How load DEM image (hgt format)

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I am trying to convert the great tutorial Reading Geospatial Raster files with GDAL from Open CV C++ to Open CV Java API.

My problem: when I load DEM file using: Mat dem = Imgcodecs.imread(demFile.htg, Imgcodecs.IMREAD_LOAD_GDAL | Imgcodecs.IMREAD_ANYDEPTH);

I found that dem.type() is not equal to CV_16SC1 as expected but equal to CV_8U.

Is this a problem? Anyone has some experience with DEM with OpenCV ? Thanks