NZ Elevation Tools is a browser-based mapping tool that turns New Zealand’s national 1 m LiDAR elevation data into contour lines, elevation profiles, slope and viewshed analysis, terrain statistics, property terrain reports and 3D-printable models — with no account, no software install and no GIS experience required.
Pan to a place, draw an area or a line on the map — or click a property to snap to its legal boundary — then pick a tool. Results appear on the map and download in the format you need.
Keeps up to five places in this browser and compares elevation, slope, winter sunlight and drainage. Export the shortlist as a JSON file.
How it works →Highlights terrain meeting your chosen maximum slope, facing direction and minimum modelled winter sunlight. These are terrain criteria, not a planning or buildability assessment.
How it works →Estimates vertical cut and fill volumes to a horizontal platform at a chosen elevation, or finds a height that balances the volumes. Excludes batter slopes, soil bulking and compaction.
How it works →Classifies terrain into ten landforms, including ridges, valleys, hollows and flats, using an adjustable neighbourhood radius.
How it works →Estimates heights of buildings and vegetation above bare ground from matching surface and terrain elevation models. Not ground elevation. Buildings and vegetation are combined; cells without usable surface data are left blank; mostly steep bare ground is flagged as unreliable.
How it works →Maps topographic wetness potential from slope and contributing area. Shows relative terrain-driven moisture concentration, not measured soil moisture or flood depth.
How it works →Maps the upstream terrain draining to the clicked cell, with an adjustable search radius and a warning when the catchment reaches the loaded terrain edge or missing data.
How it works →Explores a terrain route favouring gentler grades, enforcing a maximum grade and showing its elevation profile. Exports the route as GeoJSON and the profile as CSV. Does not assess legal access or construction feasibility.
How it works →Selects the LINZ cadastral parcel under the cursor and uses its real boundary as the analysis area, so results are clipped to the actual property rather than a rectangle drawn by eye.
How it works →Generates a multi-page PDF terrain report for a parcel — hillshade, contours, slope and aspect breakdowns and elevation statistics for that title — closing with a checklist of the official records (title, planning, council hazard maps, property file, LIM) the report does not cover, linked to the council’s own viewer where one is known.
How it works →Generates topographic contours at any interval from 0.5 m upward, rendered on the map and exportable as vectors.
How it works →Returns the ground elevation in metres at a single coordinate.
How it works →Computes slope steepness and the compass direction each face points, including a full aspect distribution (share of land facing N/NE/E/… plus the flat share) — the terrain measure behind building consent, earthworks, solar and pasture questions.
How it works →Two analyses on depression-filled LiDAR terrain: drainage channels extracted as a Strahler-ordered stream network (exportable as GeoJSON/KML), and ponding — where water would stand once hollows fill, with depth, area and volume.
How it works →Models hours of direct sun across a site on any day of the year — the shortest day, equinox or longest day — with shadows cast by terrain up to 3 km away and, where LiDAR has been flown, by trees and buildings. Shows when the sun first reaches the area and when it last leaves, and lets you step through the day half an hour at a time to watch the shadows move.
How it works →Calculates which ground within 1 to 10 km is in line of sight from an observer, allowing for earth curvature and refraction, with a choice of eye height, target height, and whether trees and buildings from the LiDAR surface model block the view — used for view protection, siting a house, and telecommunications or camera placement.
How it works →Checks whether one point is visible from another — a house site to a mountain, a deck to the sea — and if not, where the view is first blocked and by how much, with the terrain profile and sightline drawn together.
How it works →Summarises minimum, maximum, mean and range of elevation across an area, plus its hypsometric (elevation frequency) distribution.
How it works →Produces a cross-section along any line, with distance, total ascent and descent, and gradient — for trails, roads, driveways, pipe runs and fence lines.
How it works →Measures both flat map distance and true slope distance over the terrain, which is the longer and more useful of the two on steep ground.
How it works →Exports the selected area as contour vectors, a DEM raster or a 3D surface mesh.
How it works →Adds accurate ground elevation to coordinates in a file you already have, replacing missing or noisy GPS altitude with LiDAR-derived values.
