Integration of High Resolution Digital Elevation Models in 3d-gis-applications of the Environmental Information System of Baden-württemberg

This paper describes the integration of high resolution digital elevation models, currently acquired by the administration of BadenWürttemberg, a state in Germany, in two example 3D GIS applications of the Environmental Information System (UIS) of BadenWürttemberg. The combination of the high resolution DEM with the area-wide data acquisition in Baden-Württemberg leads to a great amount of data, which needs to be handled. Thus the paper starts with a discussion about the data handling. The paper describes techniques for the preprocessing of the data as a prerequisite for the management of the data with the raster tiling approach in the database. The next part of the paper concentrates on techniques for the visualization of the data in a GIS system. These techniques are used in both example applications, discussed in the following part of the paper. Both examples show the successful integration of high resolution digital elevation models into 3D GIS applications.