A method for building 3D models of barchan dunes

Abstract

The distributions of barchan dunes are usually represented by digital terrain models (DTMs) overlaid with digital orthophoto maps. Given that most regions with barchan dues have low relief, a 3D map obtained from a DTM may ineffectively show the stereoscopic shape of each dune. The method of building 3D models of barchan dunes using existing modeling software seldom considers the geographical environment. As a result, barchan dune models are often inconsistent with actual DTMs and incompletely express the morphological characteristics of dunes. Manual construction of barchan dune models is also costly and time consuming. Considering these problems, the morphological characteristics of barchan dunes and the mathematical relationships between the morphological parameters of the dunes, such as length, height, and width, are analyzed in this study. The methods of extracting the morphological feature points of barchan dunes, calculating their morphological parameters and building dune outlines and skeleton lines based on the medial axes, are also presented. The dune outlines, skeleton lines, and part of the medial axes of dunes are used to construct a constrained triangulated irregular network. C# and ArcEngine are employed to build 3D models of barchan dunes automatically. Experimental results of a study conducted in Tengger Desert show that the method can be used to approximate the morphological characteristics of barchan dunes and is less time consuming than manual methods.