Elevation from a single image. Anywhere. Anytime.

One aerial or satellite RGB image is all we need — no stereo pairs, no LiDAR, no second pass. CALHYPSO turns it into a high-resolution surface model, calibrated to real-world elevation.

DSM

Digital Surface Model

Absolute elevation of the ground and everything on it — buildings, vegetation and structures — from a single image.

nDSM

Normalized DSM — heights above ground

Object heights above ground, straight from the image — ideal for building height, canopy and volume analysis.

See the Difference

Global data, meet CALHYPSO.

Same coastline, a world of detail apart — drag from Copernicus' 30-metre global model to CALHYPSO's sub-metre DSM.

Copernicus DEM CALHYPSO DSM

Light trial · upload one RGB GeoTIFF · 2 m or finer · download its DSM

Use Cases

What surface models are good for.

A surface model turns the shape of the world into measurable data — and with CALHYPSO it only takes one image, available as soon as that image is captured. Here is where that matters.

Urban Planning

Surface models expose building heights, volumes and the 3-D fabric of a city. Planners can assess density, shadowing, view corridors, solar exposure and the visual impact of new developments before anything is built.

Telecommunications planning

Coverage for antennas, 5G small cells and microwave links depends on what stands between transmitter and receiver. A DSM captures rooftops, masts and vegetation, so line-of-sight, interference and optimal tower placement can be modelled accurately.

Climate Change monitoring

Repeat models over time to measure change in urban growth and canopy dynamics. Differencing two epochs turns elevation into a quantitative record of how a landscape is shifting.

Hydrology & Flood Risk

Water follows the surface. Elevation models drive flow accumulation, watershed delineation and flood-inundation modelling — showing where water collects, how it routes through streets and which assets sit in a flood's path.

Disaster Risk Management

Before an event, elevation feeds landslide, wildfire and flood susceptibility maps. After one, a model from the very first post-event image — no waiting for a stereo pair — quantifies damage, debris volumes and structural change — helping responders prioritise and plan reconstruction.

Stockpile monitoring

Track how stockpiles grow and shrink, supporting inventory, reconciliation and reporting without manual survey.

Situational Awareness

Accurate 3-D surface data underpins mission planning, line-of-sight and viewshed analysis, mobility and route assessment, and simulation — understanding what can be seen, reached and concealed across complex environments.

Contacts

Get in touch.

Questions about our products, a specific area, or how a surface model could help your project? We're happy to talk — leave us a message and we'll get back to you.

Search a place or draw an area to filter the catalog

Get your DSM

Light · trial

Upload one RGB image, download its surface model — no stereo pair needed.

This is the Light trial version — light in every sense: you can process up to 2 km² in total, processing is much slower than our standard service (about 10 minutes per km²), and the DSM quality is also lighter than what our full service delivers. The DSM of each image can be downloaded for 24 hours. Interested in larger areas, higher quality or much faster processing? Get in touch with us.

1 · Check your image

Most important: the image must be extremely nadir.

CALHYPSO reads heights from how the scene looks from directly above, so the image must be taken looking straight down, as close to vertical as possible. With oblique or off-nadir images buildings lean, façades become visible and roofs are displaced: heights and positions in the DSM will be wrong.

How to check: no building walls visible, tall buildings and poles don't lean. For satellite imagery choose the acquisition with the smallest off-nadir (incidence) angle available; for aerial imagery prefer true orthophotos.

GeoTIFF with georeferencing inside the file
RGB true colour — red, green, blue
2 m or finer ground resolution
Extremely nadir — looking straight down
Cloud-free, sharp, daylight
Up to 2 km² in total — no file-size limit. Larger areas? Contact us
Light version: about 10 min per km², lighter DSM quality

Full image requirements

File

Required A GeoTIFF (.tif / .tiff) with its georeferencing embedded — coordinate system and position stored inside the file. A plain TIFF/JPEG/PNG, or a TIFF with a separate .tfw/.aux.xml world file, will not work.

Required An orthorectified (map-projected) image, as delivered by most aerial and satellite providers — not a raw camera frame.

Any Coordinate system: UTM, national grids, WGS84 (lat/lon), Web Mercator, feet… Your DSM comes back in the same one.

Bands

Required True-colour RGB: the first three bands must be red, green, blue in this order. Panchromatic (single band) or false-colour (e.g. near-infrared first) images are not supported.

Best 8-bit values (0–255). 16-bit imagery is accepted and stretched automatically; extra bands (alpha, NIR) are ignored, and transparent / no-data areas are left out.

Resolution

Required 2 m or finer. Each resolution has its own dedicated model; resampling is done for you:

≤ 0.5 mprocessed at 0.5 m 0.6 – 2 mprocessed at 2 m > 2 mnot supported

Viewing angle — the most important requirement

Essential The image must be extremely nadir: taken looking straight down, as close to vertical as possible. This matters more than resolution or file format.

Avoid Oblique or off-nadir images — where you can see building façades, tall buildings or poles lean, or roofs appear shifted from their footprint. The DSM would put heights in the wrong place and with the wrong values.

Tip For satellite imagery, pick the acquisition with the smallest off-nadir (incidence) angle in the provider's metadata. For aerial imagery, true orthophotos work best.

Scene

Best Cloud-free and sharp, without haze, smoke or snow cover, and without over-exposed (saturated white) areas. Daylight images with normal shadows work well.

Area & size

Limit Up to 2 km² in total per account, across all your images (only the part of the image with data counts). There is no limit on file size.

Light The Light version is much slower than our standard service — count on about 10 minutes per km² — and its DSM quality is lighter than our full product. For larger areas, higher quality or much faster processing, get in touch with us.

Your data

Privacy CALHYPSO does not keep your image: it is deleted as soon as it has been processed. We keep the DSM we produce, to improve the platform and to investigate possible bugs.

What you get

A DSM (digital surface model: ground + buildings + vegetation, Light quality) as a float32 GeoTIFF, heights in metres above sea level (EGM2008), at 0.5 m or 2 m, in the coordinate system of your image. Downloadable for 24 hours.

2 · Upload

Drop a GeoTIFF here or click to browse · .tif / .tiff · any file size

We don't keep your image. It is used only to produce your DSM and deleted as soon as it has been processed. CALHYPSO keeps the DSM it produces, to improve the platform and to investigate possible bugs.

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