Winter 2014
ArcGIS for Geoscientists
GEOL 596
Lab 5: Pulling topographic profiles from DEMs
The first step of building cross-sections
Pulling topographic profiles from DEMs in ArcGIS can be useful for a variety of purposes
beyond just creating cross-sections, but that’s the primary way you are likely to use them. As
with everything else we’ve done, there are several steps to this process – here’s a quick
overview:
1. Create a new feature class for your cross-section lines, then draw the lines.
2. Open the Spatial Analyst toolbar and interpolate the lines using the DEM.
3. Export the data from the interpolation to Excel.
4. Create a line graph in Excel and export it to Adobe Illustrator.
5. Manipulate the scale and layout of the topo profile in Illustrator and draw the crosssection.
I will give you some tips and techniques once you get in to Illustrator as well, but the primary
focus of this process is on getting data out of ArcGIS.
For this lab, I will also include fewer step-by-step instructions, since you are repeating many of
the same things you’ve done before. My goal is for you to start internalizing some of these
processes so that you don’t always need the step-by-step instructions. So if you feel like I am
providing less detail and you have to remember how to do stuff, your feelings are valid.
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Winter 2014
ArcGIS for Geoscientists
GEOL 596
Pulling topographic profiles
It’s possible to pull topographic profiles without creating a new feature class of lines, but doing
so allows you to edit the lines once you make them, and will save your lines in another layer that
is not only useful but a very common feature of published geologic maps. So you can easily pull
topo profiles more quickly if you just want to check it out, but I am going to go through the
process to create more “permanent” cross-section profiles, and to create a bunch of them at once.
1. Launch ArcCatalog and create a new line Feature Class in your feature dataset called
cross_section_lines (or topographic_profiles, if you are not making cross-sections). You
might add attribute fields that allow you to letter or number the lines and add notes (this
was part of Lab 4).
2. Open your map in ArcMap and add the new feature class (by using Add Data).
3. Turn on editing and draw your lines (as you did in Lab 4). Be sure to save your work.
4. Select all of the cross-section lines you just drew.
5. Open the toolbox (you can do this in either ArcMap or ArcCatalog). Open 3D Analyst 
Functional Surface, and double-click on Interpolate Shape.
6. The following dialogue box should open:
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Winter 2014
ArcGIS for Geoscientists
GEOL 596
For the input surface, select your projected DEM (do not select your hillshade). The input
feature class is your cross-section lines layer. And then you can name the output feature
class and put it somewhere reasonable. This is also going to be a line layer, but the lines
will have elevation information associated with them. When you select your input
surface, the method will probably automatically change to Bilinear – that’s fine. You can
keep the default. Once you have everything you need in there, click OK.
7. This should create a new layer fairly quickly of your interpolated lines (meaning that the
lines you drew now have elevation data associated with them drawn from the DEM). Add
this to your map – it should directly overlay your other line layer, which you can remove
or turn off. Open the 3D Analyst toolbar.
8. Select one of your cross-section lines from the interpolated layer, and click on the Profile
graph icon in the 3D Analyst toolbar
.
You should get something that looks like this. You can do a lot of manipulation of the
graph here, but don’t bother. We will do all of the manipulation elsewhere. Why, you
ask? The short answer is trust me – I’ve tried lots of options other than the following, and
this works the best.
If you get something that looks really random, no hills where you expect them to be, you
probably interpolated from the Hillshade rather than the DEM. Go back to step 6 – do
not pass go, do not collect $200.
9. Right-click on the graph and select Export…
10. In the dialogue box that opens, select the Data tab.
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Winter 2014
ArcGIS for Geoscientists
GEOL 596
You want to export the data in Excel format. This will essentially save a spreadsheet with
two columns of data: the first column will be distance along the line, and the second
column will be elevation. Once you select Excel as the format, click Save… and save it
in a logical place.
11. Open the data in Excel. Select the two columns of data and create a scatter graph that is a
line with no marker symbols.
12. In Excel, there are a few things you should adjust to make it easier to mess with in
Illustrator.
a. Adjust the scale appropriately. If you are making multiple cross-sections, make
the scale exactly the same.
b. Put the tick-marks inside the box.
c. Change the font to something simple like Helvetica or Arial.
d. Get rid of all of the extraneous stuff.
Don’t worry about the vertical exaggeration or the relative scaling of the axes.
13. Once you have it simplified, right-click in the graph area and select Save As Picture…
Then save it as a PDF. You can open the PDF in Illustrator to further edit the graph,
including adjusting the scale so that it is 1:1 (no vertical exaggeration) or whatever scale
is appropriate for your needs.
14. Then you can begin to draw the cross-section. As in Arc, draw all your lines and make
sure you are happy with the location of your lines before you worry about coloring the
units. Once you are happy with the lines, you can generate the polygons from the lines by
using the Divide Objects Below command in the Object  Path menu. (This is actually
a fairly involved process, which I am glossing over. The general idea is that you want to
duplicate the lines, make a box the size of your cross-section that you put below your
lines, and then use the duplicated lines to divide the box one step at a time. Again, you
want to use snapping to make sure that you are snapping all of the edges together. If this
is an anticipated end result for you, let’s talk another time.)
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