https://geolographer.xyz/blog daily 0.75 2017-10-27 https://geolographer.xyz/blog/2017/2/27/an-introduction-to-pyramid-shader monthly 0.5 2017-03-16 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488840474447-TV2KHAC2W55X0JTMGKNI/genRelief.png Blog - Pyramid Shader: Introduction The Andes map after pyramid shading (left), compared to the original (right). It is now easier to make out the major mountain ranges that were in the noisy areas. Note that this is not the same as simply blurring the terrain; the fine details are still there, but their visual prominence has been reduced relative to the large features. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488843710810-4I3ZJXGVYQWVF3QZ6IIH/image-asset.png Blog - Pyramid Shader: Introduction Comparison of selected relief shading presets in Exposition Color. Default or Black and White (at left) maps a black to white gradient to surfaces facing from 180° to 0° away from the light source. Hard gray (at center) is similar, except everything facing more than 90° away from the light source is shaded black. Natural Light (at right) uses a more complex gradient, with bluish shadows and a slight yellow tone to the highlights. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488257996534-3AUM6Y7YC7TJ1TTBSD7A/image-asset.png Blog - Pyramid Shader: Introduction https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1489288420207-ZUVF15LCCIO9K0NOL3CP/image-asset.png Blog - Pyramid Shader: Introduction To build a Laplacian pyramid, first build a Gaussian pyramid by creating a stack of layers, each with a Gaussian blur radius twice as large as the one previous. Then, for each level of the Gaussian pyramid, subtract the level above to make the corresponding level of the Laplacian pyramid. The last Gaussian level is also considered the last level of the Laplacian pyramid. Note that adding all of the Laplacian pyramid levels together is comparable to undoing each subtraction step (All levels greater than G0 cancel with themselves), so the result equals the original DEM. Because each level of the Laplacian pyramid contains a specific scale of detail, and the sum of all the levels is the original raster, Pyramid Shader can selectively control how prevalent each scale is by weighting the lower levels less than the higher levels when adding them all back together. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488838741616-ACADHINGU74R6JEI1S3D/image-asset.png Blog - Pyramid Shader: Introduction Pyramid Shader's interface after loading the provided grid. As you can see, parts of this terrain are so noisy they blend together into a rough gray smudge. Let's do something about that. https://geolographer.xyz/blog/2017/2/25/normal-maps monthly 0.5 2017-02-28 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488052580356-4L28F6BPDXNYWUN51HUQ/image-asset.png Blog - Normal Maps, Part One Even though the north-facing slopes should be just as different from the selected color as the south-facing slopes, Color Range does not treat them equally. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488049749980-37NSXVVETCBXPBVJEC7S/image-asset.png Blog - Normal Maps, Part One Final layer stack using adjustment layers. Also, I've circled the adjustment layer menu on the layer palette. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488037573655-MR2LFVAP2Z039YNPAIML/image-asset.png Blog - Normal Maps, Part One A normal map of the same region, and its component RGB channels. Each channel records the x, y, or z component of the surface normal at that point. Normal maps are unsigned rasters, and can't have negative values. A component in the negative direction is therefore represented as black, in the positive as white, and as 50% gray if its length is zero. For example, a pixel in the red channel will be black if that pixel is a west-facing cliff, white if it's an east-facing cliff, and gray if it's facing up. Note how, in the blue channel, flat areas are white, and since any point darker than 50% gray would be pointed away from us (and underneath an overlying surface), there are none visible. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488053209494-34TZPDMOCXL2G1MQTTAU/image-asset.png Blog - Normal Maps, Part One Your map might look something like this after Step 3. I sampled a color on one of the NW-facing slopes; notice how all NW-facing slopes are fairly dark. The more different a pixel's orientation from the location I sampled, the brighter it will be in this image. Converting this to a grayscale image and inverting it thus creates a relief map lit from the NW. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488038590123-DMPK1FT1E2WI5I9WUARN/image-asset.png Blog - Normal Maps, Part One An extremely low-resolution terrain. The surface normals are the short white lines at the center of each polygon. They point in the direction the polygon is facing. For example, the normal to the dark polygon at top center has components 0.504, -0.001, 0.863 (that is, the normal points 0.5 units east, a negligible amount south, and 0.86 units up; the overall length of the normal is 1 unit). