Visualizing DEMs in ArcGIS using LIDAR Analyst

I uploaded 2 videos to YouTube today that was in response to question from a user of LIDAR Analyst.

They describe how to set up visualization of the DEM and Bare-Earth DEM in ArcGIS. Instead of the default option of creating a RGB hill-shade raster this technique keeps the DEM and Hill-Shade rasters separate.

There are two major reasons that I prefer this method (instead of the RGB raster):

1. You can customize the coloring. This allows you to choose a color ramp that brings out the details in your DEM.

DEM without hill-shade - looks flat and it is hard to make out features

 

Above: DEMs colored using 3 different ranges with hill-shade rasters providing a psuedo 3D look - making it easier to see detail. (Color changes was done by simply changing the color-range associated with the symbology of the DEM raster).

2. You can query the DEM's elevation values. (With the default option - you will only get the RGB values).

Querying of the default hill-shade raster doesn't allow you to determine elevation values because the hill-shade raster is a RGB image.

  Querying of elevation values is possible, when DEM and hill-shade are kept separate.

Obviously the downside is that - you cannot get the colored visualization in other GIS applications. (So if you want to view the hill-shade in Imagine, you should output to one of the other options).

Visualization of DEMs in ArcGIS - shows you the technique for visualizing any DEM raster.

 

Visualization of Bare-Earth DEMs is basically the same steps as shown above, except shows the colors that make most sense for bare-earth DEMs.

The bare-earth was automatically extracted using LIDAR Analyst for ArcGIS. Hill-Shade rasters were created using LIDAR Analyst.