Abstract: The real-time modeling and rambling on the multi-scale and different resolution digital elevation model (DEM) are very important in the geographic information system (GIS) technique; but, simultaneously, it is also of difficulties in algorithmic programming. Herein both DEM and spline functions are analyzed and studied in rather detailed fashion with more attentions to the visualization and numerical simulation of geotechnical slope objects. By banding together both the approaches, which are nonuniform B-spline surface fitting and quasi-uniform B-spline wavelet multi-scale decomposition, the modeling multi-scale digital elevation model (MsDEM) is performed; and the related algorithm is derived. The proposed approach, MsDEM, is applied to a visualized simulation of the slide DEM, which is based on the field data of Hanjiaya slope located in mountains in one constructing Wuhan-Shiyan Highway. The results manifest that the algorithm modeling is realistic and the multi-scale resolution is visible. The proposed modeling approach is efficient and promising.

Key words: muti-scale digital elevation model (MsDEM), spline function, wavelets