4 replies to this topic

[Emmie]

I was a professional cartographer using Illustrator. Now I just do it as a volunteer for a local nonprofit.

I'm working on a one-color map of a hilly area and I want to add relief. Tom Patterson's Desktop Approach to Shaded Relief Production says: "I stopped using the Photoshop technique described below for creating shaded relief years ago. Much better software now exists for creating high-resolution shaded relief..."

I only have Illustrator and Photoshop and can't convert the SDTS to a DEM on my non-Intel Mac. Am I out of luck?

[David Medeiros]

I was a professional cartographer using Illustrator. Now I just do it as a volunteer for a local nonprofit.

I'm working on a one-color map of a hilly area and I want to add relief. Tom Patterson's Desktop Approach to Shaded Relief Production says: "I stopped using the Photoshop technique described below for creating shaded relief years ago. Much better software now exists for creating high-resolution shaded relief..."

I only have Illustrator and Photoshop and can't convert the SDTS to a DEM on my non-Intel Mac. Am I out of luck?

If you're looking for a software solution, Natural Scene Designer is great: www.naturalgfx.com It runs on both PowerPC and Intel Macs (as well as PCs). It's reasonably priced and imports a variety of formats so can make use of most freely available elevation data. If you go this route, make sure you get the Pro version so you can re-project your terrains.

[Emmie]

Wow! Things really have changed!
That's just what I need, and it looks like something I can pick up and start using right away. My "budget" tempted me to get the basic version, but your advice is sound---I just placed my order for the Pro version.

Thanks so much for your quick and helpful response!

[Dennis McClendon]

If it's a small enough area that you can use a cylindrical projection, MacDEM still works fine for us PowerPC dinosaurs. Just be sure your basemap shows lat-long lines, including some out beyond the neatline, so you know how to stretch the finished relief so it fits properly into the map.

[Igor Brejc]

You can also try Maperitive (http://maperitive.net/), it's free and runs on Macs, too. It downloads SRTM3 automatically, can generate provides several different relief algorithms and can export to SVG for Illustrator.

Sample hillshading of Swiss Alps using Viewfinder's DEM data (more detail here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/breki74/54768.../photostream/):