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488037481202-TX730Y86JP5NBPJZRMOV/image-asset.png Blog - Normal Maps, Part One Shaded relief map of Graubünden, Switzerland. https://geolographer.xyz/blog/2017/2/24/welcome monthly 0.5 2017-02-24 https://geolographer.xyz/blog/category/Tutorials monthly 0.5 https://geolographer.xyz/blog/category/Pyramid+Shader monthly 0.5 https://geolographer.xyz/blog/category/Normal+Maps monthly 0.5 https://geolographer.xyz/blog/tag/Terrain monthly 0.5 https://geolographer.xyz/blog/tag/Shading monthly 0.5 https://geolographer.xyz/blog/tag/Software monthly 0.5 https://geolographer.xyz/blog/tag/Normal+Maps monthly 0.5 https://geolographer.xyz/onlinegallery daily 0.75 2017-02-27 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487957117127-GVC7J85S9RI03P4GF2NN/GC.png ngInteractive - Hiking the Grand Canyon This was the interactive counterpart to the Grand Canyon piece in the magazine (shown above). I created the render of the terrain and carried out the GIS processing to correctly place the trek route, as well as the points of interest. I also animated the camera movement and translated it into data that our web developer, Chan-Young Park, could then use to control the way the map pans when the user scrolls. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487957117127-GVC7J85S9RI03P4GF2NN/GC.png ngInteractive - Hiking the Grand Canyon This was the interactive counterpart to the Grand Canyon piece in the magazine (shown above). I created the render of the terrain and carried out the GIS processing to correctly place the trek route, as well as the points of interest. I also animated the camera movement and translated it into data that our web developer, Chan-Young Park, could then use to control the way the map pans when the user scrolls. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487961018298-W04WHB9ZBPCCDG595E1I/ArcticDEM.png ngInteractive - Arctic Elevation Data This was a news map that I worked on with fellow cartographer Lauren James. I produced the 3D terrain blocks in the lower half of the image. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487961313745-CE85J1I93D8H3S6TRBP4/Tompkins.png ngInteractive - Douglas Tompkins Kayak Accident This was a news map made in response to the accident that claimed the life of North Face founder Douglas Tompkins. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488224099722-P3ZY42RL5S35GWU5WO82/supervolcano.png ngInteractive - Inside Yellowstone's Supervolcano For the interactive companion to our magazine piece on Yellowstone, I obtained the 3D magma reservoir models and positioned them at their appropriate location and depths. During part of the design we intended to show the position of the mantle plume relative to the earth's core, while at the same time we had a model of the few hundred meters of ground surrounding Old Faithful geyser; the scales used in this this animation thus spanned six powers of ten. To preserve the quality of imagery at each scale, I produced several different 3D maps, each visible at a particular range of scales, that were composited into the final scene. https://geolographer.xyz/miscinteractive daily 0.75 2017-02-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487966614110-0546LUIUYNZGD0Q5G7NP/wwSankey.png miscInteractive - Willamette Water 2100 Sankey Diagram This is a D3-powered interactive Sankey Diagram I made for the Willamette Water 2100 Project. It is based on model data for several different climate scenarios, forecast out to 2100. The primary dynamic of concern here is that precipitation for this watershed is not actually expected to decrease much, even in dramatic climate change scenarios. However, since more of that precipitation will fall as rain rather than as snow, less of it will be stored into the dry months, potentially leading to shortages during the summer. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487966614110-0546LUIUYNZGD0Q5G7NP/wwSankey.png miscInteractive - Willamette Water 2100 Sankey Diagram This is a D3-powered interactive Sankey Diagram I made for the Willamette Water 2100 Project. It is based on model data for several different climate scenarios, forecast out to 2100. The primary dynamic of concern here is that precipitation for this watershed is not actually expected to decrease much, even in dramatic climate change scenarios. However, since more of that precipitation will fall as rain rather than as snow, less of it will be stored into the dry months, potentially leading to shortages during the summer. https://geolographer.xyz/resume-4 daily 0.75 2019-10-24 https://geolographer.xyz/about daily 0.75 2019-10-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487905503051-L25A4J8NLRZHA0E48WC0/11947642_10153524050937593_6481589094014268387_n.jpg About https://geolographer.xyz/test daily 0.75 2017-02-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487948457118-5RFRRFJ4OIZ30G6G81MO/image-asset.png test https://geolographer.xyz/test2 daily 1.0 2019-10-24 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488255548709-0QE72MQTJCPKT9BZA2DM/2.20.jpg Portfolio https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488255594858-E09Z7FMKCKW0KSV6OTII/11-3.jpg Portfolio https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488255639753-7H8O1L78WC70ALUDB46A/CH5F1.jpg Portfolio https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488255674215-7ZARAASBEMFJARHA9SIX/Mendocino.jpg Portfolio https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488255811939-W52FT9ZDBJQHBCM64VZU/old14.41.jpg Portfolio https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488255853548-PDVCZ3TOSFY1V3K0DJ61/newcollision.jpg Portfolio https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488255897701-Z4WHW5BKUOYZA5U2TVYJ/StElmos.jpg Portfolio https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488255935840-Q1LGXWECAH30USDHH2KM/Tambora.jpg Portfolio https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488255963158-WQJ5KAO98JF41ZL3TX9E/vortex.jpg Portfolio https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488255381732-F3M6SRJ3G316THF10MVM/Hkakabo_mapC5W.png Portfolio - Elusive Summit (September 2015) Martin Gamache, then a Senior Graphics Editor, needed a map highlighting the logistical difficulty of reaching the peak of Hkakabo Razi in Myanmar/Burma. He contracted me to produce this panoramic perspective map of the approach and climb. