{"id":981,"date":"2016-06-23T15:57:06","date_gmt":"2016-06-23T14:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/geospatialengineering\/?p=981"},"modified":"2016-06-30T12:19:27","modified_gmt":"2016-06-30T11:19:27","slug":"international-map-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/geospatialengineering\/2016\/06\/23\/international-map-year\/","title":{"rendered":"International Map Year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Did you know that 2015-16 is International Map Year? \u00a0Newcastle University has representation on the working group promoting this UN-endorsed project. See\u00a0http:\/\/mapyear.org\/about-international-map-year\/<\/strong><\/a> for details about the world-wide nature of this set of events and awareness raising.<\/p>\n

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One IMY-badged event which took place in June 2016 in Newcastle, at the renowned Literary and Philosophical Society on Westgate Road (http:\/\/www.litandphil.org.uk\/<\/strong><\/a>) was an exhibition by Karen Rann, tracing the history of the contour line. \u00a0There is some merit to the claim that Geordie\u00a0mathematician and surveyor James Hutton was the first to apply contour lines to assist in the mapping of terrain. \u00a0The task of\u00a0measuring the Scottish mountain of Schiehallion was a scientific project of immense significance and, as Karen describes in her extensive blog (https:\/\/thegreatlinesproject.wordpress.com\/<\/strong><\/a>), Hutton was charged with producing the equivalent of a surface model for the geophysicists to work with. \u00a0Karen’s blog relates her\u00a0story of a dedicated search for the origin of the contour line, and her exhibition reflected that.<\/p>\n

Cartographic methods\u00a0of displaying terrain data have some synergy with the creative\u00a0endeavour shown in Karen Rann’s work. \u00a0David Fairbairn’s contribution reproduced below considered some of the more traditional characteristics of contour mapping, as undertaken by geomaticians – but with an artistic output:<\/p>\n

Representing the land surface using contours<\/strong><\/p>\n

As is evident from Karen Rann\u2019s Great Lines project, a pattern of contour lines can be used to quantitatively model a rigorous framework for terrain, but can also be applied more impressionistically to convey a sense of the shape and variations of the earth\u2019s surface.<\/p>\n

Mapmakers have no control over the location<\/em> of the contour lines which represent reality, but their graphical appearance<\/em> can be modified to give particular effects.\u00a0 For example, the colour of a contour line on a standard topographic map can be used to reflect the nature of the surface: blue contour lines over ice, black contour lines over rock, brown contour lines over soil:<\/p>\n

\"Picture3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Other characteristics of lines, such as form (dashed lines, continuous lines) and thickness, can be used to modify the appearance of the contour pattern.\u00a0 An effective combination, varying colour\/shade and thickness, is that proposed by Japanese cartographer Kitiro Tanaka in the 1950s.\u00a0 Sometimes called \u2018illuminated contours\u2019, this method of rendering the contour lines shows them lighter if they are on a terrain slope facing towards the north-west, and darker on slopes facing south-east.\u00a0 In addition, the lines are made slightly thicker if they face directly north-west or south-east, and thinner otherwise.\u00a0 The example below\u00a0shows this method applied to the contours of Schiehallion: the result is a pseudo-three-dimensional portrayal of the terrain surface, helping with the interpretation of the contour pattern:<\/p>\n

\"Picture2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Did you know that 2015-16 is International Map Year? \u00a0Newcastle University has representation on the working group promoting this UN-endorsed project. See\u00a0http:\/\/mapyear.org\/about-international-map-year\/ for details about the world-wide nature of this set of events and awareness raising. One IMY-badged event which took place in June 2016 in Newcastle, at the renowned Literary and Philosophical Society on … Continue reading “International Map Year”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4452,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[36,35,37],"class_list":["post-981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections","tag-contour-lines","tag-international-map-year","tag-karen-rann-artist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/geospatialengineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/geospatialengineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/geospatialengineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/geospatialengineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4452"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/geospatialengineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=981"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/geospatialengineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":998,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/geospatialengineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions\/998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/geospatialengineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/geospatialengineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/geospatialengineering\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}