Global Mapper v25.0

Create coverage area feature with elevations from points

Hello,

I have a set of points that were surveyed on field (thousands of them) and, when making a TIN out of them, I would like to have some buffer around them.

I usually use the coverage function to make an area feature around them and crop the resulting grid but this area has no elevation so I can't use it to make a buffer around the points.

Would it be possible to make it so the coverage feature gets the vertices elevations from the points it's made from?

Best regards

Comments

  • Do you want your buffer to have an elevation just so that the TIN doesn't have triangles with 0 elevation at the edges? If that's the reason, you can just check the box to ignore zero elevations when creating your TIN


    If that's not the case, you could do a few workarounds. (And sorry if you're already aware of this and are just trying to submit a feature request)


    Buffers have an area elevation (not per vertex) from the points:


    Create grid from buffers


    Update the elevations of your bounding box/coverage area from these elevations



    Again, sorry if you're already aware of a workaround and just wanted to submit a feature request.

  • Thank you for the reply.

    I didn't know the workaround you posted, so thank you for that.

    So far we used a different one: first make a grid without buffer, take a -1m buffer from the coverage feature, give this the elevations from the grid, make a buffer from this of 2m and then use this together with points to make the final TIN.

    This works but having a direct way of doing it would save time and possible errors.

    Best regards

  • 946
    946 Global Mapper User Trusted User

    1.Create Coverage

    2.Create Line From Coverage

    3.Select Points Near Selected Line (0.01m/ft)

    4.Create Line From Selected Points (points must have ELEVATION attribute )

    5.Convert Line to Area

  • Dear 946,

    Thank you for this solution. Great workaround until there is a GM change that enables this form start.

    Best regards