Getting elevation at lat/long from raster using python?

Question

I was wondering if anyone has some experience in getting elevation data from a raster without using ArcGIS, but rather get the information as a python list or dict?

I get my XY data as a list of tuples:

xy34 =[perp_obj[j].CalcPnts(float(i.dist), orientation) for j in range (len(perp_obj))]

I'd like to loop through the list or pass it to a function or class-method to get the corresponding elevation for the xy-pairs.

I did some research on the topic and the gdal API sounds promising. Can anyone advice me how to go about things, pitfalls, sample code?

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GDAL is not an option as I can't edit the system path variable on the machine I'm working on!

Does anyone know about a different approach?

Answer 1

Here's a more programmatic way of using GDAL than @Aragon's answer. I've not tested it, but it is mostly boiler-plate code that has worked for me in the past. It relies on Numpy and GDAL bindings, but that's about it.

import osgeo.gdal as gdal
import osgeo.osr as osr
import numpy as np
from numpy import ma

def maFromGDAL(filename):
    dataset = gdal.Open(filename, gdal.GA_ReadOnly)

    if dataset is None:
        raise Exception()

    # Get the georeferencing metadata.
    # We don't need to know the CRS unless we want to specify coordinates
    # in a different CRS.
    #projection = dataset.GetProjection()
    geotransform = dataset.GetGeoTransform()

    # We need to know the geographic bounds and resolution of our dataset.
    if geotransform is None:
        dataset = None
        raise Exception()

    # Get the first band.
    band = dataset.GetRasterBand(1)
    # We need to nodata value for our MaskedArray later.
    nodata = band.GetNoDataValue()
    # Load the entire dataset into one numpy array.
    image = band.ReadAsArray(0, 0, band.XSize, band.YSize)
    # Close the dataset.
    dataset = None

    # Create a numpy MaskedArray from our regular numpy array.
    # If we want to be really clever, we could subclass MaskedArray to hold
    # our georeference metadata as well.
    # see here: http://docs.scipy.org/doc/numpy/user/basics.subclassing.html
    # For details.
    masked_image = ma.masked_values(image, nodata, copy=False)
    masked_image.fill_value = nodata

    return masked_image, geotransform

def pixelToMap(gt, pos):
    return (gt[0] + pos[0] * gt[1] + pos[1] * gt[2],
            gt[3] + pos[0] * gt[4] + pos[1] * gt[5])

# Reverses the operation of pixelToMap(), according to:
# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_file because GDAL's Affine GeoTransform
# uses the same values in the same order as an ESRI world file.
# See: http://www.gdal.org/gdal_datamodel.html
def mapToPixel(gt, pos):
    s = gt[0] * gt[4] - gt[3] * gt[1]
    x = (gt[4] * pos[0] - gt[1] * pos[1] + gt[1] * gt[5] - gt[4] * gt[2]) / s
    y = (-gt[3] * pos[0] + gt[0] * pos[1] + gt[3] * gt[2] - gt[0] * gt[5]) / s
    return (x, y)

def valueAtMapPos(image, gt, pos):
    pp = mapToPixel(gt, pos)
    x = int(pp[0])
    y = int(pp[1])

    if x < 0 or y < 0 or x >= image.shape[1] or y >= image.shape[0]:
        raise Exception()

    # Note how we reference the y column first. This is the way numpy arrays
    # work by default. But GDAL assumes x first.
    return image[y, x]

try:
    image, geotransform = maFromGDAL('myimage.tif')
    val = valueAtMapPos(image, geotransform, (434323.0, 2984745.0))
    print val
except:
    print('Something went wrong.')

Answer 2

Check out my answer here... and read here for some information. The following info was taken from Geotips:

With gdallocationinfo, we can query the elevation at a point:

$ gdallocationinfo gmted/all075.vrt -geoloc 87360 19679

The output of the above command has the form:

Report:
   Location: (87360P,19679L)
Band 1:
   Value: 1418

This means, that the elevation value at the provided geolocation is 1418.

Answer 3

See e.g. this code which is based on GDAL (and Python, no numpy needed): https://github.com/geometalab/retrieve-height-service

Answer 4

The provided python code extracts the value data of a raster cell based on given x,y coords. It is a slightly alterd version of an example from this excellent source. It is based on GDAL and numpy which are not part of the standard python distribution. Thanks to @Mike Toews for pointing out the Unofficial Windows Binaries for Python Extension Packages to make installation and use quick and easy.

import os, sys, time, gdal
from gdalconst import *


# coordinates to get pixel values for
xValues = [122588.008]
yValues = [484475.146]

# set directory
os.chdir(r'D:\\temp\\AHN2_060')

# register all of the drivers
gdal.AllRegister()
# open the image
ds = gdal.Open('i25gn1_131.img', GA_ReadOnly)

if ds is None:
    print 'Could not open image'
    sys.exit(1)

# get image size
rows = ds.RasterYSize
cols = ds.RasterXSize
bands = ds.RasterCount

# get georeference info
transform = ds.GetGeoTransform()
xOrigin = transform[0]
yOrigin = transform[3]
pixelWidth = transform[1]
pixelHeight = transform[5]

# loop through the coordinates
for xValue,yValue in zip(xValues,yValues):
    # get x,y
    x = xValue
    y = yValue

    # compute pixel offset
    xOffset = int((x - xOrigin) / pixelWidth)
    yOffset = int((y - yOrigin) / pixelHeight)
    # create a string to print out
    s = "%s %s %s %s " % (x, y, xOffset, yOffset)

    # loop through the bands
    for i in xrange(1,bands):
        band = ds.GetRasterBand(i) # 1-based index
        # read data and add the value to the string
        data = band.ReadAsArray(xOffset, yOffset, 1, 1)
        value = data[0,0]
        s = "%s%s " % (s, value) 
    # print out the data string
    print s
    # figure out how long the script took to run