How it works →Every tool has a page explaining what it does, how the calculation works and where it can mislead: all tool explanations.
Primary source. Read directly as cloud-optimised GeoTIFFs from the open nz-elevation bucket (AWS S3, ap-southeast-2), indexed through its STAC collection. Native projection is NZTM2000 (EPSG:2193).
data.linz.govt.nzFallback for areas LiDAR has not yet captured. Decoded from terrain-RGB tiles and used only to fill pixels the LiDAR pass left empty, so LiDAR always takes precedence where it exists. Every result reports what percentage of it came from this fallback rather than from LiDAR.
basemaps.linz.govt.nzPowers place-name, address and parcel search, and the click-to-select property boundaries used as a cut-out area of interest.
data.linz.govt.nzThe three basemaps you can switch between under the map: aerial photography, the official LINZ topographic raster (place names, tracks, huts and roads), and Igor-method shaded relief — a plain grey terrain canvas that reads more clearly than photography underneath contour and slope overlays. Backdrop only; no measurement is taken from them.
basemaps.linz.govt.nzAccuracy is inherited from the underlying LINZ survey, not asserted by this tool. Where 1 m LiDAR exists the vertical accuracy is that of the LINZ National Elevation Programme capture for that region; outside LiDAR coverage the 8 m national DEM is substantially coarser. Because the two are mixed only where necessary, every result states what proportion came from the fallback. Values are ground elevation from a digital elevation model — they do not include buildings or tree canopy, and should not be treated as a substitute for a surveyed level where a legal or engineering decision depends on it.
Elevation and cadastral data is sourced from the LINZ Data Service and licensed for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. Copyright in each LiDAR survey belongs to the body that commissioned it — a regional or district council, Waka Kotahi, NIWA and around thirty others — rather than to LINZ, which hosts and processes the national dataset. Every file exported from this site names the licensors whose surveys cover the area, and anything you publish from those files carries the same attribution requirement. See https://www.linz.govt.nz/products-services/data/licensing-and-using-data/attributing-elevation-or-aerial-imagery-data
| Format | Type | Typically used for |
|---|---|---|
| GeoJSON .geojson | Contour vectors | QGIS, web maps, Leaflet, MapLibre, scripting |
| Shapefile .shp.zip | Contour vectors | ArcGIS and traditional GIS workflows |
| DXF .dxf | Contour vectors | AutoCAD, Civil 3D and CAD drafting |
| KML .kml | Contour vectors | Google Earth and Google Maps |
| SVG .svg | Contour vectors | Illustration, laser cutting, print design |
| PDF .pdf | Contour vectors | Print-ready topographic map sheets |
| STL .stl | 3D surface | 3D printing a physical terrain model |
| OBJ .obj | 3D surface | Blender, Cinema 4D and 3D rendering |
| GeoTIFF .tif | Raster | The raw digital elevation model, for GIS and analysis |
Files you upload for elevation enrichment can be GPX, KML, GeoJSON, JSON, CSV.
Output resolution scales with the size of the area you select. Exports are capped at 1024 pixels on the longest side, with a floor of 1 m per pixel — so a 300 m building site is delivered at the full 1 m LiDAR detail, while a 12 km block is resampled to roughly 12 m per pixel. Select a smaller area when you need fine detail.
Check slope, aspect, drainage and views on a block before committing, using the real title boundary rather than a guess.
Understand paddock slope and aspect, work out where water runs, and plan tracks and fence lines.
Pull site contours straight into CAD, assess a sloping site, and understand access gradients before a survey is commissioned.
Get LINZ LiDAR-derived contours, DEM rasters and terrain statistics for a defined area without downloading and processing raw tiles.
Generate accurate elevation profiles for a route and correct the elevation recorded by a GPS watch.
Export any part of New Zealand as an STL or OBJ mesh and 3D print it.
Google serves a global elevation model that is far coarser than 1 m over New Zealand and offers no contour generation, no slope or viewshed analysis, and no vector or CAD export. NZ Elevation Tools is New Zealand only, but uses the national LiDAR capture and exports to GIS, CAD and 3D formats.
