Towards an optimum terrain database structure for microwave link profiles

Information on path profiles is most efficiently obtained from an appropriate database. The authors address aspects of the construction of such a database, and the extraction from it of terrain height along an arbitrary great circle path. It is clear that there will be a trade-off between accuracy and data density. Greater height accuracy may be expected to be obtained by using a larger number of recorded heights per unit area, but this inevitably results in a greater problem of data storage and consequently in access time during use. The authors report a pilot project in constructing a small database and extracting path profiles across it. They compare height accuracy for differing data densities by examining coded height maps and path profiles. They also compare the accuracy of path profiles for databases derived from maps with different contour intervals