Benthic Terrain Modeler (BTM) 3.0 Beta 

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Nov. 9, 2012



Requirements: ArcGIS 10.1



Welcome to version 3.0 of the Benthic Terrain Modeler (BTM) for ArcGIS 10.1 for Desktop, a collection of tools that ocean and coastal scientists and resource managers can use in concert with bathymetric data to classify and understand the benthic environment. BTM was initially developed as a desktop extension for ArcGIS versions 8.x through 9.2 Service Pack 3. This updated release of BTM for ArcGIS 10.1 is comprised of a series of ArcPy scripts combined in a custom toolbox that allows the user to run the individual processes as separate functions.  The BTM toolbox contains a set of tools that allow users to create grids of bathymetric position index (BPI), standardized BPI’s, slope, and terrain ruggedness from an input bathymetric data set. Additionally, two terrain classification tools give users the freedom to create their own zone and structure classifications and define the relationships that characterize them.

New users of BTM will want to take advantage of the simple graphical user interface that wraps around all BTM tools, recreating the full "wizard" experience that was available in the previous releases. To install BTM with this feature:
- Please ensure that you have ArcGIS 10.1 installed on your computer. If not, please upgrade to 10.1
- Unzip the BTM 3.0 zip file to the desired workspace on your computer's C: drive
- Open Arc Map 10.1
- Double-click the "btm.esriaddin" file in your workspace, which will install both the graphical user interface and the toolbox into ArcGIS. 
- In addition to the user interface, you can also add the tools to ArcToolbox. Open the ArcToolbox window and pin it to the display. Right-click on the ArcToolbox top folder in the window and select Add Toolbox. Navigate to where you unzipped BTM and add the file "btm.pyt".
- Expand the BTM toolset in ArcToolbox to see that it consists of 7 Python scripts. Note that the Spatial Analyst extension is required in order to run the BTM tools.
- To view important documentation on each script right-click on that script in the BTM toolset and select Item Description as well as Properties. 
- Click on the Add Data button in ArcMap and proceed to add your bathymetry data to your ArcMap session. You may now run the BTM tools on your data.

A full tutorial with sample data will soon be available.

BTM was initially a partnership between the NOAA Coastal Services Center and the Davey Jones' Locker Seafloor Mapping/Marine GIS Lab Oregon State University. The current version of BTM is a collaboration between NOAA CSC and ESRI, with thanks also to the the Massachusetts Office of Coastal Zone Management, Cal State University Monterey Bay, the UC-Santa Cruz Institute of Marine Sciences & NOAA Fisheries Ecology Division.

For technical assistance please contact: Shaun Walbridge swalbridge@esri.com