Modeling terrain profiles from digital terrain elevation data and national land cover data

An algorithm is presented for synthesizing mathematical models of terrain elevation and reflectivity from digital elevation terrain data (DTED) and national land cover data (NLCD). Assuming the DTED and NLCD have spatial intersection, it is straightforward to interpolate each set individually to a common set of coordinates in the intersection. However, DTED is continuous and NLCD is not typically which results in different and sometimes contrasting sampling requirements of the intersecting region. This study evaluates different similarity measures used to assess the quality of re-sampling DTED and NLCD data for the purpose of building elevation and reflectivity profiles for physical optics calculation of site-specific radar clutter. Examples of the algorithm are presented for clutter scene generation with the Raider Tracer prediction tool.