The documentation available on this page is specific to University of Edinburgh users. It includes information on how to access our servers and how to compile the code on our systems.
Welcome to the LSDTopoToolbox. This tool was developed at the University of Edinburgh
- As a framework for implementing the latest developments in topographic analysis.
- As a framework for developing new topographic analysis techniques.
- As a framework for numerical modelling of landscapes.
- To improve the speed and performance of topographic analysis versus other tools (e.g., commercial GIS software).
- To enable reproducible topographic analysis in the research context.
The toolbox is organized around objects, which are used to store and manipulate specific kinds of data, and driver functions, which users write to interface with the objects.
The Source code documentation site tells you all about the objects: these pages get into the nitty gritty of the computational algorithms and I only recommend looking at them if you plan on developing the code.
For most readers of this documentation, you can exist in blissful ignorance of the implementation and simply stay on these pages to learn how to use the software for your topographic analysis needs.
One of the things we do as geomorphologists is try to understand the physics and evolution of the Earth’s surface by analysing topography. Many geomorphologists will take some topographic data and perform a large number of steps to produce and original analysis. Our code is designed to automate such steps as well as make these steps reproducible. If you send another geomorphologist your code and data they should be able to exactly reproduce your analysis. This is not true of work done in ArcMap.
- Our code automates things that would be slow in ArcMap.
- Our code is designed to be reproducible: it does not depend on one individuals mouse clicks.
- Our code uses the latest fast algorithms so it is much faster than ArcMap.
- Our code has topographic analysis algorithms designed and coded by us or designed by someone else but coded by us soon after publication that are not available in ArcMap.
- Our code contains some elements of landscape evolution models which cannot be done in ArcMap.
There are two ways to do this.
- If you are not at the University of Edinburgh you can get a stripped down version at: http://csdms.colorado.edu/wiki/Model:Chi_analysis_tools
- If you are at the University of Edinburgh, you should need to email Simon (simon.m.mudd _at_ ed.ac.uk) and he will give you access to the subversion repository. See the Edinburgh specific instructions for more details.