About – What's new

Measure gradients, undo edits, and Norway updates

Nov 5, 2019

We recently introduced the ability to measure the exact gradient of your workspace edits. We have now expanded this to give you the ability to measure the gradients of features directly in the elevation model, an oft-requested feature. To use, simply use the measure tool to get a traditional elevation profile, right click in the profile window and select the option to measure gradients from the context menu.

Measuring the slope of the Observatoriekullen hill in Stockholm, Sweden.

Undo/redo of workspace features

Also new in this release is the ability to undo/redo changes to workspace elevation edit features. You can simply use the new buttons in the workspace tools menu.

The undo/redo functionality is available through the icons to the right of the workspace tools.

Updated Norway Analysis

We have updated the Norway computation with new elevation data and buildings from September 2019 from Kartverket/Geovekst. For more information about the Norwegian elevation model please consult the documentation.

The yellow areas in this picture are areas that were previously DTM 10 data but are now covered by NDH/DTM1 high-resolution data.

New terrain edit features, soil balance information and much more...

Oct 24, 2019

This new release includes several new features, including an extension of the terrain edit features that allows you to make even more realistic terrain editing, and new workspace information about how much soil you have added and/or removed while editing the terrain. Read more below.

Cross sections of terrain edits

There are now three different ways of specifying cross sections of terrain edit features.

  • The standard boxy cross section where a cross section has a width and is drawn with vertical sides. This is the standard cross section type in SCALGO Live.
  • Cross section defined using slide slopes with fixed user-specified gradients. This is e.g. useful for specifying river cross sections from idealized cross section specifications and for specifying simple side slopes of e.g. roads and dikes.
  • New in this release, fully controllable cross sections allow you to control the exact cross-sectional geometry of your terrain object. Use this new feature to e.g. design more accurate road surfaces, dikes and riverbeds.

New in this release is also the ability to chain multiple terrain edits together to seamlessly switch from one cross section to the next in a longer trace. You can also right click to insert a new cross section at any point on a selected feature and delete other cross sections. See the video below for a demonstration of some of the new possibilities.

For more information about the new options, please consult the manual or contact support.



Soil balance

For many projects it is interesting to know how much soil must be added or removed from the project site. We now provide a workspace-wide total of how soil was removed and added to the workspace using terrain edits.

Workspace near Helsinki. The workspace information tab shows that we have removed about 46 thousand cubic meters to make our basin, and used about 11 thousand cubic meters to create our barrier, implying that we have a surplus of 35 thousand cubic meters left over from our project.

Download depression map

We have made it possible for you to download the depression map directly to easily get the extent and volume for any depression in the elevation model. The depression map can be downloaded as a set of polygons delimiting the extent of each depression, each polygon is annotated with the volume of its corresponding depression.

Workspace redesign

We have launched a slight redesign of the workspace dialog to put the terrain edit tools front and center. To do this we have added three tabs; The Tools tab contains all the terrain edit tools and will be selected by default when opening the workspace. The Actions tab contains the other actions you can perform in a workspace that are not related to terrain editing e.g. share or duplicate workspace. The Information tab contains information about your workspace such as time of creation, which terrain model the workspace was created from and the accumulated soil balance of the terrain edits.

If you have made changes to your workspace that requires you to update the analyses in the workspace, we now display a big recompute button to remind you to do so. Once the workspace analyses are up to date, the button disappears.

The default state of the workspace tools shows the terrain edit tools. In this case we have made changes to the terrain and therefore the recompute button is shown beneath the dialog.

Cadastral maps in Finland

Cadastral maps are now available for Finland and will be updated weekly. They can be found in the library (click the Add button at the bottom of the layer list). Also, the numeric codes used in the buildings dataset that are shown when doing a point query are now converted according to the specification from Maanmittauslaitos.

Browse historical orthophotos in SCALGO Live

Sep 2, 2019


The Danish Agency for Data Supply and Efficiency (SDFE) recently released historical ortophotos for a range of years, dating back to 1999. We took this opportunity to revamp the orthophoto experience in SCALGO Live. You can now find the "Aerial 1999 - Now" ortophoto in the Aerial category. The layer lets you pick the year of interest through a simply slider, making it easy for you to explore how an area has changed in the past twenty years.

You now also have access to the new orthophotos from 2019. They are still in the process of being finalized and SDFE therefore include a disclaimer in each individual orthophoto-tile.

Most of the newer orthophotos (including 2018) are hosted directly by SCALGO and are available for download in SCALGO Live as usual. The 2019 orthophotos will be available for download when they have been officially released.

Emergency planning with sea-level rise from national forecast data

Aug 26, 2019

In collaboration with the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) we are proud to launch a truly unique analysis in SCALGO Live. We have coupled our traditional sea-level rise analysis with DMI's national sea-level forecasts. When you enable the new layer, which you can find in the Forecasts category in your library, a slider shows up that allows you to pick a particular point in time and see the effect of the forecasted sea-levels for that time. The DMI forecasts go 5 days into the future.

Screenshot from August 23 showing the sea-level forecast for Sun the 25th of August 2019 at 22:00. No significant flooding for this particular event. The colors in the ocean show the forecasted sea-level.

The analysis is incorporated into workspaces and is enabled when you create a workspace for Sea-level rise. We also have a sensitivity analysis to allow you to take the uncertainty in DMI's forecast into account. According to DMI, the uncertainty in the forecast is 10%. Therefore we have added checkboxes "-10%" and "+10%" that allow you to view respectively the areas that would not be flooded if the forecast was 10% lower, and the areas that would be flooded if it was 10% higher.

Since a severe increase in sea-level is not an everyday event (luckily) we have added the forecasts from three historical events: Bodil (2013), Alfrida (2019) and "Den stille storm" (2017). These work in the same way as the current forecast and allow you to experience how the system would act if a similar event was to appear in the current forecast.

The forecasted sea levels during the 2013 Bodil storm and the resulting flood risk forecast for a section of Roskilde Fjord. The screenshots shows the situation on Saturday December 7 at 3am as predicted by the forecast from Tuesday December 3.

This new feature allows emergency response teams to easily show the in-land consequences of DMI forecasts for communication with the public and for planning. In the latter case, mobile barriers, sand bags and other remedies can be placed and their effects assessed quickly and intuitively through workspaces.

You can read more about the new functionality in the manual.

Detailed information about watershed composition

Jul 5, 2019

We have updated SCALGO Live in Sweden, Norway and Denmark with a powerful new interation of the watershed tool. When you use the watershed tool you now get information about the composition of land use and/or soil types in that watershed.

Screenshot from SCALGO Live Sweden showing a watershed query and the distribution of land use in the watershed.

The following data is available in each country:

New Norway Elevation Model

We have updated the national elevation model based on the newest data from Kartverket, the anlyses have been updated accordingly. Also, we're using a more detailed building dataset (N5 instead of N20), so also smaller sheds etc. are included.

The areas marked in yellow have been updated. For precise update information please consult the Norway/Sources layer using the point info tool.

Updated GeoDanmark data

We have updated the GeoDanmark data in SCALGO Live Denmark. We are now serving data in the newest GeoDanmark specification (version 6).

Better styling of imported vector layers

Jun 19, 2019

You can now change the color of vector datasets you have imported into SCALGO Live by dragging them onto the dock. You can access the new styles in the gear menu for the imported layer.

New Swedish Base Map

We have switched the view projection for SCALGO Live Sweden to the national Swedish coordinate system (SWEREF 99 TM). This implies that we can now use the standard base map put out by Lantmäteriet: topografisk webbkarta. The base map comes in two styles, one with muted colors (shown below) and one with full colors. This should also make it easier to integrate SCALGO Live with certain online GIS and will improve the precision of elevation profiles.

Note: As part of this change we have made two minor changes to the Swedish flash flood map. In the flash flood map watershed layer we now visually distinguish watersheds that end up in the sea in different places. This new rendering implies that if you put the rain slider so high that all depresssions are full, the flash flood map watersheds visually match those from depression-free flow. The actual definition of the watersheds have not changed as a result of this update, it is purely a change in visualization. Furthermore, we now fill all depressions in the DEM of a volume smaller than 3 m3 (used to be 1 m3), resulting in a cleaner flash flood map with fewer spurious sinks.

New Danish Elevation Model

Apr 18, 2019

A few days ago SDFE released an updated version of the Danish elevation model. The updates come from a newly acquired point cloud covering Fyn and Djursland primarily, but the model has also changed elsewhere. The complete model is now available for use in SCALGO Live under the name Denmark/2018 - you can find it in the library. The Denmark/2015 model is still available and our analyses have not (yet) been updated. You can create workspaces from the Denmark/2018 model using the "Existing Model" button in the workspace creation menu. You will automatically get the hydrological corrections in your workspace.

(left) An area south of Odense from the national Danish elevation model from 2015. (right) The area in the updated model reflects recent developments in the area.



Work with gradients in the profile widget

Apr 12, 2019

You can now work with gradients of your workspace terrain edits. You can set a constant gradient across the length of the feature and you can get information about the gradient of edges adjacent to each vertex. You can now also right-click to fix individual vertices. This allows you to efficiently change the slope of sub-paths.

Denmark: updated national computation

We have refreshed the Danish national analysis using GeoDanmark data (e.g. building footprints and hydrological corrections) from February 2019.

Flood risk screening from rivers and flow paths

Mar 25, 2019

We are proud to announce the Danish release of our new SCALGO Live add-on module to estimate flood risk from water flowing in streams, rivers, ditches and along roads. In fact, you can use the new module to estimate the flood risk of any flow rate and along any flow path in the high-resolution Danish elevation model (260 billion elevation cells). The feature is fully integrated into SCALGO Live with both a national analysis and powerful workspace options for working with water flows both in streams and on roads. If you are a Danish user then contact us for more on obtaining access to the new module. If you are a user outside Denmark then stay tuned, we are working hard to release this in more countries.

You can read more about the new functionality in the manual and in the full release announcement.

New workspace tool: Raise and lower terrain uniformly

Mar 15, 2019

We have added a new terrain edit tool for workspaces. The tool allows you to draw a path or a polygon and raise or lower all parts of the terrain covered by the object by a fixed amount. This is useful for e.g. modeling water tubes in emergency response situations where the water tube follows the terrain instead of being set at a fixed absolute elevation.

Example of a 1 meter tall water tube rolled out on a shore. The profile window shows the original terrain (blue line in the graph) and how the water tube (red line in the graph) follows the original terrain, but 1 meters higher.