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Finding saddle points in a grid?

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12-19-2012 12:10 AM
StefanHaglund1
Esri Contributor
Hello all!

I would like to be able to identify saddle points in my grid.

Does anyone know of a method to do this? Search has led me in the way of Numpy. Would that be the right direction to go or can this be achieved with Spatial Analyst?

Thanks!
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MelanieMaguire
Occasional Contributor
What is your specific definition or criteria for a saddle? If you can figure out how you want to define or search for your saddle, you may be able to do this with either. 

Here are a few questions that may help you define some saddle logic to identify the saddles:

Your saddle is the low vertical point in one horizontal direction and the high vertical point in another horizontal direction. 
- Are you interested in all saddles even if they have very small vertical elevation changes (inches to 1 ft)?
- Or what vertical slope needs to be present for you to define that as a saddle?

How large does your saddle need to be?  Do the slopes meeting at the saddle peak and valley need to cover a distance of one raster cell, 5 cells, or some larger value?
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