# Extracting contour lines¶

What does this notebook do?

This notebook demonstrates how to use the contour_extract function to extract multiple contours from a two-dimensional array, or individual contours from every array along a specified dimension in a multi-dimensional array. Contours can be extracted either from digital elevation data (DEMs), or from any other data such as extracting waterline boundaries from Landsat-derived Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) data across time.

Requirements:

You need to run the following commands from the command line prior to launching jupyter notebooks from the same terminal so that the required libraries and paths are set:

module use /g/data/v10/public/modules/modulefiles

module load dea

This notebook uses an external function called contour_extract. This function is available in the 10_Scripts folder of the dea-notebooks Github repository. Note that these functions have been developed by DEA users, not the DEA development team, and so are provided without warranty. If you find an error or bug in the functions, please either create an ‘Issue’ in the Github repository, or fix it yourself and create a ‘Pull’ request to contribute the updated function back into the repository (See the repository README for instructions on creating a Pull request).

Date: November 2018

Author: Robbi Bishop-Taylor

Tags: srtm, Scripts, contours, elevation, Outputting data, Landsat, Landsat8, NDWI, query, dc.load, plot, skimage.measure, Image processing

[2]:

# Import modules
import os
import sys
import datacube
import geopandas as gpd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib as mpl
import numpy as np

# Import external dea-notebooks functions using relative link to Scripts directory
sys.path.append('../10_Scripts')
import SpatialTools

# Set up datacube instance
dc = datacube.Datacube(app='Contour extraction')



Here we use dc.load to import Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data for Canberra. This returns a hydrologically enforced digital elevation model (DEM-H):

[3]:

# Elevation query
elevation_query = {
'lat': (-35.25, -35.35),
'lon': (149.05, 149.17),
'output_crs': 'EPSG:3577',
'resolution': (-25, 25)
}

elevation_data

[3]:

<xarray.Dataset>
Dimensions:  (time: 1, x: 492, y: 500)
Coordinates:
* time     (time) datetime64[ns] 2014-12-15T14:58:44
* y        (y) float64 -3.953e+06 -3.953e+06 ... -3.966e+06 -3.966e+06
* x        (x) float64 1.542e+06 1.542e+06 1.542e+06 ... 1.555e+06 1.555e+06
Data variables:
dem      (time, y, x) float32 653.0692 652.3962 651.54095 ... 583.0 582.0
dem_s    (time, y, x) float32 651.44354 651.31757 ... 583.69037 582.87164
dem_h    (time, y, x) float32 651.2039 651.0723 ... 583.68713 582.76434
Attributes:
crs:      EPSG:3577


Create a terrain-coloured colour map and plot the DEM-H data:

[4]:

# Create a custom colourmap for the DEM
colors_terrain = plt.cm.terrain(np.linspace(0.08, 1, 200))
cmap_terrain = mpl.colors.LinearSegmentedColormap.from_list('terrain', colors_terrain)

# Plot the elevation; squeeze removes the uncessessary time dimension
plt.figure(figsize=(10, 8))
elevation_data.dem_h.squeeze('time').plot(cmap=cmap_terrain)


[4]:

<matplotlib.collections.QuadMesh at 0x7fb27b0023c8>


## Contour extraction in ‘single array, multiple z-values’ mode¶

The SpatialTools.contour_extract function uses skimage.measure.find_contours to extract contour lines from an array. This can be an elevation dataset like the data imported above, or any other two-dimensional or multi-dimensional array. We can extract contours from the elevation array imported above by providing a single z-value/elevation or a list of z_values/elevations. We also need to provide a crs and an affine object, both of which can be obtained from the xarray DataArray.

### Extracting a single contour¶

Here, we extract a single 600 m elevation contour:

[38]:

# Remove the time dimension to return a two-dimensional array. This is not strictly necessary as the
# function will drop the time dimension automatically if it has a length of 1, but it is good practice:
elevation_2d = elevation_data.dem_h.squeeze('time')

# Extract contours
contour_gdf = SpatialTools.contour_extract(z_values=600,
ds_array=elevation_2d,
ds_crs=elevation_2d.geobox.crs,
ds_affine=elevation_2d.geobox.affine,
output_shp='extracted_contours.shp')

# Print output
contour_gdf

Operating in single array, multiple z-values mode
Extracting contour 600
Exporting contour shapefile to extracted_contours.shp

[38]:

z_value geometry
0 600.0 (LINESTRING (1545252.210436996 -3953087.5, 154...

