is converted to a surface through interpolation.