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488254805580-E9OG0Z16JSWTUE3ACN6J/ArtSupplement-Yellowstone.png Portfolio - In the Hot Zone (May 2016) My first project as a Nat Geo employee, I worked with Manuel Canales to produce this supplement for the Yellowstone Issue, May 2016. I produced the three surface maps visible on this segment of the poster and advised both Manuel and illustrator Hernán Cañellas on what the geology in the cross section should look like. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488254921061-1E9512R9XVY1YRDBITY1/desal.png Portfolio - Drinking Water From the Deep (June 2016) I worked with Graphics Editor Jason Treat to produce this map of Monterey Canyon. While Jason created the text and the diagram elements, I provided the components for the perspective map, including the road networks, urban areas, and bathymetry, which Jason composited into the layout. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488255041164-KQ19B0X2QDODYWVSVSMY/Virunga.png Portfolio - Park Politics (July 2016) This was my first solo map for the magazine. One of the more challenging aspects of producing maps at National Geographic is working with remote areas where data is sparse; we don't plot anything on a map if there's no data to support it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488255087644-7FOWKZGPZI8ACQH1190S/Grand+Canyon_print.png Portfolio - Contested Canyon (September 2016) Published in September 2016, this was another collaboration between Graphics Editor Manuel Canales and I. Cartographically, the challenge here was to make the physiography of the canyon the primary feature of the piece (or as Manuel puts it, "the rockstar"), while content-wise the real meat of the map was the several layers of data that we piled on top of it. We experimented with methods such as the use of normal maps to emphasize the canyon using lighting and shading alone, while moving away from showing satellite imagery of the canyon, an approach we would use again in the interactive version. This gave us the greatest flexibility for applying unique symbology to each data layer. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1488255116123-6EQFYCRKQ6FGEJZN5T9A/Sri+Lanka+NEW.png Portfolio - Healing Sri Lanka (November 2016) Originating as a request for a reference map with demographic info overlaid on it, this map evolved a great deal over the production schedule. Graphics Editor/Researcher Ryan Williams, Map Editor Scott Zillmer, and I found and vetted data sources to turn it into a more complete complement to a narrative on topics that, by their nature, are difficult to locate precisely. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1505263686540-TLOJTIOQULJWQT3NGNZZ/DarkStar.png Portfolio - How Deep Is Dark Star? (March 2017) Underground structures are a major challenge in cartography because they frequently overlap themselves and meander freely through 3D space. The cavern's geometrically inconvenient but significant relationship to its host mountain range, and a desire to show the cliff face that the team had to climb, compounded the issue. In the end, this unorthodox approach of showing the cliff face from inside the mountain was the best way to show the cavern's shape and orientation with respect to the terrain. This was published in the March 2017 issue. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487954251237-51VNXUMZTSE0JD7U7D7Q/smallFinal.png Portfolio - Mudflow Travel Times at Mound Hood, OR This is a variant of one of the maps I made for my masters research, a study to see whether 3D panoramic maps are more effective at showing people the interaction between terrain and volcanic hazards than topo maps (conclusion: people definitely like them more and we have some reason to believe they result in better hazard responses; you can read the study here). This map has won three awards: 2015 Cartography and Geographic Information Society Map Design Competition: Thematic for Mudflow Travel Times at Mount Hood, OR 2015 National Geographic Award in Mapping competition for Mudflow Travel Times at Mount Hood, OR 2014 runner-up NACIS Student Map Competition for Mudflow Travel Times at Mount Hood, OR https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487954264587-8S75I7Y40OIRD67M4ZYS/peelFall.png Portfolio - Cloth globe This was a draft of an illustration I made for a book chapter on choosing map projections. I used a cloth simulation of a shredded globe to show the impossibility of flattening the sphere to a flat surface, no matter how finely it was shredded. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487968932817-Q9OSDUV8UVLYJ1G1HMGH/Dev_transparent.png Portfolio - Developable Surfaces I produced this diagram for a book chapter on choosing map projections. The cylinder, cone, and disc are all examples of developable surfaces, or surfaces that, unlike a sphere, can be made flat. For this reason, they are used as a mathematical framework for many types of map projections. Here, I've illustrated the simplest version of this concept, by projecting the earth onto each surface as if the earth is a light source. Note how distortion is minimized where the surface touches, or is tangent to, the sphere. