Pull a lidar-derived digital elevation model raster for a project AOI using the OpenTopography USGS 3DEP Raster API

domain: portal.opentopography.org · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗

Steps

  1. Register for a free API key via the My Account section of the OpenTopography portal
  2. Call GET portal.opentopography.org/API/usgsdem?datasetName=USGS1m&south=&north=&west=&east=&outputFormat=GTiff&API_Key=YOUR_KEY (swap datasetName for USGS10m/USGS30m as needed)
  3. Check the response for a GeoTIFF download; large-area requests may take longer to generate
  4. For a single elevation value instead of a raster, use the Point Elevation API endpoint with lat/lon and a dataset parameter
  5. Respect the per-dataset area limits (250 km2 for 1m, 25,000 km2 for 10m, 225,000 km2 for 30m); split large AOIs into tiles if you exceed them

Known gotchas

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