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5.A.i. Digital Terrain Elevation Data (DTED)


Primary Developer: tab National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA, formerly Defense Mapping Agency (DMA); prior to DMA, the Army Map Service).
Title: tab Digital Terrain Elevation Data Levels 1 and 0
Publication Date: tab Regular releases since the 1960s
Bibliographic Citations: ** National Imagery and Mapping Agency, 1996. Digital Terrain Elevation Data Level 0. National Imagery and Mapping Agency, Fairfax, Virginia. (Partly in GLOBE Task Team and others, 1999.)
tab tab National Imagery and Mapping Agency, various dates. Digital Terrain Elevation Data Level 1 and derivations (in USGS, ed., 1997, and partly in GLOBE Task Team and others, 1999).
Post-processing: tab Defense Mapping Agency (versions described were contributed to U.S. Geological Survey and National Geophysical Data Center), U.S. Geological Survey (for GTOPO30), and NOAA/National Geophysical Data Center (for GLOBE). DTED Level 0 is the outcome of joint GLOBE/DMA design and DMA/NIMA implementation. Its prototype was contributed directly to the GLOBE project, as was a copy of DTED Level 0.
Bibliographic Citation
for Post-processed DEM:
* NIMA, USGS, and NGDC, 1997. 30"-gridded DEM from DTED, Precursors, and Derivatives. National Geophysical Data Center, Boulder, Colorado (in GLOBE Task Team and others, 1999).
Source/Lineage Category: tab 1 - 7

* Primary reference citation for all data from this source
** Primary reference citation for DTED Level 0

DTED is a raster topographic data base provided by NIMA and its predecessors: (1) between 1 July 1972 and 30 September 1996 by the DMA, (2) between September 1968 and June 1972 by the U.S. Army Topographic Command (USATC), and (3) before September 1968 by the Army Map Service (AMS), which was formed in May 1942. The earliest digital antecedents to DTED were developed in the 1950s by AMS.

DTED was used as the source for most of Eurasia and large parts of Africa and the Americas.

DTED Level 0, a new NIMA data base, is the result of a joint GLOBE/DMA initiative, which resulted in the joint design and DMA production (just before DMA was reorganized into NIMA) of DTED Level 0.
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5.A.i.a. Source Characteristics
5.A.i.b. Derivation of the 30" DEM from Source Materials
5.A.i.c. Extracts from Prototype NIMA Documentation of DTED Level 0
5.A.i.d. Characteristics of 30" DEMs from DTED

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