10 replies to this topic

[razornole]

Hello all,

I'm in the process of revising my thesis, and thought I would update a few of maps as well. I've decided to add hillshade to my geology map because I thought it would make the sedimentary core and igneous crescent terranes 'pop' a little more. Usually I can't stand hillshades on thematic maps because they convolute the message.

Don't worry about the typography because this is one of 22 maps that I have made. I have covered that in previous maps, furthermore my figure caption is already in InDesign. Programs used: ArcMap, Photoshop, & Illustrator.

Do you think the hillshade screws with the communication of the geology? Any other comments are always welcome.

thanks,
kru

Attached Files

•  Chpt1_Geol_DEM.jpg   803.37K   220 downloads

[François Goulet]

Do you think the hillshade screws with the communication of the geology? Any other comments are always welcome.

I think it adds a nice touch. Since you don't have a lot of informative layers on in, it helps understand the spatial locations of your geologic units... Quaternary Sorted units are in valley or lowlands, Sedimentary and Igneous in mountains, ...

Maybe it's elementary for geologist, but for me, I think it helps... and if what I say about spatial location is false, then it could be a good idea to lose the shaded relief

You may want to add an little difference between "Strait of Juan the Fuca" and "Pacific Ocean". Maybe the later could be a little bigger or in capital letters. Inland water could have the same blue as the ocean since water is water... unless it's important and relevant in the map.

For the rest, I love the maps... Simple, clear, right to the point and nice colors too! I'd love to see the complete result in InDesign and it sure goes to my collections!

[razornole]

Do you think the hillshade screws with the communication of the geology? Any other comments are always welcome.

I think it adds a nice touch. Since you don't have a lot of informative layers on in, it helps understand the spatial locations of your geologic units... Quaternary Sorted units are in valley or lowlands, Sedimentary and Igneous in mountains, ...

Maybe it's elementary for geologist, but for me, I think it helps... and if what I say about spatial location is false, then it could be a good idea to lose the shaded relief

You may want to add an little difference between "Strait of Juan the Fuca" and "Pacific Ocean". Maybe the later could be a little bigger or in capital letters. Inland water could have the same blue as the ocean since water is water... unless it's important and relevant in the map.

For the rest, I love the maps... Simple, clear, right to the point and nice colors too! I'd love to see the complete result in InDesign and it sure goes to my collections!

Good call with the Pacific, I think all caps will be the way to go with it, and on my other maps as well. The inland water is the same color, but with the transparency it is getting a little darker from the hillshade. I just realized how I can fix it, add a gray box under the entire map and it will darken the ocean the same as (or closer) to the inland water.

Your not missing much with the InDesign map, it is a thesis and my hands are tied behind back with the layout. There is just a figure caption that states this is the simplified geologic map of the Olympic Peninsula and Olympic National Park.

Thanks,
kru

[François Goulet]

Good call with the Pacific, I think all caps will be the way to go with it, and on my other maps as well. The inland water is the same color, but with the transparency it is getting a little darker from the hillshade. I just realized how I can fix it, add a gray box under the entire map and it will darken the ocean the same as (or closer) to the inland water.

For the water, you could just place the layer over the shaded relief... Nothing transparent over them so you wouldn't have to darken anything...

Instead of the transparency, have you tried Multiply for the shaded relief? It's personal taste, but I always found it gave a better look...

[razornole]

Good call with the Pacific, I think all caps will be the way to go with it, and on my other maps as well. The inland water is the same color, but with the transparency it is getting a little darker from the hillshade. I just realized how I can fix it, add a gray box under the entire map and it will darken the ocean the same as (or closer) to the inland water.

For the water, you could just place the layer over the shaded relief... Nothing transparent over them so you wouldn't have to darken anything...

Instead of the transparency, have you tried Multiply for the shaded relief? It's personal taste, but I always found it gave a better look...

No I haven't but I will give it a try.

[razornole]

Good call with the Pacific, I think all caps will be the way to go with it, and on my other maps as well. The inland water is the same color, but with the transparency it is getting a little darker from the hillshade. I just realized how I can fix it, add a gray box under the entire map and it will darken the ocean the same as (or closer) to the inland water.

For the water, you could just place the layer over the shaded relief... Nothing transparent over them so you wouldn't have to darken anything...

