Point Thinning / Decimating Bathymetric Dataset, with shoal bias

[JustinOdell]

Hi all,

I am running ArcGIS 10 with ArcInfo licence and am looking for methods to thin a dataset of bathymetric points, whilst maintaining shoalest depth.

For instance, assume a raw dataset has a very high density of points (less than a metre spacing).

1. How might it be possible to thin the dataset so I am seeing 1 point every 5 metre spacing?
2. In addition, how might it be possible to maintain the shoalest depth within that 5 metre spacing? (ie. the point closest to the water surface that is most likely to be of concern to a navigating ship)

Regards.

[BertrandBaud]

Hello Hydronaut,

Esri's bathymetric extension "ArcGIS for Maritime: Bathymetry" ships with a list of bathymetric-specific GeoProcessing tools. More tools are currently under development, including algorithms allowing to perform shoal-bias point thinning selection on bathy datasets.

Bertrand