Inverse distance weighting method optimization in the process of digital terrain model creation based on data collected from a multibeam echosounder

Abstract This paper presents the optimization of the inverse distance weighting method (IDW) in the process of creating a digital terrain model (DTM) of the seabed based on bathymetric data collected using a multibeam echosounder (MBES). There are many different methods for processing irregular measurement data into a grid-based DTM, and the most popular of these methods are inverse distance weighting (IDW), nearest neighbour (NN), moving average (MA) and kriging (K). Kriging is often considered one of the best methods in interpolation of heterogeneous spatial data, but its use is burdened by a significantly long calculation time. In contrast, the MA method is the fastest, but the calculated models are less accurate. Between them is the IDW method, which gives satisfactory accuracy with a reasonable calculation time. In this study, the author optimized the IDW method used in the process of creating a DTM seabed based on measurement points from MBES. The goal of this optimization was to significantly accelerate the calculations, with a possible additional increase in the accuracy of the created model. Several variants of IDW methods were analysed (dependent on the search radius , number of points in the interpolation, power of the interpolation and applied smoothing method). Finally, the author proposed an optimization of the IDW method, which uses a new technique of choosing the nearest points during the interpolation process (named the growing radius ). The experiments presented in the paper and the results obtained show the true potential of the IDW optimized method in the case of DTM estimation.