Cost Path Analysis of Mars using SAGA

Purpose

The purpose of this tutorial is to learn the steps leading up to the creation of a Least Cost Path within the open source program known as SAGA, by using several tools on a DEM from Mars. The skill level required in GIS is intermediate, some skill level is required having to know what values you would require, plus what additional alteration are needed within different data set.

Objectives

The outcome after this tutorial is to know the tools that go into creating a least cost path analysis, such as point creations, Kriging, Terrain Analysis, Accumulation Cost, Reclassify and lastly Least Cost Path on a DEM that is imaging surfaces not of this world.

Introduction

SAGA is an opensource program for GIS that has a lot of capability in Geoscientific analysis, it has been designed for effective implementation of spatial algorithms, that is constantly being updated with new features. One of the feilds that hopefully will be growing soon is the observation and analysis on surfaces not from Earth, in which testing if it is possible to do such a process using an open source program. For more information about SAGA you can visit their Homepage. Within this tutorial a cost path analysis will be done using the Mars Rover Curiosity as the purpose of the route, going from a start point to one other point, then finally its destination.

Methods

Uploading Data into Saga

The first thing that is required to do is to upload the DEM into Saga, because this program has very specific file formats it can handle a previous tutorial will show how this is done. it can be found within Exploring Hydrological Analyses.

Creating Points

To create points on a layer, go into Geoprocessing>>Shapes>>Points>>Create Point Grid, this will bring up a window.