The powers that be have released new and allegedly better ASTER DEMs - Digital Elevation Maps - of the world.
www.gdem.aster.ersdac.or.jp
Unfortunately Australia and regions outside of the USofA have been down sampled to 3 arc-sec (90 metre) from the original 30m and 15m data. ASTER and SRTMv2 thus are at the same resolution - 1 "pixel" is 90m^2.
A small preview of the data can be found here on Air-Stream...
http://betsuin.skye.wan/aster_srtm/
I have saved some images using both data sets of the Magill/Mt Lofty region visualized with 3DEM.
The "dimple" in the lower left of the SRTMv2 image is Thornton Reservoir and the high ridge running up to Mt Lofty upper right.
SPLAT software for mapping paths
I came across a site that allows you to produce elevation diagrams (profiles) of paths between locations, including obstructions, fresnel zones ,etc.
It's can be reached from http://splat.ecok.edu/ (there are two sites). You have to register each location, then follow a link to produce a path profile between any two locations.
As anyone can see the details (including location!) I wouldnt recommend putting the A-S locations in (or members' homes), but as all the software (and instructions) can be downloaded, maybe it could be added to the members only area of the A-S site??
SPLAT is the main software used, but it also uses the SRTM data mentioned above.
PPC
Both SPLAT! 1.2.3 and 1.3.0 fail during compilation similarly on my PPC based Air-Stream routing box...
*****************************************************
* Now building SPLAT! and associated utilities... *
*****************************************************
Compiling SPLAT!... cc1plus: error: unrecognized command line option "-march=ppc"
cc1plus: error: unrecognized command line option "-march=ppc"
Compilation failed!
Compiling citydecoder... Done!
Compiling usgs2sdf... Done!
Compiling srtm2sdf... Done!
Compiling fontdata... Done!
Compiling bearing... ^c
wifi:/usr/local/src/splat-1.3.0#
Fortunately SPLAT! 1.1.1 is avaliable in the "standard" Debian repository.
http://splat.ecok.edu/
Yikes! Downloaded the various files from http://splat.ecok.edu/ to get their SPLAT! web interface working only to find it actually pretty beta code, broken paths and erroring mysql. The .sdf files (they supply the required Digital Elevation Maps) for Australia are all incorrectly lat/long labelled! Was puzzled why I could not get any proper output (I'd fixed the perl code - fingers crossed), guess if I can fix the .sdf labels this thing will actually work - looks pretty useful...
Now where is that? Site location: 34.5000 South / 224.5000 West (34° 30' 0" S / 224° 30' 0" W)
Update:- .sdf labels are fine, the perl code feeding SPLAT! is not passing correct info - back to scratching my head over perl!
Fixed:- A simple 1 line addition to erroll.pl "$longitude=360 - $longitude;" at line 14