These are snapshots from a work in progress. I am trying to get a combination of factors right to kind-of/sort-of replicate the look of 19th century field-sketched maps of elevation.
I am still working on adding a directional aspect to them (not shown), so they incorporate a bit of a hillshade dimension, like this awesome map.
In the meantime, it’s too fun not to share. Here is a look at the good old US 48…
The Appalachians:
The Pacific Northwest:
The St. Lawrence Seaway:
What contour experiment would be complete without the obligatory map of Iceland?
You get some strange hairy effects when the lines get really dense or the hachure texture grows long. They remind me a little of Andy Woodruff’s mesmerizing elevation texture maps, and a bit of these vintage dense-contour elevation maps. But mostly they remind me of Burt Reynolds. Or a Shar-Pei…
I’ll post more when I get the hillshade dimension rolling. Looking forward to that. And I’ll link to a how-to.
Thanks to cartographer Jared Fischer, of the Dept. of the Interior, for his collaboration and inspiration along the way.
Happy Mapping, John
Good Stuff, John!
John, how are the tick marks applied to the downhill slope side of the contour lines? I mean how can be sure the style is applied correctly so that the tick marks are on the correct (downhill) side of the lines?
the winding order of the contours should be consistent, so the tics ought to always point the same direction. that makes it a 50-50 chance to make them point downhill. if they point uphill, just flip the symbol.