SONNY's LiDAR DIGITAL TERRAIN MODELS (DTM) OF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES
Compiled and resampled by Sonny
Welcome to my Website! I am a geographic enthusiast from Austria and back in 2016 I started collecting and compiling free Digital LiDAR Terrain Models ("DTMs").
I spent Hundreds of hours during my leisure time to search for new Opendata source files, get in contact with national public authorities and to download those giant amounts of data. Further to search for errors, plug gaps within the data, compile, resample it and create files in useful formats.
And finally to provide them to you, FOR FREE. Since I'm not a professional I appreciate, if you honor my voluntary work by supporting me with a Donation - Thank you very much!
If you don't want to use PayPal or credit card, you can also donate via bank transfer, just ask for my account details.
NEWS
- 2021-03-04: Switzerland v2, EUROPE v13
- 2021-03-17: Germany v1, Slovakia v1, EUROPE v14
- 2021-04-09: Austria v2, EUROPE v15
- 2022-12-25: Iceland v2, EUROPE v16
- 2023-01-27: Germany v2, Luxembourg v2, EUROPE v17
- 2023-04-14: Norway_Mainland v2, Norway_Svalbard v1, Norway_Jan Mayen v1, Denmark_Faroes v1, United Kingdom v2, Ireland v1, Portugal_Mainland v0, Portugal_Madeira v1, Portugal_Azores v1, EUROPE v18
- 2023-04-19: Poland v1, EUROPE v19
- 2023-05-23: France v3, Czechia v1, Hungary v1, Lithuania v1, EUROPE v20
- 2023-06-16: Romania v1, Croatia v1, Italy v2, EUROPE v21
- 2023-07-03: Slovakia v2, Czechia v2, EUROPE v22
ABOUT MY DTMs
These Digital Elevation Models (DEM), exactly Digital Terrain Models (DTM) - in contrast to Digital Surface Models (DSM) - are based on precise LiDAR elevation sources. They have been surveyed using the method of Airborne Laserscan (ALS). The accuracy and resolution of my models' elevations compared to satellite-based surveys like ASTER, ALOS, COPERNICUS or SRTM is significantly better. Especially in wooded areas, steep rocky terrain or narrow valleys.
Comparison: Maps based on LiDAR-DTM versus SRTM-DTM
My goals of this project are to collect, edit and publish Digital Terrain Models of Europe:
- Based on the best available OpenData sources of a country (LiDAR or at least good photogrammetry)
- Intended use cases are for example elevation grids for flight simulator sceneries, contour lines for hiking maps, calculation of accurate elevation differences of outdoor sports tracks
- Create them with appropriate grid sizes and hence keep the file- and download sizes as compact as possible to still benefit from the excellent source data. No need to download hundreds of GB of files with grid sizes of 2 m or even less of just one country. Such fine grid sizes are hardly needed (and if so: download the original source files ;-)
- Provide them in unique fileformats and geographic projections. No complicated convertions between dozens of fileformats and projections necessary
- One-click downloads of whole countries or even whole Europe. No need to individually download thousands of files and put them together on your own for a country
The 1" and 3" models are split into several 1 x 1° files in the popular file format of the SRTM datasets (.hgt files). Their horizontal resolution is ca. 20 x 30 m (1") and ca. 60 x 90 m (3"), and their vertical resolution is 1 m. Because of their finer grid the 1"-DTMs are more precise than the 3"-DTMs but on the other hand also much larger regarding download- and filesizes.
The 20m and 50m models are provided as GeoTIFF elevation files. Their horizontal resolution is 20 x 20 m (20m) and 50 x 50 m (50m), and their vertical resolution is 0.1 m. Because of their finer grid the 20m-DTMs are more precise than the 50m-DTMs but on the other hand also much larger regarding download- and filesizes.
The tiles of the 1" and 3" models are cross-country entirely filled with elevation data: where available using LiDAR data, otherwise with SRTM data. Thus you can replace used SRTM tiles by simply overwriting them with the tiles from here without getting data gaps. On the other hand the 20m and 50m models just contain the individual country's pure sourcedata.
The models are downloaded as .zip-files. You can use any file archiver to decompress them, I recommend using 7-Zip. It's able to decompress multiple .zip files of the 1" and 3" models into .hgt files at once: select all .zip files within your file manger > right mouseclick > "7-Zip" > "Extract Here"
Google Drive: If you're downloading 1" or 3" models, depending on the download-method, you may get a virus warning for some files. This is just a warning because the files weren't scanned by Google Drive, and no indication of a real infection. They're just harmless zipped elevation files, you can check them after downloading with a virus scanner of your coice, and you'll not find any threat.
The warning just occurs 1) if you're logged in your Google account (if you're not logged in, you can download the whole folder by "Download all" without a warning). 2) If you're downloading by selecting all files and then "Download".
So I recommend to download a folder by clicking on the folder name on the top (e.g. "DTM Austria 1asec ...") > "Download" which will execute the download without a warning.
The Terrain Models are OPEN, FREE and WITHOUT CHARGE. But they are licensed using the following LICENCE: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0). You are allowed to copy, redistribute the material in any medium or format as well as remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. Please mention my name (Sonny) and put a link to my Website (sonny.4lima.de), thank you!
You can see a list of all used source data. For further information of a specific DTM open its "_Readme.txt" file!
EUROPE (Collective Download)
v22: DTM 1" (4.8 GB) | DTM 3" (0.8 GB)
AUSTRIA
v2: DTM 0.5" | DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 10m | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
BELGIUM
v2: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
CROATIA
v1: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
CZECHIA
v2: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
DENMARK
Mainland v1: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
Faroes v1: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
ESTONIA
v1: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
FINLAND
v1: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
FRANCE (incl. Monaco, Guernsey, Jersey)
v3: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
GERMANY
v2: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
HUNGARY
v1: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
ICELAND
v2: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
IRELAND
v1: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
ITALY (incl. San Marino, Vatican City, Malta)
v2: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
LATVIA
v1: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
LITHUANIA
v1: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
LUXEMBOURG
v2: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
NETHERLANDS
v1: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
NORWAY
Mainland v2: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
Svalbard v1: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
Jan Mayen v1: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
POLAND
v1: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
PORTUGAL
Mainland v0: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
Azores v1: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
Madeira v1: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
ROMANIA
v1: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
SLOVAKIA
v2: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
SLOVENIA
v1: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
SPAIN
Mainland (incl. Andorra, Gibraltar) v2: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
Canaries v2: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
SWEDEN
v2: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
SWITZERLAND (incl. Liechtenstein)
v2: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 10m | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
UNITED-KINGDOM (incl. Isle of Man)
v2: DTM 1" | DTM 3" | DTM 20m | DTM 50m
This is a private, non-commercial Website.
Feedback regarding OpenData DTM sources of yet uncovered countries is welcome!
Follow me on Twitter: SonnyLidarDTMs