Titan Data Atlas

All products

ProcessedResearcher

Topography of Titan

Cassini radar altimeter tracks reprocessed for sharper surface heights along each flyby.

In plain words

Cassini's radar also worked as an altimeter, measuring surface height along each flyby track. This archive reprocesses those Ku-band altimeter echoes with a delay/Doppler method for finer detail along each track. It holds one folder per flyby track with data tables, labels and quick-look pictures, plus the paper that describes the processing. These are along-track profiles, not a map layer.

Good for: measure heights and slopes.

Open it in your GIS

ArcGIS Pro

After a conversion Needs one conversion step first. The steps say how.

  1. Download dda_products_v2.rar (82.6 MB) from the Hayes Research Group data products page.
  2. Extract the archive with a tool that reads RAR files, such as 7-Zip.
  3. Read aareadme_dda.txt and Poggiali et al. (2019) to understand the tracks.
  4. Open a track folder, such as T08_ob, and look at the PNG quick-look radargrams.
  5. Read DDABDR.FMT to find the column layout of the summary table.
  6. Convert the summary table to a CSV of points with a short script.
  7. On the Map tab, in the Layer group, click Add Data, then click XY Point Data.
  8. Select the CSV, set the X and Y fields, and set a Titan coordinate system.
  • These files are along-track radar profiles in PDS3 tables, not a map layer. ArcGIS Pro cannot read them directly.
  • The waveform table label says the data is binary, even though the file ends in .TAB. Use the label and DDABDR.FMT to read it.
  • Titan is a sphere of radius 2,575 km. Use Titan 2000 (Esri WKID 104943), not WGS 1984, for the points.
  • No license is stated for this archive. Ask the authors before you republish it.

QGIS

After a conversion Needs one conversion step first. The steps say how.

  1. Download dda_products_v2.rar and extract it with a tool that reads RAR files.
  2. Read aareadme_dda.txt and the PDS3 labels in each products folder.
  3. Read DDABDR.FMT to find the column layout of the summary table.
  4. Convert the summary table to a CSV of points with a short script.
  5. Select Layer > Add Layer > Add Delimited Text Layer.
  6. Select the CSV and set the X and Y fields.
  7. Set the layer CRS to a Titan geographic CRS, not WGS 84.
  • These are along-track radar profiles, not a raster map. They need conversion before any GIS can show them.
  • To make a Titan CRS, select Settings > Custom CRS (Custom Projections in older versions) and use a sphere of radius 2,575,000 m.
  • No license is stated for this archive. Ask the authors before you republish it.

JMARS

Not confirmed Nobody has confirmed this tool opens it yet.

  1. Select Titan in the JMARS body list, if your version offers it.
  2. Convert the summary table to a CSV of points with longitude and latitude columns.
  3. Add a Shape Layer in JMARS.
  4. In the Shape Layer panel, click File, then click Load File.
  5. Select the CSV file and click Load.
  • JMARS support for Titan is not confirmed. The JMARS FAQ lists a Titan radius of 2,576 km, but no JMARS page we found confirms Titan as a selectable body.
  • The altimeter tables are along-track profiles, not images, so a JMARS custom map does not fit them. The Shape Layer accepts CSV point files.
  • We did not test these tables in JMARS.

Titan products here are referenced to a sphere of radius 2,575 km. If your GIS asks for a coordinate system, pick a Titan sphere, never an Earth one, and check the product's own label or .prj file first.

Converted sample

No converted sample for this product yet. Use the download or the full dataset links instead.