This writes the shapefile to file, and returns a Geopandas geodataframe containing a single contour line feature with the z-value (i.e. elevation) given in a shapefile field named z_value. We can plot this:

[39]:

# Plot extracted contour:
contour_gdf.plot(figsize=(10, 8))

[39]:

<matplotlib.axes._subplots.AxesSubplot at 0x7fb27ac1b208>


### Extracting multiple contours¶

We can easily import multiple contours from a single array by supplying a list of z-values to extract. The function will then extract a contour for each value in z_values, skipping any contour elevation that is not found in the array (e.g. 850 m below):

[40]:

# List of elevations to extract
elev_list = [550, 600, 650, 700, 750, 800, 850]

# Extract contours
contour_gdf = SpatialTools.contour_extract(z_values=elev_list,
ds_array=elevation_2d,
ds_crs=elevation_2d.geobox.crs,
ds_affine=elevation_2d.geobox.affine,
output_shp='extracted_contours.shp')

# Plot extracted contours, colouring contours by their z-value/elevation:
contour_gdf.plot(column='z_value', figsize=(10, 8))

Operating in single array, multiple z-values mode
Extracting contour 550
Extracting contour 600
Extracting contour 650
Extracting contour 700
Extracting contour 750
Extracting contour 800
Extracting contour 850
No data for contour 850; skipping
Exporting contour shapefile to extracted_contours.shp

[40]:

<matplotlib.axes._subplots.AxesSubplot at 0x7fb268aec780>


Any number of contours can be extracted; below we extract one contour for every 10 m in elevation. For this kind of extraction, it can be useful to use the verbose=False parameter to prevent the large number of contour extractions being printed to the screen:

[41]:

# List of elevations to extract
elev_list = list(range(510, 840, 10))

#Extract contours and export to a shapefile
contour_gdf = SpatialTools.contour_extract(z_values=elev_list,
ds_array=elevation_2d,
ds_crs=elevation_data.geobox.crs,
ds_affine=elevation_data.geobox.affine,
output_shp='extracted_contours.shp',
verbose=False)

# Plot extracted contours, colouring contours by their z-value/elevation:
contour_gdf.plot(column='z_value', figsize=(10, 8))

Operating in single array, multiple z-values mode
Exporting contour shapefile to extracted_contours.shp

[41]:

<matplotlib.axes._subplots.AxesSubplot at 0x7fb268b3e470>


We can plot the contours over the top of the original elevation array to verify they are in the correct locations:

[42]:

# Plot contours over the top of elevation array
fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(10, 8))
elevation_data.dem.isel(time=0).plot(ax=ax, cmap=cmap_terrain)
contour_gdf.plot(ax=ax, linewidth=0.5, color='black')

[42]:

<matplotlib.axes._subplots.AxesSubplot at 0x7fb268a00ba8>


### Custom shapefile attributes¶

By default, the shapefile includes a single z_value attribute field with one feature per input value in z_values. We can instead pass custom attributes to the output shapefile using the attribute_data and attribute_dtypes parameters. For example, we might want a custom column called elev_cm with heights in cm instead of m, and a location column giving the location (Canberra).

We can achieve this by passing in a dict with field names as keys, and a list of values of the same length as z_values. When passing in custom attributes, we also need to manually set the dtypes for the output fields using an attribute_dtypes dictionary. The dict should have the same keys/field names as declared in attribute_data, and values which include ‘int’, ‘str’, ‘datetime, and ‘float:X.Y’, where X is the minimum number of characters before the decimal place, and Y is the number of characters after the decimal place:

[43]:

# Elevation values to extract
elev_values = [550, 600, 650, 700, 750, 800, 850]

# Set up dicts with the attribute field name as the dict key, and lists of values of the same
# length as z_values:
custom_attrs = {'elev_cm': [55000, 60000, 65000, 70000, 75000, 80000, 85000],
'location': ['Canberra', 'Canberra', 'Canberra', 'Canberra',
'Canberra', 'Canberra', 'Canberra']}
custom_attrs_dtypes = {'elev_cm': 'int', 'location': 'str'}

# Extract contours with custom attribute fields:
contour_dict = SpatialTools.contour_extract(z_values=elev_values,
ds_array=elevation_data.dem_h.squeeze('time'),
ds_crs=elevation_data.geobox.crs,
ds_affine=elevation_data.geobox.affine,
output_shp='extracted_contours_attrs.shp',
attribute_data=custom_attrs,
attribute_dtypes=custom_attrs_dtypes)

# Import shapefile using geopandas to verify that the shapefile includes the new attributes:
contour_shp

Operating in single array, multiple z-values mode
Extracting contour 550
Extracting contour 600
Extracting contour 650
Extracting contour 700
Extracting contour 750
Extracting contour 800
Extracting contour 850
No data for contour 850; skipping
Exporting contour shapefile to extracted_contours_attrs.shp

