DEM clustering simplification algorithm based on fractal dimension

Fractal is the essential characteristic of natural scenes. It can describe the irregular extent of surface topography, so it is used for digital terrain generation. As the inverse process of terrain generation, digital terrain simplification usually uses geometric properties such as curvature index as a measure to reduce the grid to improve the efficiency of electromagnetic solver calculations, flood modeling, visual simulation and other issues, while ignoring the fractal nature of the terrain features. Since a traditional simplification algorithm of DEM is difficult to identify the characteristics of complex topography, a new clustering simplification algorithm based on fractal dimension is proposed. The fractal characteristics are introduced in simplified process of digital elevation model, using the fractal dimension for data simplifying and merging in different subclasses. The experiment results show that compared with classical algorithms: this algorithm has the characteristics of higher precision, smaller voids and higher terrain retention, more suitable for the diversified and complex DEM.