8 replies to this topic

[paul]

Does anyone have any good resources for making effective shaded-relief maps that appropriate for grayscale printing, say, from an office laser printer? A shaded relief may look wonderful in color, but then terrible in grayscale...but I've seen shaded relief in some grayscale publications that look very nice, so I'd like to learn a good method for doing this. If it helps, I use ArcGIS and Manifold for map design, and the Adobe CS2 for finishing touches (although I'm still in the process of learning Adobe).

Forgive my newbie questions. I'm a geologist-turned-GIS Specialist-turned-cartographer, so I'm in a continual process of learning the finer points of cartography and making "appropriate" maps for different viewing mediums.

Thanks for any feedback!

[Dennis McClendon]

The place to start would be Tom Patterson's site:

Shaded Relief techniques

In general, I like to tweak my shaded relief file in Photoshop so that only the upper half of elevations get values ranging from 0 to 30%. If your concern is office laser printing, it's easy to test a sample at various settings.

[Matthew Hampton]

As a couplet to Tom's site is another site dedicated to the depiction of relief shading. They are both bound to answer many questions while provoking a few at the same time.

[Martin Gamache]

Imhof Chapter 9

[Mike H]

shaded relief may look wonderful in color, but then terrible in grayscale.

Not knowing exactly what the 'terrible' context is, I'd start with Dennis' suggestion about 30% grayscale. Most relief maps, both color and b/w, are simply too dominant, in part because most are developed as stand-alone DEM models. Once text/linework is added the relief needs to be softened, or faded back, to be as minimalistic as possible.

i'm assuming the map's argument isn't to show relief as the most prominant element.

m.

[paul]

Once text/linework is added the relief needs to be softened, or faded back, to be as minimalistic as possible.

i'm assuming the map's argument isn't to show relief as the most prominant element.

m.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, that's the crux of what I want to do. When I said "terrible" I meant that the contrast of a given shaded relief when rendered in grayscale can be overbearing and distracting.

Thanks all for the suggestions.

[mdsumner]

R's spatial package "sp" implements this:

http://www.ihe.uni-k...palette.en.html

If that seems useful I can help you with R to write the Manifold XML, for example.

If you put this attached bpy.xml in you /Manifold System/Config/ folder it will show up in /Surface/Display Options as a relative pallette.

Attached Files

•  bpy.xml   2.71K   60 downloads

[MapMedia]

Interesting.

What source do people use as a smoothened topographic backdrop?

I see many maps where a very general, and smooth one or two-tone dem/hillshade
is used. For example: National Geographic large scale maps.

[Mike H]

What source do people use as a smoothened topographic backdrop?

I see many maps where a very general, and smooth one or two-tone dem/hillshade
is used. For example: National Geographic large scale maps.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I'm not sure what you mean by source. 7.5 minute DEMs or GTOPO data is the usual data source for relief.

m.