A contour map is only as good as the terrain under it. Until now, HD exports used national 5–10 m models in France, the United States and Spain, and a worldwide 10 m source everywhere else. This week we added five more national models, most of them airborne lidar.
What’s new
| Country | Source | Grid |
|---|---|---|
| England | Environment Agency — LIDAR Composite DTM | 5 m |
| Austria | BEV — ALS DTM Österreich | 5 m |
| Switzerland | swisstopo — swissALTI3D | 5 m |
| Italy | INGV — TINITALY/1.1 (Sicily and Sardinia included) | 10 m |
| Germany | Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia — DGM1 | 5 m |
All five are bare-earth models: they describe the ground under the trees and buildings, so the contours follow the slope, not the canopy. In the Alps the difference is easy to see: ridges and gullies come out sharp where the worldwide grid smooths them over.
Nothing to set
Draw your zone and pick HD or Auto in the Precision menu. TopoLines uses the national model that covers the whole zone, and the menu tells you which one before you generate. Map info shows the source used, and every export carries its credit in the file metadata.
Two rules keep the maps clean:
- One source per map. A zone that crosses a border (Mont Blanc, the Matterhorn, the Zugspitze) uses the worldwide source rather than stitching two national models with different height references.
- Large zones stay national. Past a certain size, the zone is traced on the same national model at 10, 20 or 30 m instead of falling back to the worldwide grid. The menu shows the grid you’ll get.
About Germany
Germany has no free nationwide model: the federal one is licensed, and each of the 16 states publishes its own. We’re adding them one at a time, starting with Bavaria (the German Alps) and North Rhine-Westphalia. Other states use the worldwide source for now.
The full list, with publishers and licences, is on the Datasets page.