County elevation information?

[DieselTech]

Hey all. I got to thinking earlier this evening. Dangerous, I know, but sometimes it just happens. :nana:

Anyway, when my wife and I bought our current home, we were told that it sits on the highest point in the county. I don't know offhand what the exact elevation is, but I'll break out the GPS tomorrow to see. In either case, here in middle Tennessee there are several 'hills' around us, and it's hard to visibly judge which one is tallest. Does the county keep a record of the elevation of properties? I know that topographical maps display things like hills and valleys, but do they have a scale to figure the actual height?

It doesn't really matter, but I just found myself wondering if it might be true. Any help would be appreciated. :wave:

 

[Glow_Worm]

Yes, topo maps have the terrain lines marked with numbers indicating the elevation in feet. You can download them for free from:
http://libremap.org/data/state/tennessee/

For feature name enter your city, feature type = populated place, County = your county. I think the one you want is at:

http://ia331333.us.archive.org/3/items/usgs_drg_tn_36086_d3/o36086d3.tif (all on one line).

You'll need to save it as a file (about 6 MB) and open it in a graphics program, it'll be too small to read in your browser.

--kirk

 

[Burgess]

to Glow_Worm --


Thank you so much for that link ! ! !


:thumbsup:

_

 

[StarHalo]

Don't forget Google Earth - not the best way for working out elevations for an entire county, but for local hills and terrain features it's great; the elevation of whatever your pointer is on is always at the bottom center of the screen, just mouse over to what you want to know the height of, and there's the number.

 

[BIGIRON]

Haven't dealt with them for years, but aviation charts will have all signfiicant elevations displayed. Should be on line.

 

[adamlau]

What StarHalo said about Google Earth. It is the method NK recommends for calibrating barometric pressure for its Kestrel line of weather meters, which in turn calculates density altitude for shooters and aviation and automobile enthusiasts.

 

[DieselTech]

Glow-Worm, that site was great. Turns out, the highest point in the county is 1050 feet or so, and we're at 880. It's still fun to know, though!

 

[ks_physicist]

Edit: DOH! I see you found your answer already. Good enough!

Jim

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(Original post)

I do some work in GIS/GSA, and use DEMs often. DEMs are Digital Elevation Models. Topo maps are useful, and you can calculate actual elevations based on the contour lines. Read your map data to figure out what the contour line spacing is.

You might be able to graphically browse DEMs using some of the data browsers out there. The DASC project in Kansas is one of them, and I think the USGS has some data browsing tools linked from their page:
http://edc2.usgs.gov/geodata/index.php
The data is available here:
http://data.geocomm.com/dem/

There is free software available to do some good map imaging; I'm not sure whether Google Earth can handle DEMs.

Try looking for the GIS agency/authority in your state, and see if you can access DEM files that cover your position. I'd offer to help more, but I don't have much time to spare this summer.

Also check out:
http://data.geocomm.com/