Abstract
The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) delivered a free digital elevation model (DEM) with a spatial resolution of 3″ at near global coverage. However, there are many data voids in the SRTM data that need to be filled before their application. In this Letter, a novel void‐filling method, which uses Landsat sensor imagery to provide detailed information on terrains for the filling procedure, is proposed. Valleys are extracted from Landsat sensor imagery first, then elevation values of SRTM voids along valleys are interpolated, and finally the remaining voids are patched with the global coarse resolution DEM. The test results show that the elevation values filled with the proposed method perform better than those filled with the traditional method and local geomorphological features can be maintained with the proposed method.
Acknowledgments
This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 40672179), the Special Prophase Project of Key Basic Researches of Ministry of Science and Technology of China (no. 2004CCA02500) and the University Doctoral Subject Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (no. 20040487016).