The LINZ Data Service is the authoritative source and has no area limit, but it hands you raw tiles that need GIS software and processing skill. This tool reads the same open data and returns finished contours, profiles, statistics and meshes in the browser — at the cost of a size cap per request.
Desktop GIS is more capable and has no limits, but requires installation, data acquisition and expertise. This tool covers the common New Zealand terrain questions in a few clicks and exports into those same packages when deeper work is needed.
Those tools are global and mostly correct elevation against SRTM, roughly 30 m resolution. Within New Zealand this tool corrects against 1 m LiDAR, which is materially more accurate on steep or complex ground.
Those show the published LINZ topographic map series with its fixed 20 m contour interval. This tool generates contours at any interval you choose from the underlying elevation model, and lets you export them.
Yes. Every tool on the site is free to use and there is no account, sign-up or payment required. Free-tier limits apply to the size of the area you can process in a single request.
From Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand (LINZ). The primary source is the national 1 m LiDAR digital elevation model, read as cloud-optimised GeoTIFFs from the open nz-elevation data bucket. Where LiDAR has not been captured, the national 8 m DEM is used to fill the gaps, and each result reports how much of it came from that fallback.
Accuracy is inherited from the underlying LINZ survey, not asserted by this tool. Where 1 m LiDAR exists the vertical accuracy is that of the LINZ National Elevation Programme capture for that region; outside LiDAR coverage the 8 m national DEM is substantially coarser. Because the two are mixed only where necessary, every result states what proportion came from the fallback. Values are ground elevation from a digital elevation model — they do not include buildings or tree canopy, and should not be treated as a substitute for a surveyed level where a legal or engineering decision depends on it.
The tool works anywhere within New Zealand, but 1 m LiDAR coverage is not yet national. Areas without LiDAR fall back to the 8 m national DEM, which still returns usable results at a coarser level of detail. Requests outside New Zealand are rejected.
Contours export as GeoJSON, Shapefile, DXF, KML, SVG and PDF. Terrain surfaces export as STL and OBJ for 3D printing and modelling, and as GeoTIFF for the raw digital elevation model. Files you upload for elevation enrichment can be GPX, KML, GeoJSON, JSON, CSV.
Any interval from 0.5 m upward. This is finer than the 20 m interval of the published LINZ Topo50 map series, which is why the tool is useful for site-scale work such as building platforms, driveways and drainage.
No. Everything runs in a normal web browser — draw an area or a line on the map, pick a tool, and download the result. Exports are provided in formats that GIS and CAD packages read if you want to take the work further.
Elevation and cadastral data is sourced from the LINZ Data Service and licensed for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. Copyright in each LiDAR survey belongs to the body that commissioned it — a regional or district council, Waka Kotahi, NIWA and around thirty others — rather than to LINZ, which hosts and processes the national dataset. Every file exported from this site names the licensors whose surveys cover the area, and anything you publish from those files carries the same attribution requirement. See https://www.linz.govt.nz/products-services/data/licensing-and-using-data/attributing-elevation-or-aerial-imagery-data
Contours and downloads allow up to 12 km per side, terrain statistics and elevation enrichment up to 6 km per side, and elevation profiles up to 25 km in length. Output resolution scales with the size of the area you select. Exports are capped at 1024 pixels on the longest side, with a floor of 1 m per pixel — so a 300 m building site is delivered at the full 1 m LiDAR detail, while a 12 km block is resampled to roughly 12 m per pixel. Select a smaller area when you need fine detail.
Yes. The Property tool fetches the LINZ cadastral parcel under the point you click and uses that title boundary as the analysis area, so contours, slope and statistics are clipped to the real parcel.
Consumer GPS elevation is derived from satellite geometry or a barometric sensor and is typically the least accurate part of a recorded track, especially in valleys and under canopy. Uploading the file and re-sampling it against the LiDAR terrain model replaces those values with ground elevation from survey-grade data.
NZ Elevation Tools is built by MapScaping (https://mapscaping.com), which produces geospatial tools, writing and a long-running podcast about the geospatial industry.
Built by MapScaping.