TopoMorpher is the best choice for detecting and interpreting topographic singularities. TopoMorpher allows stereoscopic 3D views (S3D), conventional 3D perspectives, or 2D projections. It can switch from one mode to the other in a fraction of second, and provides a wide array of unrivaled and powerful tools.

Geologists are well aware of the advantages of stereoscopy when they use aerial photos. If you are not sure why, close one eye: everything flattens and it becomes difficult to appreciate the position of objects or to perceive their shape. With 3D perpectives of the ground (the common 2D shaded views), the only depth cue comes from the shading; interpretations are often ambiguous, even misleading as demonstrated by well-known optical illusions.

TopoMorpher uses Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) to synthesize stereoscopic three-dimensional (S3D) or conventional renderings. TopoMorpher can also display conventional stereoscopic pairs of pictures and offer S3D tools to navigate or perform measurements, such as distances and dimensions, inside these pictures. With TopoMorpher, users can create multimedia shows with images, sound, and animations too!

TopoMorpher offers many capabilities for civil engineers, professional geologists, or researchers. Although an educational mode is available for teaching or learning purposes, TopoMorpher emphasizes engineering geology, geomorphology, and hydrogeology. Professionals who are accustomed to working with ordinary 3D images of DEMs are quite surprised when they discover the power of S3D. The real shape of the ground pops up, and many new features are revealed immediately. The stereoscopic cursor moves on the ground and offers a continuous display of elevation or slope, depending on preferences. You may zoom in, zoom out, tilt, and rotate. You can add contours with adjustable intervals (meters or feet). You can add a grid of coordinates (metric or geographic). All computations and renderings are extremely fast and accurate. Even data interpolation is handled smoothly and swiftly.

One of the main strengths of TopoMorpher is its power to specifically highlight and emphasize geomorphic singularities. These features are often not visible from aerial photographs or from ground searches. The ability to enhance at will the S3D rendering (relief exaggeration, shading, filtering, orientation, scale) is unmatched.

It is possible to select channels on the ground to highlight their paths and plot their longitudinal (or transverse) profiles side by side. This plot displays the junction angles between tributaries and the trunk stream on a vertical projection. S3D mapping of channel convexity with adjustable thresholds is quick to plot out, and an easy way to spot irregularities. The delineation of a water divide is done with one click of the mouse.

A powerful command delimits the catchment, or more generally all up-slope points, corresponding to any location indicated by a click of the mouse. This preliminary catchment can be expanded progressively with new clicks. At each step, the area and other statistical parameters of the current catchment are measured. The same analysis can be conducted automatically at hundreds of locations along a stream. Another command, "Horton Overland Flow", simulates rainfalls and displays flux magnitudes. This is a powerful tool for visualizing drainage patterns and measuring drainage densities for various infiltration ratios and magnitudes. Statistical measurements, including the plot of hypsographic curves, can be performed instantaneously. All these tools can be applied to delineated areas (either polygons or arbitrary shapes), which are called "domains".

All results are easily exported to any spreadsheet program. These are invaluable tools for the hydrologist.
Click here to see an example.

Ground stability can be assessed thanks to innovative means. Many modes of S3D shading are available: sun shading (with adjustable inclination and azimuth), slope shading (with adjustable threshold), Laplacian shading. Another powerful mode is the display of adjustable classes of slope, that can be defined by the user in degrees or percent, directly on the S3D images. Box-filtering and Scale-filtering can be automatically applied in conjunction with the other modes to extract topographic details which are totally invisible otherwise (scale-filtering is particularly impressive with LiDAR).

The use of TopoMorpher for stability assessments of terrain hazard rating, including debris landslides or debris flows, allows a very unique and powerful analysis to be performed. No other digital techniques can match TopoMorpher's capabilities, flexibility and ease in accomplishing these tasks. When combined with LiDAR data, TopoMorpher surpasses any of the present techniques for identifying sites of potential debris landslides and flows. In addition, this same combination (TopoMorpher plus LiDAR) can be uniquely utilized to define and map 'impact zones' of all forms of channel confined events: slides, flows, and avalanches.

