Lab 7: An exploration of TIN models

This week I explored Triangulated Irregular Networks (TIN) and compared them to Digital Elevation Models (DEM). They are both used to model elevation but they are structured differently. DEMs are raster which basically store information in a grid while TINs are basically triangles created from nodes that have elevation data. One big difference is that TINs can easily show slope, aspect, elevation, and more without further processing. You have to make new rasters to display that data when using DEMs. Below is a picture of a TIN displaying edges, nodes, slope, and contour lines.

I also explored how to edit TINs. The triangles in the TIN sometimes don't create flat surfaces where they should be so you have to edit them in. In the example the lab provided I had a TIN that wasn't properly displaying the flatness of a lake. I have attached before and after pictures.

Before lake feature was added

After lake feature was added

Editing the TIN created a hard breakline (in blue) that told the model to make the area inside it a certain elevation and created nodes along the breakline so it could be modeled.