QGIS: loading elevation layers

Franck Theeten,Royal Museum for central AfricaCabin training 2013

Data format

• Elevation data are usually raster data available in 2 formats– GRID– GeoTIFF (TIff images file associated to a metadata

file giving the position of the image)

Accessing files

• Free elevation data are available from the STRM (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission) project of the American USGS

• 90M data GeoTIFF can be downloaded on the website of CGIAR :– http://www.cgiar-csi.org/data/srtm-90m-digital-el

evation-database-v4-1

Importing the DEM

• Import the (unzipped) DEM GeoTIFF as raster layer (select the tif file):

Importing the DEM

• You should see a grey zone that still requires the application fo a color scheme

Color scheme

• Right click the properties of the layer

Color Scheme

• Create 20 Classification zones and click classify:

Color scheme

• Bu double-clicking on the three columns, change the value, color and label to the following values (for the exercise)

Color scheme

• Resulting image:

Get information

• To get the information about a specific point, select the active layer in the left menu and click on the button – (also work for shapefile)

Get information

Altitude value in meters