dem to contour fails to draw above an elevation

[SteveKovach]

I am attempting to create contour lines from a Lidar produced DEM. The tool successfully runs in both ArcMap 10.5.1 and Arc Pro 2.4, but fails to create contours above a certain elevation. The DEM has data in the areas without contour lines, but they fail to generate. This occurs with both 3D Analyst Tools as well as the Spatial Analyst Tools.

Any ideas on what is going on?

[DanPatterson_Retired]

Contour—Help | ArcGIS Desktop 

what contour type are you using, there are 2 options there that may be the issue

[SteveKovach]

It happens both with the straight contour or the contour with barrier. Funny thing, if I just generate contours using metric units (the DEMs are metric), everything draws. But when I use a z conversion of 3.2808 the lines stop drawing at a certain elevation, repeatedly.

[DanPatterson_Retired]

sounds like it is drawing to the maximum of your data's z values and conversion to feet is putting that beyond the range

[SteveKovach]

I finally got the contour tool to finally work - everything drew. Wound up creating the index lines manually. The contour with barrier never did draw above a certain point, and even those final lines were incomplete on close inspection. Not sure what was happening on these 4 DEMs, all the others worked just fine.

Thanks for the response