ChartTiff NEDs   ChartTiff Natonal Elevation Dataset
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USGS NED (National Elevation Dataset) are now branded as USGS 3DEP seamless DEMs.

USGS renames the National Elevation Dataset (NEDs)!
USGS NED data is still available and being updated continually, but the USGS ‘NED’ terminology has been retired.

The national DEM layers previously referred to as the ‘NED’ are now branded as USGS 3DEP seamless DEMs. These seamless national DEM layers are just a few of the datasets offered in the broader suite of 3DEP elevation products.

ChartTiff will continue to update and offer USGS 3DEP seamless DEMs as NEDs.



Creation Date in USGS Metadata file included in ChartTiff's Order.txt file.

ChartTiff's NED data farm is created from the latest USGS NED dataset release.  This USGS NED release contains:
  • Approximately 31% of the Continental United States in 3 Meter (1/9 Arc-Second) Resolution
  • 10 Meter (1/3 Arc-Second) for the Continental US, Hawaii and Alaska
  • 30 Meter (1 Arc-Second) for the Continental US, Hawaii and Alaska, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Canada and Mexico
ChartTiff provides quads and custom areas of NED data in a variety of Formats and Projections for easy input into various GIS applications.

Note: Due to the acquisition region specified during the acquiring of the 3 Meter (1/9 Arc-Second) data used by the USGS, ChartTiff quads or custom areas may not be complete.  Users are notified when a 3 meter ChartTiff quad is not complete.

The National Elevation Dataset (NED) is the latest product assembled by the U.S. Geological Survey and is updated periodically by the USGS and ChartTiffNED is designed to provide National elevation data in a seamless form with a consistent datum, elevation unit, and projection.  Data corrections were made in the NED assembly process to minimize artifacts, perform edge matching, and fill sliver areas of missing data.

NED data sources have a variety of acquisition techniques, elevation units, horizontal datums, and map projections.  In the NED assembly process the elevation values are converted to deci-meters as a consistent unit of measure, NAD83 is consistently used as horizontal datum, and all the data are recast in a geographic projection.  Older DEM's produced by methods that are now obsolete have been filtered during the NED assembly process to minimize artifacts that are commonly found in data produced by these methods.  Artifact removal greatly improves the quality of the slope, shaded-relief, and synthetic drainage information that can be derived from the elevation data.  The figure below illustrates the results of this artifact removal filtering.  NED processing also includes steps to adjust values where adjacent DEM's do not match well, and to fill sliver areas of missing data between DEM's.  These processing steps ensure that NED has no void areas and artificial discontinuities have been minimized.

USGS NED (National Elevation Dataset)

Figure. A shaded-relief representation of the Rockypoint, Wyoming 7.5-minute DEM is shown above on the left.
The same area is shown on the right after NED artifact filtering has been performed.
The super-imposed red lines are synthetic drainage networks derived from each elevation dataset.

National Elevation Data
  • Horizontal Resolution
    3 Meter resolution for Continental US

    Also know as 1/9 Arc Second Resolution
    10 Meter resolution for Continental US
    Also know as 1/3 Arc Second Resolution
    30 Meter resolution for Continental US, HI, PR and VI
    Also know as 1 Arc Second Resolution
    60 Meter resolution for Alaska
    Also know as 2 Arc Second Resolution

  • Vertical Resolution: 1 DeciMeter or 10 CM or approximately 4 Inches.

  • Vertical Datum: NAVD88

  • Vertical Accuracy, See:  USGS NED Accuracy Paper



  • Individual Quads available in:
    USGS Standard DEM file format

    GeoTIFF Format, includes ".tfw" world file

    ESRI Grid Float Format

    PLS-CADD ASCII Text, X,Y,Z format
        XYZ text file format specifically for PLS CADD Software

    ASCII Text, X,Y,Z format
        XYZ text file format is a simple text format
        where each elevation point is described by x, y, and z coordinates.
        The x value defines the east/west coordinate,
              y defines the north/south coordinate, and
              z defines the elevation.
        User can select Tab, Comma or Space delimited file.
        The XYZ text format does not contain any header information:

               x1,y1,z1
               x2,y2,z2
               x3,y3,z3
               .....
               xn,yn,zn

    C Tech File Format
        GMF and EFF files, directly read by C Tech Software

  • Available Projections
    UTM - User Selectable Zones - NAD27 / NAD83 / WGS72 / WGS84
    State Plane - User Selectable Zones - NAD27 / NAD83
    Latitude / Longitude - NAD27 / NAD83 / WGS72 / WGS84
    Web Mercator - WGS84

  • Optional Shaded Elevation Models can be added as an additional file.
    Click Here for Additional Information.
  A NED Quad is available as 1 Free Download

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