4 replies to this topic

[Basje]

Hello all,

My name is Bas, I'm a 34 y.o. lawyer from The Netherlands. Before that I was a computer programmer.

I became a member because I'm looking for info how to process spatial data (random elevation points) into grid representations, and looking for info on the math behind it.

I'm mainly interested in making accurate maps for geofiction and roleplaying games, no so much real world applications.

Cheers,
Bas

[frax]

Welcome Basje!

What software do you have at hand? And the output you want is graphic files, right?

You could play with some of this in Photoshop, using gray-scale images (0-256 representing the relative elevation) and using the render effects there to create a shaded relief-image. You might also be interested in the free version of Terragen, if it is still around (played with it a lot for fun, some five years ago).

[natcase]

Hello all,

My name is Bas, I'm a 34 y.o. lawyer from The Netherlands. Before that I was a computer programmer.

I became a member because I'm looking for info how to process spatial data (random elevation points) into grid representations, and looking for info on the math behind it.

I'm mainly interested in making accurate maps for geofiction and roleplaying games, no so much real world applications.

Cheers,
Bas

Take a look at Tom Patterson's site at www.shadedrelief.com. One of his articles is a primer on Photoshop relief techniques.

As to your particular question of creating a raster surface by generalizing from random data points, seems like this would be pretty basic for GIS software, but it's not my field... anyone else?

[frax]

Yes Nat, this is a simple application in GIS software - Bas do you have any around and/or any experience with such? There are some open source alternatives, which may not be the easiest to get into for someone new in the field though. But since you have been working as a programmer, you may not be be scared of software!

The operation that you are looking for in the interpolation of a surface out of sample points is called "kriging interpolation".

A piece of software that is specifically used for this kind of operation is "Surfer" from Golden Software.

[Hans van der Maarel]

Hi Bas, and welcome to Cartotalk!