[43]:

elev_cm location geometry
0 55000 Canberra (LINESTRING (1542337.5 -3955470.764855981, 154...
1 60000 Canberra (LINESTRING (1545252.210436996 -3953087.5, 154...
2 65000 Canberra (LINESTRING (1543443.610875806 -3953087.5, 154...
3 70000 Canberra (LINESTRING (1544862.5 -3955595.512401243, 154...
4 75000 Canberra (LINESTRING (1553162.5 -3957020.618084073, 155...
5 80000 Canberra (LINESTRING (1547737.5 -3956521.204322249, 154...

## Contours from non-elevation datasets in in ‘single z-value, multiple arrays’ mode¶

As well as extracting multiple contours from a single two-dimensional array, contour_extract also allows you to extract a single z-value from every array along a specified dimension in a multi-dimensional array. This can be useful for comparing the changing topography of a landscape across time. The input multi-dimensional array does not need to be elevation data: contours can be extracted from any type of data. For example, we can use the function to extract the boundary between land and water.

First, import some sample Landsat data and calculate a simple Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) on two cloud-free images. This index will have high values where a pixel is likely to be open water (e.g. NDWI > 0, or red colours below):

[67]:

# Landsat query
landsat_query = {
'lat': (-35.25, -35.35),
'lon': (149.05, 149.17),
'time': ('2018-01-10', '2018-04-20'),
'measurements': ['red', 'green', 'blue', 'nir'],
'output_crs': 'EPSG:3577',
'resolution': (-25, 25)
}

group_by = 'solar_day',
**landsat_query)

# Pull out two cloud-free observations
landsat_data = landsat_data.isel(time=[1, 12])

# Compute NDWI
landsat_ndwi = (landsat_data.green - landsat_data.nir) / \
(landsat_data.green + landsat_data.nir)

# Plot
landsat_ndwi.plot(col='time', vmin=-1.0, vmax=1.0, cmap='RdYlBu', size=5)


[67]:

<xarray.plot.facetgrid.FacetGrid at 0x7fb2367e9be0>


We can now identify the land-water boundary by extracting the 0 NDWI contour for each array in the dataset along the time dimension. By plotting the resulting contour lines, we can then start to compare phenomenon like lake levels across time:

[68]:

# Extract contours with custom attribute fields:
contour_gdf = SpatialTools.contour_extract(z_values=0,
ds_array=landsat_ndwi,
ds_crs=elevation_data.geobox.crs,
ds_affine=elevation_data.geobox.affine,
output_shp='extracted_contours_ndwi.shp')

# Plot contours over the top of array
fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(10, 8))
landsat_ndwi.isel(time=0, x=slice(270, 290), y=slice(240, 260)).plot(ax=ax, vmin=-1.0, vmax=1.0, cmap='RdYlBu')
contour_gdf.plot(ax=ax, linewidth=1.5, color='black')

Operating in single z-value, multiple arrays mode
Extracting contour 0
Extracting contour 1
Exporting contour shapefile to extracted_contours_ndwi.shp

[68]:

<matplotlib.axes._subplots.AxesSubplot at 0x7fb23673aef0>


### Dropping small contours¶

Contours produced by contour_extract can include many small features. We can optionally choose to extract only contours larger than a certain number of vertices using the min_vertices parameter. This can be useful for focusing on large contours, and remove possible noise in a dataset. Here we set min_vertices=20 to keep only contours with at least 20 vertices. Observe the small waterbody in the bottom-right of the image disappear:

[69]:

# Extract contours with custom attribute fields:
contour_dict = SpatialTools.contour_extract(z_values=0,
ds_array=landsat_ndwi,
ds_crs=elevation_data.geobox.crs,
ds_affine=elevation_data.geobox.affine,
output_shp='extracted_contours_ndwi.shp',
min_vertices=20)

# Import shapefile using geopandas to verify that the shapefile includes the new attributes:
contour_shp

# Plot contours over the top of elevation array
fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(10, 8))
landsat_ndwi.isel(time=0, x=slice(270, 290), y=slice(240, 260)).plot(ax=ax, vmin=-1.0, vmax=1.0, cmap='RdYlBu')
contour_shp.plot(ax=ax, linewidth=1.5, color='black')


Operating in single z-value, multiple arrays mode
Extracting contour 0
Extracting contour 1
Exporting contour shapefile to extracted_contours_ndwi.shp

[69]:

<matplotlib.axes._subplots.AxesSubplot at 0x7fb2368505c0>

[ ]: