Announcement: All noncommercial projects registered to use Earth Engine beforeApril 15, 2025 mustverify noncommercial eligibility to maintain access. If you have not verified by September 26, 2025, your access may be on hold.

ee.Terrain.aspect

  • This function calculates aspect in degrees from a terrain Digital Elevation Model (DEM).

  • Missing values will occur around the edges of an image because the local gradient is computed using 4-connected neighbors.

  • The functionee.Terrain.aspect(input) takes an elevation image as input and returns an Image.

  • The returned aspect units are in degrees, where 0 is North, 90 is East, 180 is South, and 270 is West.

Calculates aspect in degrees from a terrain DEM.

The local gradient is computed using the 4-connected neighbors of each pixel, so missing values will occur around the edges of an image.

UsageReturns
ee.Terrain.aspect(input)Image
ArgumentTypeDetails
inputImageAn elevation image, in meters.

Examples

Code Editor (JavaScript)

// A digital elevation model.vardem=ee.Image('NASA/NASADEM_HGT/001').select('elevation');// Calculate slope. Units are degrees, range is [0,90).varslope=ee.Terrain.slope(dem);// Calculate aspect. Units are degrees where 0=N, 90=E, 180=S, 270=W.varaspect=ee.Terrain.aspect(dem);// Display slope and aspect layers on the map.Map.setCenter(-123.457,47.815,11);Map.addLayer(slope,{min:0,max:89.99},'Slope');Map.addLayer(aspect,{min:0,max:359.99},'Aspect');// Use the ee.Terrain.products function to calculate slope, aspect, and// hillshade simultaneously. The output bands are appended to the input image.// Hillshade is calculated based on illumination azimuth=270, elevation=45.varterrain=ee.Terrain.products(dem);print('ee.Terrain.products bands',terrain.bandNames());Map.addLayer(terrain.select('hillshade'),{min:0,max:255},'Hillshade');;

Python setup

See the Python Environment page for information on the Python API and usinggeemap for interactive development.

importeeimportgeemap.coreasgeemap

Colab (Python)

# A digital elevation model.dem=ee.Image('NASA/NASADEM_HGT/001').select('elevation')# Calculate slope. Units are degrees, range is [0,90).slope=ee.Terrain.slope(dem)# Calculate aspect. Units are degrees where 0=N, 90=E, 180=S, 270=W.aspect=ee.Terrain.aspect(dem)# Display slope and aspect layers on the map.m=geemap.Map()m.set_center(-123.457,47.815,11)m.add_layer(slope,{'min':0,'max':89.99},'Slope')m.add_layer(aspect,{'min':0,'max':359.99},'Aspect')# Use the ee.Terrain.products function to calculate slope, aspect, and# hillshade simultaneously. The output bands are appended to the input image.# Hillshade is calculated based on illumination azimuth=270, elevation=45.terrain=ee.Terrain.products(dem)display('ee.Terrain.products bands',terrain.bandNames())m.add_layer(terrain.select('hillshade'),{'min':0,'max':255},'Hillshade')m

Except as otherwise noted, the content of this page is licensed under theCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and code samples are licensed under theApache 2.0 License. For details, see theGoogle Developers Site Policies. Java is a registered trademark of Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Last updated 2023-10-06 UTC.