AN AUTOMATIC PROCEDURE FOR NUMERICAL MODELLING OF TOPOGRAPHY APPLIED TO TERRAIN CORRECTION IN GRAVIMETRY

The application of terrain correction to gravimetric data using computers requires the definition of a numerical model for the survey area topography. In order to shorten this lengthy and intensive operation, an automatic procedure was implemented, based on the digitization of topographic map contour lines and on the processing of the data obtained with an efficient program for evaluating mean elevations in an user-selected grid of square cells. The efficiency of this procedure was tested in two cases with satisfactory results: considerable time saving can be obtained in data processing, and the parameters for the topography numerical modelling can be easily modified, thus verifying their influence on the final results before choosing the most appropriate values.