Find the elevation of a point

Learn how to find the elevation of a point in Kaneohe, Hawaii with the Elevation service.

Find elevation data of a location using API key authentication

The Elevation service is a location service that returns elevation values for a single location or multiple locations. Elevation coverage is provided for both topography (land elevations) and bathymetry (water depths) and takes location inputs as longitude and latitude coordinates.

In this tutorial, you call the Elevation service to return elevation data of a single location.

Prerequisites

An ArcGIS Location Platform account.

Steps

Get the starter app

Select a type of authentication below and follow the steps to create a new application.

If you are using the CDN libraries, to get started.

Set up authentication

Create developer credentials in your portal for the type of authentication you selected.

Create a new API key credential with the correct privileges to access the resources used in this tutorial.

Go to the Create an API key tutorial and create an API key with the following privilege(s):
- Privileges:
  - Location services > Basemaps
  - Location services > Elevation service
Copy the API key access token to your clipboard when prompted.

Set developer credentials

Use the API key or OAuth developer credentials so your application can access location services.

Update the accessToken variable to use your API key.

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    const accessToken = "YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN";

In both the index.html and callback.html files, replace YOUR_CLIENT_ID and YOUR_REDIRECT_URL with the client ID and redirect URL of your OAuth credentials.

index.html
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    /* Use for user authentication */
    const clientId = "YOUR_CLIENT_ID"; // Your client ID from OAuth credentials
    const redirectUri = "YOUR_REDIRECT_URI"; // The redirect URL registered in your OAuth credentials
    const authentication = await arcgisRest.ArcGISIdentityManager.beginOAuth2({
      clientId,
      redirectUri,
      portal: "https://www.arcgis.com/sharing/rest" // Your portal URL
    })

callback.html
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    arcgisRest.ArcGISIdentityManager.completeOAuth2({
      clientId: "YOUR_CLIENT_ID", // Your client ID from OAuth credentials
      redirectUri: "YOUR_REDIRECT_URI", // The redirect URL registered in your OAuth credentials
      portal: "https://www.arcgis.com/sharing/rest" // Your portal URL
    })

Run the app and ensure you can sign in successfully.

If you are unable to sign in, make sure you have the correct redirect URL and port. This URL varies based on your application and typically takes the format of https://<server>[:port]/callback.html or http://my-arcgis-app:/auth. For example, if you are running an application on http://127.0.0.1:5500/, set http://127.0.0.1:5500/callback.html as your redirect URL in the index.html and callback.html file and your developer credential. They all have to match!

Make a request

You can copy and paste the code below, following the steps to make a request to the Elevation service.

Reference the arcgis-rest-request and arcgis-rest-elevation libraries either through CDN, ES Modules, or Node JS.
Define the parameters needed for the request. Optionally, you can add the relativeTo parameter to request elevation in measures of mean sea level or ground level (ellipsoid).
Make a request to the Elevation service and handle the results.

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    arcgisRest.findElevationAtPoint({
      lon: -11.7,
      lat: 12.3,
      relativeTo: "ellipsoid",
      authentication: authentication
    })
      .then((response) => {
        console.log(response);
        document.getElementById("result").textContent = JSON.stringify(response, null, 2);
      });
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Run the app

Run the app.

The result should look similar to this.

What's next?

Learn how to use additional ArcGIS location services in these tutorials:

Find the elevations of multiple points

Find elevation values of multiple locations (up to 100) on land or water.