Cinder Lake Crater Field Uncrewed Aerial System-Derived Digital Elevation Models 2023 and 2024

Uncrewed aerial system (UAS) imagery was collected over Cinder Lake Crater Field near Flagstaff, Arizona, a training site constructed in the late 1960s as a lunar analog site for Apollo astronauts and continues to serve as an operational analog environment. The DEM supports terrain analysis, visualization, illumination modeling, and mission simulation activities associated with planetary surface exploration research. A total of 504 aerial images were acquired at an altitude of approximately 93.6 m, producing a ground sampling distance of approximately 2.12 cm/pixel and covering 230,000 m² across the study area and surrounding terrain. Imagery was processed using structure-from-motion and multi-view stereophotogrammetry techniques to generate a georeferenced digital elevation model (DEM). Processing included image alignment, camera optimization, dense reconstruction, and surface interpolation. Georeferencing was constrained using GNSS-derived control and survey measurements. The DEM is referenced to WGS 84 / UTM zone 12N (EPSG:32612). The resulting DEM resolves terrain morphology and fine-scale topographic variations across the survey area.