Topography Model Instructions

From GeoMod

This model can be used to illustrate topography. You can modify the code to allow importing from different raster datasets as exported from ARC-GIS. This model uses the Raster Class.

Contents 1 Download software 2 The software 3 User's Guide: Model Controls 3.1 Interactive changes 3.2 Non-interactive changes 4 Multimedia 5 Notes

Download software

Operating System	Download
All OSs (with VPython installed)	The topo model code page
Windows XP and Vista installer	NA (2.9 Mb)

The software

• The code
• Installing VPython

User's Guide: Model Controls

Interactive changes

• The slider controls the level of the horizontal blue plane that represents the water level.
• The "Map View" button will reset the view to a top down "map" view of the area.

Non-interactive changes

• To change the type of topography represented you will need to uncomment then relavent lines in the code (near line 26):

topog.block_contour(contour_interval=4, contour_color=1) #draws blocks
topog.surface_3d( scale=53)                              #draws smoothe surface

• You can change the topography itself by importing a text raster file output from ArcGIS. Change test.txt in the line

topog = raster_import("test.txt")

Multimedia

• 

  

  Animated gif demo. 444 kb
• Demonstration Quicktime .mov: Media:topo_demo.mov
• Quicktime .mov of a basin filling: Media:Topo-demo-basin.mov
• Quicktime .mov of a basin draining: Media:Basin-drain.mov

Notes

1. A work in progress, but still useful.