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487968685217-37O8ZNJSCUHNOY90SYKX/PyramidShaderDemo.png Portfolio - Pyramid Shader summary This set of images documents a relief shading workflow I developed and still use today with Pyramid Shader, a Java-based terrain shading utility produced by our Cartography and Geovisualization Group at Oregon State University. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487968366307-0SHOHB3JZ53V4AO3SBZ4/overview.png Portfolio - Long Valley Caldera The finalized version of the previous map in this gallery. I made this for our Advanced Volcanology course at Oregon State University before we traveled to this area. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487954279547-HX596RBOYVL8VEQPBG0V/SurvLocsII.png Portfolio - Mount Hood Map Survey Sites While making a map of the sites where I performed my surveys, I experimented with local hypsometric colors in Pyramid Shader, which can produce effects very similar to texture shading. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487954300225-BYU0Q98JFG2AICEUHK45/OverviewMap.png Portfolio - HJ Andrews Reference Map This was a simple reference map for a collaborative research paper produced during one of our classes at Oregon State University. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487954468205-SKZMJ3L3Q385VZPN7IE2/NyiragongoBlock2.jpg Portfolio - Plumbing System of Nyiragongo Volcano I made this block diagram for the term paper in a volcanology class at Oregon State University. At the beginning of the term we each picked a volcano. We studied its eruptive history, the current hazard it represents, the status of its monitoring network if any, and any plans in place to mitigate the hazard from future eruptions. I chose one of my favorite volcanoes, Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is a very strange volcano, so strange that it actually acts in similar fashion to the way volcanoes are often portrayed in movies; it is the only volcano in the world that regularly causes fatalities from lava flows. This is partly due to the unusual chemistry and fluidity of the lava at Nyiragongo, as well as the volcano's tendency to maintain a semi-permanent lava lake perched high above the surrounding plain, and a tendency to split open since it straddles a divergent plate boundary. The result is essentially a flash-flood of lava every few decades. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487968709086-619KIBMQPG6T4B7X2SX7/evacmap.png Portfolio - Evacuation Map for Nyiragongo I made this for the same volcanology term paper as the previous image. I synthesized it from a simulated hazard forecast and a cross-border agreement between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda describing the recommended evacuation paths in the event of an eruption at Nyiragongo. Ironically, given my statements in my masters thesis that lava flows are almost never a major hazard to life and that mudflows are the real threat due to their speed, Nyiragongo is the exception that causes the phrase to be "almost never" instead of "never", and so this map attempts to convey the opposite of many of the points I was trying to make with my Mount Hood map. It was refreshing to make a volcanic hazard map without the usual reservations about using red to symbolize the hazard though. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487968333738-XHNU1RAO2MBK9LK8GMSH/smith.png Portfolio - Smith Rock State Park, OR This was pure recreational cartography; I sat down one Saturday to just make a nice-looking relief in Pyramid Shader and Photoshop. I chose Smith Rock for its interesting terrain and tried to capture the cliffs and deeply incised Crooked River with local hypsometric colors. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487968386960-DI1997TG3L1WHXHAVW7A/hoodComponents.png Portfolio - Multi Pass Rendering This is a demonstration of one of the techniques I rely on most for my 3D maps. Some 3D graphics applications, including Cinema 4D, which is the one I use, allow several properties of the scene such as illumination, shadow, reflection, specularity, distance, and so on, to be rendered into a Photoshop document as separate layers. This provides much more customizability in the final product and makes it much easier to add lighting and depth cues that are often missing from more conventional relief shading or rendering techniques. Many of the issues that terrain visualizers have struggled with, such as terrain inversion and disorientation, are problems that come about as a result of the lack of these depth cues. They are often subtle enough that you don't explicitly notice them, but they still provide a reference that your brain can use to unambiguously distinguish hills from valleys, up from down, and so on, freeing the cartographer from having to choose between the risk of these effects and the desired lighting or viewing angle. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58af5f3de3df2893841363d3/1487954296582-PS2JL4X6LFEUTX8KMNJR/GB_base.png Portfolio - Glass Buttes, OR I took my sister on a rockhounding trip to collect obsidian here, and the only maps available for the purpose were hand-drawn. The hand-drawn maps did not portray scale, direction, and road networks very well, and we ended up in a very different spot than where we thought we were. I started making a map using LiDAR data to provide a better reference for future trips. All the roads are dirt and unmarked, so it was important to use the LiDAR to highlight physical landmarks like trees, small gullies, and cliffs. This is part of the basemap. https://geolographer.xyz/contactform daily 0.75 2019-10-24 https://geolographer.xyz/resources daily 0.75 2017-02-24 https://geolographer.xyz/new-page daily 0.75 2017-02-27