Aerial Services’ enchanced 2′ contours for the State of Iowa are now available. These contours are available for any area in the State as seamless 2′ contours. Unlike those freely available, these have been edited to remove unwanted artifacts introduced from LiDAR data.
2-Foot Contours
Generated from the high resolution Iowa LiDAR data, these 2-foot contours are available for any area in State Plane projection. The Contours are available in DXF or Shapefile format.
Light DEM
Lightweight bare earth DEMs are also available for use by engineers and GIS users. These have been thinned down to a 10 foot spacing so the filesize of each DEM tile is less than 50 MB.
Seamless

Left: Enlarged view of unedited 2-foot contours generated from State of Iowa LiDAR data showing undesirable contour artifacts and broken contours along a County border. Right: Topo Iowa view showing artifacts removed and broken contours joined into a seamless Statewide product.
The 2′ contours are beautiful and seamless from the Mississippi to Missouri Rivers. Unlike others available, Topo Iowa contours do not break at County borders.
Edited
The 2′ contours have been edited to improve their cartographic appeal. The raw Iowa LiDAR has areas of noise and low quality data that produces undesirable contours. Editing has been done by Aerial Services’ experts to remove these undesirable features and improve the overall look of the contours.
Labelled
All of the index 2′ contours in DXF format are labelled with their elevation from border to border. Index and intermediate contours are identified.
Affordable
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Data* | Price per sq. mi. | Bulk Pricing (>5700 sq. mi.) | Entire State Price |
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2′ Contours | $0.88 per sq. mi. | $0.09 per sq. mi. | $4,997 |
Bare Earth 10′ DEM** | $1.75 per sq. mi. | $0.18 per sq. mi. | $9,997 |
2′ GSD 4-Band Orthos | $0.20 per sq. mi. | $0.05 per sq. mi. | $997 |
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Samples
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- 2′ Contours Tile (Shapefile [ZIP], 9.1MB)
- 2′ GSD 4-band (RGB+IR) Ortho Tile (TIFF [ZIP], 84.6MB)
- Bare Earth 10′ DEM Tile (LAS [ZIP], 12.6MB)
- Bare Earth 4′ DEM Tile (LAS [ZIP], 86.7MB)
Order Now
Indicate the geographic area of the State needed by uploading any file showing the area of interest or by describing it. Aerial Services will ship your order within one business day of order confirmation.
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