The OpenTopography Tool Registry provides a community populated clearinghouse of software, utilities, and tools oriented towards high-resolution topography data (e.g. collected with lidar technology) handling, processing, and analysis. Tools registered below range from source code to full-featured software applications. We welcome contributions to the registry via the Contribute a Tool page.

	Tool Name	Date	Tool Type	Rating
1	RiverTools	22 Feb 2014	Software Suite
Keywords: DEMs, terrain, river network extraction, contributing area, curvature License: Commercial License Description: RiverTools is a user-friendly GIS application that contains a wide variety of tools specifically designed for terrain and watershed analysis and visualization. Version 4.0 supports the latest versions of Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
2	Geomorphic Change Detection Software	4 Sep 2014	DEM Analysis
Keywords: DEM error modelling, change detection, DEM uncertainty, geomorphic interpretation License: Other Description: The GCD software was developed primarily for morphological sediment budgeting in rivers. The volumetric change in storage is calculated from the difference in surface elevations from digital elevation models (DEMs) derived from repeat topographic surveys. As each DEM has an uncertain surface representation (which might vary in space and time), our ability to detect changes between surveys is highly dependent on surface representation uncertainties inherent in the individual DEMs. The fundamental problem is separating out the changes between the surveys that are due to geomorphic change as opposed to noise in the survey data. GCD provides a suite of tools for quantifying those uncertainties independently in each DEM and propagating them through to the DEM of difference. The program also provides ways for segregating the best estimates of change spatially using different types of masks. The overall suite of tools is more generically applicable to many different spatial raster-based change detection problems.
3	River Bathymetry Toolkit (RBT)	18 Mar 2011	Software Suite
Keywords: LiDAR, bathymetry, river, raster, detrending, water, RBT License: Free to use/Unspecified Description: The (RBT) is available for free and is under active development. Tools exist for cutting cross sections and longitudinal profiles into high resolution DEMs to extract hydrologic parameters such as wetted area, bankfull width, hydraulic radius, gradient and sinuosity. It is possible to save the cross section properties as a ShapeFile and then add them to a map. Using an automated detrending algorithm we are able to remove the overall valley slope. Tools are being created that use the detrended raster to investigate flooding outside a main channel at any prescribed discharge or flow stage.
4	TerEx	23 Sep 2014	DEM Analysis
Keywords: terrace, mapping, feature extraction, floodplain License: Free to use/Unspecified Description: The TerEx Tool automates the process of mapping terraces and floodplains from high resolution topography data (works best on <3m grid resolution). The tool maps terraces and floodplains from user-defined parameters including, a local-relief threshold selected by a variable-size moving window, minimum area threshold, and maximum distance from the channel to identify and map discrete terrace and floodplain surfaces. Subsequently, the tool automatically measures planform area, absolute elevation, and height relative to the local river channel for each terrace polygon. TerEx can be run in a Python environment or as a GUI plugin for ArcMap. See Stout and Belmont, 2014 and the users manual for explanations of tool functionality and several test cases that provide guidance on parameter values for a wide range of landscapes.
5	TopoRivBlender	24 Sep 2025	Visualization
Keywords: blender, topography, hydrography, render, 3D, remote-sensing License: Other Description: TopoRivBlender contains Python functions and workflows that allow for reproducible, automated generation of 3-dimensional images. The workflow is coded using a snakemake workflow that will programmatically (a) download geospatial data, (b) create 3-dimensional (3D) objects in Blender, and (c) generate the rendered image, all in just a few minutes. Rendering is the process of using your computer’s CPU or GPU to predict how light bounces off 3D objects into a simulated camera to make an image. The topo part of this workflow’s name stands for topography. Topographic data tells us the height (or elevation) of the Earth’s surface. When this data is recorded in a digital form, it is often referred to as a Digital Elevation Model (DEM). DEMs are commonly saved as raster files, which is a gridded dataset. The riv part of this workflow’s name stands for river network. River network data tells us where streams and rivers flow and connect. The locations of river and surface water are commonly saved as vector files. In these vector files, river pathways are represented as a series of lines that connect to one other on the Earth’s surface. Blender is a free and open-source 3D graphics software that you can use to create photorealistic images. In this workflow, we use Python to process the geospatial data for Blender to create the 3D images. We also utilize the Blender Python API to render images with code. See more infor here: https://waterdata.usgs.gov/blog/topo-riv-blender/