topic Re: Extract point elevation data from TIN in 3D Questions

Extract point elevation data from TIN

HailiangShen — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:38:58 GMT

We got TIN data covering river banks, and want to extract the elevation along banks. Here is my workflow:

1 convert river bank polyline shapefile to point shapefile,
2 extract point elevation from TIN. It seems i need to set barrier. I Googled and easily find how to build a TIN from existing point survey, but little on extract point elevation from TIN. I suppose ArcGIS has an existing tool for that.

Note we do not want to convert the TIN to Raster, which will loss resolution.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Hailiang

Re: Extract point elevation data from TIN

EricRice — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:37:53 GMT

Greetings,

Please check out the Add Surface Information tool.

Regards,
Eric

Re: Extract point elevation data from TIN

HailiangShen — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 18:14:26 GMT

Greetings,

Please check out the Add Surface Information tool.

Regards,
Eric

Thanks Eric, that tool is what i need.
Now when i go to question 1, converting from polyline to point shapefile, I get problem. I know it is possible to use a script to convert the vertices of polyline to points, but that cannot meet my need. Since in relatively strait portion, there is too few nodes, and it is tedious to add more manually. Is there any tool allowing me to select a segment and add a desired number of points within the segment?

Re: Extract point elevation data from TIN

Waan — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:11:58 GMT

I know this is well past the date you originally posted--but it seems like the Densify tool (ArcToolbox > Editing Tools > Densify) could solve your issue.

Warren

Re: Extract point elevation data from TIN

StephenCotterell — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 20:58:23 GMT

Hello All

I have a similar issue. The title exactly matches my problem, but the suggestions do not. I have a point file (~160 x 200) of 1km spaced points and am wanting to extract the z values of 30 separate TINs, which are spatially equivalent to this pointfile.

I'm familiar with 'Extract Values to Points' but this only works with rasters; I'm wanting to avoid this as rasters have inherent interpolation problems (especially for projected ones), but there doesn't seem to be a similar tool for TINs.

Also, 'Interpolate Shape; generates an empty '0' column (even when I run everything using Geo Coordinates (WGS-84)). I've been messing about with this most of the day and am stumped!

Help, please. Thank you.

Stephen

Re: Extract point elevation data from TIN

KhalidDuri1 — Sat, 17 Aug 2013 00:22:35 GMT

Hello Stephen,

You can setup a model that accomplishes this task in less than 2 minutes! Here's how:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]26767[/ATTACH]

Create a new model in a toolbox & edit it (happens automatically when you create the new model)

Select the Insert menu > Iterators option & choose "Datasets"

Edit Iterate Datasets so the Dataset Type parameter is set to "TIN"

Add the "Add Surface Information" tool, specify the input points, select the Z property, and set the "TIN" output from Iterate Datasets to the Surface parameter

Add the "Add Field" tool and specify the Name variable for the Field Name parameter with Field Type set to double

Add the "Calculate Field" tool, specify %Name% in Field Name parameter and Z field in Expression parameter

Try the attached toolbox and let me know how it works out. Please note that if your file names are greater than 10 characters and the input file is a shapefile, the Add Field step will fail because the dbf format does not support field names larger than 10 characters.

Regards,
Khalid