The Viewshed geoprocessing tool creates viewshed polygons for observation points you specify on a global elevation dataset.
Service Name: Elevation
Note:
The Viewshed geoprocessing tool is not included with Collection 1.
Description
The Elevation geoprocessing service provides the Viewshed geoprocessing tool. The Viewshed tool calculates visible areas for a given set of input observation points.
This tool can use point features that you interactively draw or those from a point layer.
Background
See Use the elevation analysis services for more information about how this service works; in particular, see the Viewshed section.
See Publish the elevation analysis services for more details on the configurations needed to enable this service.
Data
Various parts of the world are covered by different resolutions of data.
90-meter resolution
This tool currently works worldwide between 60 degrees north and 56 degrees south based on the 3-arcsecond (approximately 90-meter) resolution Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) dataset.
30-meter resolution
In North America (Canada, the United States, and Mexico), the tool uses 1-arcsecond (approximately 30-meter) resolution data from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) National Elevation Dataset (NED). In Australia, the tool is available based on the 1-arcsecond (approximately 30-meter) resolution SRTM DEM-S dataset from Geoscience Australia. In the remaining parts of the world (Africa, South America, most of Europe and continental Asia, the East Indies, New Zealand, and islands of the western Pacific), the tool is available based on the 1-arcsecond (approximately 30-meter) resolution SRTM data between 60 degrees north and 56 degrees south.
10-meter resolution
In the continental United States, the tool is available based on the 1/3-arcsecond (approximately 10-meter) resolution USGS NED. In Norway, Finland, Estonia, Denmark, Austria, Spain, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, the Slovak Republic, Italy, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein, the tool is available based on approximately 10-meter resolution data from various authoritative sources.
Attribution
Sources: USGS, NASA, CGIAR, GEBCO, NLS, NMA, Geodatastyrelsen, GSA, GSI, and the GIS User Community