I am a Landscape student and I am attempting to calculate the surface area of a slope of various polygonal forms (landscape areas).

In the attachments you will find one is a simple calculation for a triangle prism. This is whee I need to start from.

After that the prisms become more complex.

I want to know that if I have the base area (2D) of an area, say for example looking at a map in plan view, and I also know the rise/drop (as in a change in contours), is it possible to use this information to generate, say a percentage increase to then apply to the slope area to generate an answer.

I think the images should explain better than I can.

Thanks

The image says it all.

The area you need is :- x

Look at x and call the top perimiter d and
the bottom perimiter e.

Now the area formula becomes:-

c times { 1/2 (d + e)

This should be accurate enough.