Instead of the transparency, have you tried Multiply for the shaded relief? It's personal taste, but I always found it gave a better look...

I like the multiply command, and messed around with the others as well. Colors were a bit dark and the relief a bit harsh, but I am only experimenting. I'm sure that I can devise lighter pallets do deal with the dark colors, but what do you do with the harsh hillshade? With several test prints all I have found to work is reducing the opacity. I'll keep playing.

kru

[Kalai Selvan]

Its an eye catcher.. I love geology maps, just b'coz its most often represented in different colors withdifferent geological features...Is it TIN creation using ESRI Softwares.

COol!!!
GISGURU

[ProMapper]

Hello all,

I'm in the process of revising my thesis, and thought I would update a few of maps as well. I've decided to add hillshade to my geology map because I thought it would make the sedimentary core and igneous crescent terranes 'pop' a little more. Usually I can't stand hillshades on thematic maps because they convolute the message.

Don't worry about the typography because this is one of 22 maps that I have made. I have covered that in previous maps, furthermore my figure caption is already in InDesign. Programs used: ArcMap, Photoshop, & Illustrator.

Do you think the hillshade screws with the communication of the geology? Any other comments are always welcome.

thanks,
kru

Hi Kru

It is a really great looking terrain but I was wondering how could you so classify the colors based on geogrphy? Did you add an overlay on top of the shaded relief? I can see a grayish shaded relief in the east and north which you have classified as out of area. It is great, just let us know the workflow to achieve such neat results.

Thanks.

Anu
http://www.mapsandlocations.com

[razornole]

Hello all,

I'm in the process of revising my thesis, and thought I would update a few of maps as well. I've decided to add hillshade to my geology map because I thought it would make the sedimentary core and igneous crescent terranes 'pop' a little more. Usually I can't stand hillshades on thematic maps because they convolute the message.

Don't worry about the typography because this is one of 22 maps that I have made. I have covered that in previous maps, furthermore my figure caption is already in InDesign. Programs used: ArcMap, Photoshop, & Illustrator.

Do you think the hillshade screws with the communication of the geology? Any other comments are always welcome.

thanks,
kru

Hi Kru

It is a really great looking terrain but I was wondering how could you so classify the colors based on geogrphy? Did you add an overlay on top of the shaded relief? I can see a grayish shaded relief in the east and north which you have classified as out of area. It is great, just let us know the workflow to achieve such neat results.

Thanks.

Anu
http://www.mapsandlocations.com

Hello Anu,

Thanks for the comments. The workflow involved downloading ~75, 10 meter resolution DEM quads and mosaic to a new raster (it only took about 36 hours for that module run). The resolution was overkill for this map, but I use DEM as a base map for much larger scale maps. I then cleaned the DEM with various low and high pass filters to remove artifacts. I then created a hillshade from my DEM.

The geology layer is a polygon layer at 1:100,000 scale that I obtained from Washington state DNR, department of geology. There was close to 100 different geologic units which I simplified into four categories that I used in my analysis. I did this with SQL. I cleaned up the edges using AutoCAD (i.e. fit into the DEM outline), because I'm more familiar with that program than ArcMAP.

Then I exported my raster (hillshade)as a pdf and my geology layer as an .ai file. In photoshop I overlaid the geology on the hillshade and messed with the opacities to get the desired results. I have since learned about the Multiply command and am playing with that to update the map. Other vector layers were added with illustrator.

In the end it is a very simple process (just kidding) that only involves about $5,000.00 in software. Thank goodness for my university.

kru

[mika]

That's a nice looking map

My two cents:
1. Have you tried adding coastline (say in the river's colour) - it could visually lift the land and therefore nicely separate it from the sea wherever there is gray and blue together
2. In the colour boxes in the legend I'd try using a real relief instead of the gradient to show the expected change in colour due to using the relief. You may use the same bit of relief a few times or everitime a different one.

Dom

[razornole]

Hey Dom,

I've tried the coastline, but ended up removing them from my map. It distracted from Olympic National Park (the main theme to this map), and it looked like an attempt to cover sloppy line work on the coast.

Good idea with the legend. I had adjusted the gradients over and over again trying to get them right. I wasn't too happy but was content. I'll try using the hillshade, and I bet it will work a lot better.

Thanks,
kru