Blue Marble Geographics

In the geospatial industry, acronyms like DEM, DSM, and DTM are frequently used when referring to elevation data, but they aren’t interchangeable. A Digital Elevation Model (DEM) is a general term for a raster representation of elevation values, most often referring to a bare-earth surface. A Digital Surface Model (DSM) represents the top of the Earth’s surface, including bui...

As with any commodity or raw material, the quality of point cloud data, such as lidar, directly affects the quality of its derivative products. A point cloud with positional accuracy below the required standard will produce an inaccurate...