Toitū Te Whenua makes New Zealand's most up-to-date publicly owned elevation data freely available to use under an open licence. You can access this through the LINZ Data Service, LINZ Basemaps or the Registry of Open Data on AWS.
This repository contains STAC Collection metadata for each elevation dataset, as well as some guidance documentation.
Browse the archive with STAC Browser or access the catalog directly https://nz-elevation.s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/catalog.json
Toitū Te Whenua owns and maintains a public bucket which is sponsored and shared via the Registry of Open Data on AWS s3://nz-elevation in ap-southeast-2.
Using the AWS CLI anyone can access all of the imagery specified in this repository.
aws s3 ls --no-sign-request s3://nz-elevation/
For more information on interacting with the metadata and data in s3://nz-elevation, see further guidance:
- Usage shows how TIFFs can be interacted with from S3 using GDAL, QGIS, etc
- TIFF Specification provides technical details on how our TIFFs are created using GDAL
- Elevation Compression provides commentary and analysis on the compression options we explored
The s3://nz-elevation bucket comprises of a variety of different elevation data types, created for different purposes. Naming covers the s3://nz-elevation bucket structure.
Digital Elevation Models are a representation of the bare ground topographic surface devoid of buildings, vegetation, towers and other surface objects. They are procured according to the National Aerial LiDAR Base Specification.
Example: New Zealand LiDAR 1m DEM | STAC Collection | LINZ Basemaps | LINZ Data Service
The Contour-Interpolated DEM has been created and interpolated from the contours in the Topo50 map series. LiDAR-derived DEMs are now available for 90% of the New Zealand mainland and are significantly more accurate. This dataset is suitable for cartographic visualisation only, not for terrain analysis.
Example: New Zealand Contour-Interpolated 8m DEM | STAC Collection | Not currently published on LINZ Basemaps | LINZ Data Service
Digital Surface Models are a representation of the highest objects on Earth's surface including buildings, vegetation, towers and other surface objects. They are also procured according to the National Aerial LiDAR Base Specification.
Example: New Zealand LiDAR 1m DSM | STAC Collection | LINZ Basemaps | LINZ Data Service
Hillshades are a representation of terrain generated from elevation data that models a lighting effect on the landscape to mimic how sunlight creates shadows and highlights. New Zealand-wide datasets are available for both the DEMs and DSMs, using standard and "Igor" methods.
Example: New Zealand DSM Hillshade | STAC Collection | LINZ Basemaps | LINZ Data Service
The "Igor" hillshade method is an alternative hillshade representation that renders a softer hillshade for general mapping purposes. It is named after its creator - Igor Breki.
Example: New Zealand DEM Hillshade - Igor | STAC Collection | LINZ Basemaps | LINZ Data Service
- For access to LINZ's aerial and satellite imagery see linz/imagery
- For access to LINZ's coastal elevation data see linz/coastal
Source code is licensed under MIT.
All metadata and docs are licensed under CC-BY-4.0.