Digital Data You Can Download

1:50,000 Scale Topo Maps of the Southern Levant

These maps are from three different map series: 1) the new Jordanian series in Arabic; 2) the Soviet series in Russian for Israel and the Palestinian Territories; 3) one U.S. Army K737 map in English.  The maps are part of the new JADIS database, and are made available so that the new JADIS Standalone Data Entry Program can be used to digitize project areas and display site points from exported JADIS database subsets or new sites created in a clone of the JADIS database.  Press the Levant Topos button to go to the download page.
 

LandSat 28m Images for the Southern Levant

The 28m resolution LandSat images available here were processed from MrSid images available on the NASA MrSid Image Server web site.  Those images are in UTM projection, and do not include the header information, which makes reprojecting them a real pain.  Since Jordan is in UTM zones 36 and 37 it doesn't make sense to try to deal with the satellite images in UTM zones, because they don't display properly if you try to tile images from two zones.  In order to overcome this problem I've reprojected them into WGS84 decimal degrees and cut the images into on-degree tiles (each is actually a bit larger than one degree, which lets the images overlap slightly.  Press the LandSat button below to go to the download page.
 

NIMA-SPOT 10m Images for the Southern Levant

I recently discovered a web site, http://geoengine.nima.mil, which has a map-based search engine that allows different areas to be selected, and then formats tiles of unrestricted SPOT satellite images  So I used it to create a series of 39 tiles in the region from 35 N, 34 E (northwest corner) to 29 N, 40 E (southeast corner) that contains Jordan and Israel, and parts of their neighbors.  The images are in WGS84 decimal degrees.  Most tiles cover an area that is one degree east-west (a few are 1.1 degrees) and one half degree north-south. The images are from the  DOI-10M - National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and contain data that is copyrighted, (c) CNES/SPOT Image 1992-1994, but their use is unrestricted.  Click the NIMA-SPOT button below to go to the download page.
 

Digital Chart of the World Mid-East Data

The NIMA and LandSat images can be used with any unprojected shapefiles.  Perhaps the most common source for general shapefile data is the Digital Chart of the World 1:1,000,000 scale coverage.  The DCW data include topography (hypsography), populated places, land use/land cover, transportation, drainages, cultural places, utility lines, and airports.  It was originally created by the Defense Mapping Agency from aeronautical charts.  The data you can download below are from the 1993 edition.  The data layers were first distributed as 5 degree tiles, but they were subsequently acquired by ESRI and consolidated by country.  In the process, ESRI eliminated some small features.  Press the DCW Data button below to go to the download page.
 

Where Can I get a Digital Elevation Model for My Area of Interest?

There are three easily accessible sources for digital elevation model tiles. 

1. DTED 0 (30 arc second ca. 1 km.) data
2. SRTM 90 m digital elevation data
3. ASTER 30m digital elevation data

DTED 0 (30 arc second ca. 1 km.) data

The first source is the unclassified Department of Defense DEM data that's available from the same source where I got the NIMA satellite images.  Go to http://geoengine.nima.mil/muse-cgi-bin/rast_roam.cgi and use the map to zero in on your area of interest, then select DTED 0 from the "Product Bounds Overlays" dropdown list to see if your area of interest is covered (DTED 0 now covers just about all land areas on Earth) .   Then scroll down to the Raster Importing area and select the exact area of interest by indicating the corners of a bounding box; select the format you want for the data, and press the appropriate download button.  The image shown above is a DEM with 1 km grid spacing.  It's not worth much for detailed studies, but it's good for general studies of a very large region, and it makes good slides for presentations. 

SRTM 90 m digital elevation data

The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) obtained elevation data on a near-global scale to generate the most complete high-resolution digital topographic database of Earth. SRTM consisted of a specially modified radar system that flew onboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour during an 11-day mission in February of 2000. Worldwide data are available in 3 arc-second (90m) XY resolution. This makes these DEMs ideal for working with medium-sized areas-compare this image with the previous one to see the improved detail.

NASA has released version 2 of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission digital topographic data (also known as the "finished" version). Version 2 is the result of a substantial editing effort by the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and exhibits well-defined water bodies and coastlines and the absence of spikes and wells (single pixel errors), although some areas of missing data ('voids') are still present. The Version 2 directory also contains the vector coastline mask derived by NGA during the editing, called the SRTM Water Body Data (SWBD), in ESRI Shapefile format.

