6 replies to this topic

[benbakelaar]

I would like to develop a set of "region" graphics for a web site concept I am working on. The idea would be to have progressively more detailed sets of regions (mostly in USA), but still only up to quite a large regional scale, such as NYC Metro, Northeast, Southeast, West and any other particular designations... larger regions would be continents and sub-continents.

The purpose of these graphics would be to visually delineate areas of familiarity/activity. Some people might pick Europe.. others might pick NYC Metro, still others Sub-Saharan Africa.

I imagine the graphics would be "false 3d" globes, with blue for water, grey or light brown for land, and green for highlighted "region" area... maybe 200x200px or 300x300 at the most. And preferably with the hint of shaded relief. Something like this:
http://images.google...t-coast-map.gif
But stretched on a circular globe? Maybe I should just steer clear of 3d idea?

If someone is interested in helping me with this, or has any type of limited set similar to what I've described, that'd be great, otherwise if people could point me to some software packages that might make this task fairly easy I'd appreciate it! (as opposed to, for instance, using ArcGIS, finding a world SHP file, highlighting countries/states in the background table, then extracting that as a layer, coloring separately, playing with projections, etc...)

[Nick Springer]

If you have a budget you might look at using stock maps from a place like Map Resources.

They have globes and regional maps already layered in both Photoshop and Illustrator, for a reasonable price.

[benbakelaar]

Awesome, thanks for the pointer! Yknow what, those blue and white graphics are pretty much *exactly* what I want, but it seems those aren't for sale!

[Nick Springer]

I have used their Illustrator docs before and it would be about a 2 second operation to take the political layer turn it all blue, turn off all the layers but that one and the grid, and then rasterize it for Photoshop (OK... maybe 5 minutes).

[Nick Springer]

Also, I know the folks over at Map Resources and it is a small company, so you may be able to email them and make a request for vector versions of the web graphics.

[benbakelaar]

I did email sales, if I don't hear anything within a day or two I will followup with another email. I wouldn't mind putting the work in that you suggested, but paying $50-$100 per 200x200pixel image is not within my budget!

[benbakelaar]

Well, being the impatient person I am, I fired up my old copy of ArcView 3.1, and within 5 minutes figured out how to reproduce the region maps shown here:
http://www.mapresour...bes&name=Globes

However, I only have a WORLD30.SHP file and I think having lines every 15 degrees of longitude would be much better. Poked around on Google but could not find anything, anyone have any suggestions? Once I get this, I will post a link to the collection I generate, it will be licensed under Creative Commons so that it remains free in the future.