Triangulated irregular network  From Wikipedia, the free
encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search  A triangulated
irregular network (TIN) is a digital data structure used in a
geographic information system (GIS) for the representation of a
surface. A TIN is a vector-based representation of the physical
land surface or sea bottom, made up of irregularly distributed
nodes and lines with three-dimensional coordinates (x, y, and z)
that are arranged in a network of nonoverlapping triangles. TINs
are often derived from the elevation data of a rasterized
digital elevation model (DEM). An advantage of using a TIN over
a raster DEM in mapping and analysis is that the points of a TIN
are distributed variably based on an algorithm that determines
which points are most necessary to an accurate representation of
the terrain. Data input is therefore flexible and fewer points
need to be stored than in a raster DEM, with regularly
distributed points. A TIN may be less suited than a raster DEM
for certain kinds of GIS applic