The data may be obtained by anonymous ftp to: ftp://e0srp01u.ecs.nasa.gov and moving to the directory srtm where both version 1 and version 2 directories may be found. Please read the appropriate documentation, also found in the directories. Note: SRTM data are packaged in one-degree tiles, where the file name references the southwest corner. Look for tiles of the Middle East in the Africa folder as well as the Eurasia folder.

ASTER 30m digital elevation data

The third source is from a recently launched satellite, called "TERRA" that has an instrument on board called "ASTER."  This instrument is capable of creating stereo pairs with about 30 meter x, y resolution and 7 to 10 meter z resolution.  The tiles follow the satellite's path so they are rotated, as the picture here shows. You will have to identify which image tiles you want, and then order them from NASA.  The DEMs produced are relative, and adjacent paths may not match at the seams. It's not free, but you can apply for free DEM data if you have a legitimate research project. It can take from a few days to several weeks to hear back from NASA about your application, and then it might take a while to get any tiles you order, depending on whether NASA has already processed the tile, and can simply notify you.   When the DEM is finished, you're notified, and can pick it up via ftp pull from the NASA site. 

From there, you have more work to do, because the DEM is in a format that's not really usable by most GIS systems.  (Note: This is also true of the SRTM data.) You can get a geotiff file of the ASTER data, but it's 16 bit, and no GIS system will read it.  SRTM data are also in a format that most GIS programs can't read, so you'll have to convert it. It's worth the wait and the hassle, because it's essentially equivalent to having created a DEM by digitizing 1:50,000 scale maps.  The relevant web sites for this product are:

1. http://www.terrainmap.com/rm22.html#ASTER.  This is a detailed discussion of the ASTER product, and ways to cope with using it.
2. http://edcdaac.usgs.gov/aster/ast14dem.html.  This is the ASTER homepage, where you can search for tiles, make requests for processing, and so on.
3. http://www.globalmapper.com/ is the web page for the Global Mapper software, which you will probably need to process the DEM after you get it from NASA.

Processing Software for DEMs

Typically, you'll either be using these data in a GIS environment or to create images for publications. ESRI's ArcGIS will handle any modeling you wish to do with DEMs, but it doesn't read the formats from SRTM and ASTER, so you'll have to post-process the raw data before you can use it further.

I reccommend using Global Mapper to do the initial processing. Go to http://www.globalmapper.com/ the Global Mapper web site to get a demo version or order the program. It's modestly priced ($249.00) and well worth the cost, since it will do many taks related to image processing, especially mosaicing, tiling, conversion between different formats and projections. The software also lets you overlay shapefiles and create 3D views, which can be titled, rotated, and exported. All the images shown on this page were post-processed using Global Mapper. I have found their user support to be outstanding as well. The picture shown here was created entirely in Global Mapper; it's a Landsat 14.25 meter true color image draped over an ASTER DEM, with a shapefile on top of that.

Another DEM processing program is 3DEM, which is freely available from http://www.visualizationsoftware.com/3dem/downloads.html. This program reads and displays ASCII and GeoTiff digital elevation models, reads and displays NASA SRTM data in both HGT and BIL format, includes tools for patching SRTM voids (missing data holes), reads and displays GTOPO30 and GLOBE topographic data, reads and displays high resolution LIDAR point cloud files, and reads and displays ASCII or binary XYZ scattered point files. It is not as flexible as Global Mapper, and doesn't support shapefiles, but it makes outstanding 3D images. The picture shown here was creeated in 3DEM by draping a Landsat 14.25 meter true color image over an ASTER DEM.

You can also use 3DEM to create cool animated 3D clips in .avi format. These can be either simple rotations like the one shown here, or you can make "flybys" by specifying a flight path and elevation. Some pretty cool effects can be created, especially when you go to the effort of overlaying Landsat images. Note: The shapefiles shown in this map represent 1 km distance rings from several EB I period sites on the Madaba Plain. I created them using ArcView and the DEM, then added them to the Landsat image in Global Mapper, where the combined image was exported as a geotiff with exactly the same coordinates as the DEM. Then I overlayed the combined image in 3DEM.