Many more capabilities come with TopoMorpher, like the editing in S3D of banners, polygons, dots, or arrows, the placement of different types of coordinate grids or the ability to compare areas with "snapshots". It is possible to select a range of elevations for vertical exaggeration without losing the global view. One click of the mouse may "paint a lake" or "fill a basin" and measure the area or the volume of water involved. Topography may be modified to build simple structures like dams, basins, etc... and the resulting changes exported as DEMs.

The intersection of planes (faults, fractures, layers, structural surfaces) with the ground can be defined and displayed in S3D using different modes. In one mode, two points (two mouse clicks) and the dip of the plane are used. A second mode uses three points (three mouse clicks) to define the plane. A third mode allows an indefinite number of points, on the ground or underground when a drilling log is available, and performs a least-square adjustment to define a plane. These tools are useful when a fault trace must be interpolated or extrapolated from known or interpreted locations. One key application of the extrapolation of faults is for determining the location of drilling sites for water in fractured zones: for any location on the ground, the depth of the fault and its distance can be computed and displayed.

"Shapefiles" may be exchanged with other GIS applications. TopoMorpher is able to convert data from different projections (including all State Plane Coordinate Systems, Albers and Lambert equal-area, plate carree, etc...) and to use different Datum references.

It is easy to overlay bitmaps, such as satellite images, topographic or geologic maps, aerial orthophotos, etc... onto DEMs. The overlay can be a total overlay or a selective overlay, limited to a few basic markers such as roads and trails. Even distorted bitmaps or bitmaps whose projection is not known (scans of old documents for example) can be used, thanks to a powerful morphing tool which allows an interactive registering on a random set of selected locations. Observing geologic maps in S3D is probably the best way to use them and two examples come with the software. Commands for printing in high resolution or for producing very high resolution S3D bitmaps are available, allowing the creation of impressive documents and images.

TopoMorpher can deal not only with DEMs but with stereoscopic pairs of photos. Take two pictures of your project from two slightly different positions and enter a few parameters into TopoMorpher: you are now able to display it in S3D and measure distances or relative elevations!

One of the most powerful tools offers the possibility to create Scenes that contain all the parameters needed to recreate a working environment, for yourself but also for anyone with whom you want to exchange observations. You may create a Scene specifying a certain area, its orientation and shading, the vertical exaggeration, banners, polygons, dots, coordinates, a selection of highlighted streams with profiles, a Domain, a set of bitmaps or a set of sub-Scenes, etc... This is the best way to save archives so that you can quickly restore an entire environment, for the next day, but also for years to come. You may even add audio to your Scene.

TopoMorpher comes with a huge database of about 100 Gb (DEMs for the Earth and Mars) and examples like the geologic maps of Oregon and Washington. It is simple to import new data from many different formats: DEM, SDTS, ArcInfo (Export Grid, ASCIIGRID, GRID FORMAT), geoTIFF, binary files, etc..., or sources such as photogrammetry, LiDAR or SLAR. Many tools are provided to allow the stitching of DEMs, to correct DEMs or DRGs, to re-project, to change the horizontal resolution, etc... Topomorpher is able to quickly handle files that measure in gigabytes.

Software and data are packaged as a portable external USB drive. No installation is required; just plug the disk in a USB port of any computer. The disk has about 250 Gb of free space, sufficient for most workspaces. This is a particularly good arrangement when working around the Globe, with the built-in data set at 3 seconds of arc resolution (better than 93 m), and with all the powerful tools of TopoMorpher at hand. It is also the perfect solution to switch work between computers, during business or field trips.

So make your work easier, more productive and effective. Order now and get started!

Prices

"TopoMorpher USB" $ 3395.

Please consult us for different packages.

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