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	Global Mapper	26 Jan 2015	Visualization, Point Cloud Analysis, DEM generation, DEM Analysis
Keywords: GIS, LiDAR, file format translation, data analysis, 3D, Vector Raster, image rectification, contour License: Commercial License Description: Global Mapper is an affordable and easy-to-use GIS application that offers access to an unparalleled variety of spatial datasets and provides just the right level of functionality to satisfy both experienced GIS professionals and beginning users. Equally well suited as a standalone spatial data management tool and as an integral component of an enterprise-wide GIS, Global Mapper is a must-have for anyone who deals with maps or spatial data. Global Mapper is more than just a utility; it has built in functionality for distance and area calculations, raster blending, feathering, spectral analysis, elevation querying, line of sight calculations, cut-and-fill volume calculations, as well as advanced capabilities like image rectification, contour generation from surface data, view shed analysis, watershed delineation, sea level rise modeling, terrain layer comparison, and triangulation and gridding of 3D point data. Users can now simulate fly-through recordings in high-definition with various sky models in the 3D viewer. This new Skybox tool enables users to choose from a handful of existing sky templates or custom designs. Support for 3D textures and meshes have also been added to give data a more realistic look, including support for a host of new 3D formats. Live GPS data can also now be viewed and tracked in the 3D Viewer. Version 16 features dramatically faster processing speeds for analyzing large amounts of data.
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	Landlab	18 Jan 2016	DEM Analysis, Software Suite
Keywords: model, water, erosion, routing License: MIT license / X11 license Description: Landlab is a Python-based modeling environment that allows scientists and students to build numerical landscape models. Landlab was designed for disciplines that quantify earth surface dynamics such as geomorphology, hydrology, glaciology, and stratigraphy, but can also be used in related fields. Landlab provides components to compute flows (such as water, sediment, glacial ice, volcanic material, or landslide debris) across a gridded terrain. With its robust, reusable components, Landlab allows scientists to quickly build landscape model experiments and compute mass balance across scales.
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/