A chip reading USGS is not a source.
It does not say which product we read, at what grain, or when it was captured. This page does, prints every bar a finding has to clear, and lists what we will not publish.
What the read measures
Four services. The card under every read prints which grain of each it used and when the ground was flown. A thing smaller than a pixel is not on the image, and no processing puts it back.
- USGS 3DEPBare-earth elevation: the crests, the draws and the crossings are traced on it.Grain and vintageThe seamless 10 m model. Every crest, draw and crossing is traced on it; the card prints the pitch. A mosaic of surveys: no single date.
- USDA NAIPLeaf-on aerial photograph: the timber edges the edge runs follow, and one of three sources behind the water outline.Grain and vintage0.6 m native, flown every 2–3 years; the card says so with the flight year. The read samples it at 1.2 m (two pixels by two).
- USGS NHDPlus HRHydrography: the water a photograph can miss under a canopy.Grain and vintageMapped water bodies and flowlines at 1:24,000 scale or finer; a compiled map, so it carries no flight year.
- RegridParcel boundaries and ownership: the deed the read is scored on.Grain and vintageParcel by parcel, from county assessor records; an assessor's roll has no single date.
The fine print
- USGS 3DEP. USGS 1 m lidar is fetched where it has been flown; nothing the map draws uses it yet.
- USDA NAIP. The timber edges are read from this photograph, so they are as old as its flight — the card says "Timber edges as of <flight year> imagery". The water outline is the union of this photograph (NDWI ≥ 0.20), the mapped hydrography below, and standing water read from the elevation model itself. When NAIP does not answer, Sentinel-2 at 10 m stands in and the card says so.
- USGS NHDPlus HR. A lake here is a lake even where the photo reads it small.
- Regrid. The finest grain we publish about anybody's land is county and state.
Never an input
Soil class, zoning, wetland boundaries, school districts and the like never move a run. The read is elevation, the aerial photograph, hydrography and the deed.
The bars
Everything the card names is a measurement set against a bar. Below its bar a run or a mark is not drawn — not thin, not faint.
Quiet ground
How far the strongest crest stands above the ground around it. Under it, with no two crests of 40 ft and no draw or timber edge clearing its own bar, the ground reads quiet and the card says so.
A Great run
Strong, and at least this long. Shorter, it is a Good run: still drawn, still numbered, in a lighter line.
A timber-edge run
A tree line this long with 2 acres of timber on one side and 2 of open ground on the other. Great takes 295 yd beside a 20-acre block.
A draw run
Depth below the ground around it, both banks rising 4 ft, over 601 yd. One bank is a terrace, not a draw; flat cropland reads none.
A Funnel
One drawn run ending on the middle of another within this distance, or four separate crests meeting at a point. Two pieces of one ridge joining is not a funnel.
A Crossing
A saddle counts only this close to a traced ridge run, and is marked where a drawn run passes through it.
A Bed
An inside corner of timber this sharp, both tree lines running 131 yd and drawn as runs, within 66 yd of a run's end. Dated by the aerial photograph it was read from.
Two kinds of nothing
A map with nothing on it can mean two things. The card never lets one pass for the other.
Read, and quiet
Nothing here clears our bar. Hunt the low ground.
A statement about the land, and we stand behind it.
New Madrid County, Missouri · 77 acres of flat cropland · Elevation 10 m, USGS 3DEP · Aerial photo 0.6 m, flown 2022 · Read 5 Sep 2026
A read that did not finish
The read did not come back. That is a failed read, not a quiet one.
A service that timed out is an error. The card says so and offers one button: Retry the read.
Quiet is a finding, dated like any other. Failed is not a finding.
What we will not tell you
What a product declines to say is checkable in a way its claims are not.
We do not publish a terrain score against a public listing.
That would be a valuation of somebody else’s land we did not make.
We do not draw a run or a mark below its bar.
It is left off the map and off the card, not drawn thin.
We do not drop a pin and call it your stand.
The read shows where the runs are, and says which way your scent carries this evening and tomorrow morning. Where you sit, and how you come in, is your call.
We do not name a source we did not read.
When a layer does not load, the read says so.
We do not print a figure without its method, source, grain and date.
A page here cannot type a number; it asks for one by name and gets the stamp with it.
County and state is the finest grain we publish for anybody’s land, including our own team’s.
The calibration property is our CTO’s own ground, in Lafayette County, Missouri.
Check the rest
Terrain doesn’t lie. The instruments that read it have limits, and this is the page where we write them down.