Hillshade

Draft: written, not yet checked by a person Operation · hillshade

A shaded-relief image of an elevation raster, lit from a given direction and height.

About this operation
Also called	shaded relief, gdaldem hillshade
Group	`raster/terrain`
Checks	`crs.geographic, raster.nodata`
Pitfalls	Not stated
Columbus tool	`raster_op · hillshade`
Notes	Not stated
Status	active
Broader	Not stated
Narrower	Not stated
Related	`slope` `aspect`

Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Default	Values	Note
`z_unit`	enum	yes	Not stated	`m, ft, us-ft`	Not stated
`azimuth`	number	no	`315`	Not stated	Unit: degrees
`altitude`	number	no	`45`	Not stated	Unit: degrees
`band`	integer	no	Not stated	Not stated	Not stated

Inputs and outputs

Direction	Name	Type	Geometry	Note
Input	`raster`	raster	Not stated	An elevation model.
Output	`output`	raster	Not stated	Not stated

In each engine

Engine	Tool	Parameters	Differences
`gdal`	`gdal raster hillshade`	`z_unit` always crs-units. Elevation is taken in the CRS's horizontal units; otherwise use zfactor, or xscale and yscale. `azimuth` → `azimuth` `altitude` → `altitude` `band` → `band` `raster` → `input` `output` → `output`	None noted
`grass`	`r.relief`	`z_unit` always crs-units. Elevation is taken in the project's horizontal units; otherwise set zscale. `azimuth` → `azimuth` `altitude` → `altitude` `raster` → `input` `output` → `output`	Defaults to azimuth 270 and altitude 30 (Columbus and GDAL use 315 and 45).
`postgis-raster`	`st_hillshade`	`z_unit` always crs-units. Elevation is taken in the CRS's horizontal units; otherwise set scale. `azimuth` → `azimuth` `altitude` → `altitude` `band` → `nband` `raster` → `rast`	None noted
`qgis`	`native:hillshade`	`z_unit` always crs-units. Elevation is taken in the CRS's horizontal units; otherwise set Z_FACTOR. `azimuth` → `AZIMUTH` `altitude` → `V_ANGLE` `raster` → `INPUT` `output` → `OUTPUT`	Defaults to azimuth 300 and altitude 40 (Columbus and GDAL use 315 and 45).
`terra`	`terra::shade`	`azimuth` → `direction` `altitude` → `angle` `raster` Takes slope and aspect rasters in radians, from terrain(x, c('slope', 'aspect'), unit = 'radians'), not the elevation raster.	direction defaults to 0 (light from the north); Columbus and GDAL default to 315.
`whiteboxtools`	`Hillshade`	`z_unit` always crs-units. Elevation is taken in the CRS's horizontal units; otherwise set zfactor. `azimuth` → `azimuth` `altitude` → `altitude` `raster` → `dem` `output` → `output`	Output values run from 0 to 32767, not 0 to 255 as in GDAL, QGIS and PostGIS. Defaults to altitude 30 (Columbus and GDAL use 45).
`xarray-spatial`	`xrspatial.hillshade`	`z_unit` always crs-units. No vertical factor; elevations must be in the same units as the cell size. `azimuth` → `azimuth` `altitude` → `angle_altitude` `raster` → `agg`	Output is the illumination from 0 to 1 (GDAL and QGIS give 0 to 255). azimuth defaults to 225 and angle_altitude to 25 (Columbus and GDAL 315 and 45). Takes an xarray DataArray with x and y coordinates; edge cells are NaN by default.

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