Levee & Contour: steer along the contours

Levee & Contour draws a field's contours from elevation data and steers you along any one of them with a lightbar and arrows, for levees, paddy dikes, terrace ridges and contour work. It is steering guidance only on every kit: you run the blade.

Full Automation Kit
Guidance Only Kit
Ditch Assist Lite

In the app Home › Levee (Contour Guide)

Levee & Contour (the Levee card, Contour Guide) in the Ditch Assist® app draws the contours of a field on the map, lines of equal elevation, and steers you along whichever one you pick. Driving a contour holds one elevation the whole way: the line you want to push up a levee or paddy dike, build a terrace ridge, or work a field along the lay of the land.

It is steering guidance only, on every kit. The app shows where the contour is with a lightbar across the top and big arrows on the map; you steer, and you run the blade. Nothing is sent to the valve in this workflow.

Levee screen on a real tablet: contours generated from a saved LiDAR DEM drawn over satellite imagery inside a cyan field boundary, the active contour in orange, the lightbar lit to the right with a 278 inch block label, five red arrows pointing left, readout 278.3 inches LEFT, Elev 1058.50 ft, 47%, and 537 contours; sidebar Start, Next Contour, Deselect, Edit Boundary, Clear Boundary, Save, Clear All — **Readout.** How far you are off the contour and which way to steer (278.3″ LEFT here). Then the contour's elevation and how far along it you are.
**Start.** Records your coverage as you build.

Which kits can do it

Connected to	Survey a field, import, export	Generate and follow contours
Control module (Full Automation or Guidance Only Kit)	Yes	Yes. Steering only; the valve isn't used.
Emlid Reach, Ditch Assist Lite (activated)	Yes	Yes. An unactivated Reach opens the activation screen.
Simulator (Simulate)	Yes	Yes, for practice
DIG™ module	Yes	No
Bluetooth GPS	Yes	No: Contour guidance is for Ditch Assist owners

Steering guidance only, on every kit: the lightbar shows where you are, the arrows show where to steer, and you run the blade.

Lightbar. Lights on the side you've drifted to, here the right: green near the centre, then amber, then red.
Arrows. Point back to the contour, here to the left. Steer toward them.
Active contour. Orange. Tap Select Nearest, or tap a contour on the map.
Coverage, recording. Paints amber behind the implement after you tap Start.
Coverage, done. Turns violet when you tap Stop, and is saved with the job.
Other contours. One Contour Interval apart in height (3″ by default). The app colours them by height; grey here.

How a Levee job goes

Get elevation data for the field
A saved LiDAR DEM (best), a GeoTIFF, a point file, a saved field survey, or drive the field now. Get elevation data.
Draw the contours
Set a boundary if you want one, pick the interval and smoothing, tap Generate. Generate contours.
Follow a contour and record coverage
Steer by the lightbar and arrows, tap Start to paint what you've built, save the job. Follow a contour.

Before you start

The tablet is charged and the Ditch Assist app is installed
The tablet is on your control module's Wi-Fi, or your activated Reach's (Ditch Assist Lite). To practise, you'll tap Simulate.
Elevation data for the field, best a saved LiDAR DEM made on internet Wi-Fi before you go (Prepare a field)

Time: about 5 minutes to open Levee and draw the contours.

Open Levee

Tap Levee

On the Home screen, Levee is the middle square of the bottom row, with the words Contour Guide under its name. Tap it. A window opens called Levee — Connect (if you're already connected, the app skips to Tap Use Existing Data).

Home screen: nine square cards in three rows; the middle card of the bottom row reads Levee, Contour Guide — **Levee.** Middle square of the bottom row.

Tap Connect (or Simulate)

Connect is the big dark-green button: it finds your control module or Reach on the tablet's Wi-Fi. To practise, tap Simulate, the white button under it. Contours can't be drawn until one of those is connected. Connect help: Connect to your kit.

Window Levee — Connect over the Home screen: Connect to Controller, a dark-green Connect button, Simulate, Bluetooth GPS and Manual Options — **Connect.** Control module or Reach.
**Simulate.** Practise with no machine.

Tap Continue

When the three System Check rows are green (the last one reading RTK Fixed), tap Continue at the bottom of the window.

System Check with three green rows, the last reading RTK Fixed — 0.8 HDOP, and the green Continue button — **GPS Accuracy: RTK Fixed.**
**Continue.** Opens Contour Guidance.

Tap Use Existing Data

The Contour Guidance window asks where the elevations come from. Use Existing Data, the second wide button, opens the Levee screen with the list of sources. Survey New Field, the first, opens Field Survey to drive the field instead.

Two wide buttons: Survey New Field (Drive the field to collect elevation data) and Use Existing Data (Import a DEM, LiDAR, saved survey, or job) — **Use Existing Data.** A saved LiDAR DEM, a file, a saved survey or a job.
**Survey New Field.** Drive the field to collect elevations.

Tap Saved LiDAR DEM (or another source)

With nothing loaded, the Levee screen asks How do you want to get started?. Saved LiDAR DEM, the light-blue button on the right of the middle row, is the usual choice. Load Saved Job, at the bottom, carries on yesterday's work. The same choices sit in the right-hand column under shorter names.

Contour Guidance source panel: Survey New Field; Or use existing data: Saved Survey, Point File, GeoTIFF DEM, Saved LiDAR DEM, Open LiDAR & Mapping; Continue previous work: Load Saved Job — **Saved LiDAR DEM.** The usual choice; works offline.
**Load Saved Job.** Yesterday's contours and coverage.

Every source explained: Get elevation data.

Also in this section

The Levee workflow: connecting, the elevation sources, contour interval and smoothing, generated contours, lightbar steering, the map arrows and coverage.

If something goes wrong

Generate is refused, or the owners message appears: needs a controller.
Nothing drawn after Generate: no contours.
The lightbar and arrows seem backwards: reading the lightbar.
The blade doesn't move by itself: that's by design. blade not moving.
Coverage or contours gone after reopening: coverage gone.

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