Thoughts - Which Color Scheme Works Best for EVS Maps?

King George Islands FP

King George Islands FP - Landsat ETM S-06-10_2000 Image (1:175,000)

King George Islands FP - EVS Precision Map (1:175000)

Takapoto Atoll FP - EVS Precision Map (1:80,000)

I spent today digitizing the King George Islands located in the Tuamotu Islands FP. The top atoll, Takapoto, was just completed using my new NIMA color scheme. Not only am I limiting layers to EVS island projects to island polygon, reef shallow, lagoon and island water feature, but I've changed my color scheme to match NIMA's nautical charts. My current color scheme is as follows:

island polygon is R-245 G-245 B245

reef shallow polygon is R-205 G-225 B-235

lagoon is R-225 G-250 B-255.

Takaroa Atoll FP - EVS Precision Map (1:80,000)

Takaroa Atoll, completed a few months ago, contains my old color scheme:

island polygon is R-240 G-232 B-217

reef awash is R-208 G-234 B-224

reef shallow is R-153 G-214 B-236

lagoon is R-090 G-169 B-211

In both projects the vegetation layer R-157 G-179 B-151 and the deep ocean layer R-165 G-207 B-231 are unchanged.

For visual appeal, I like the old style. The NIMA nautical chart style gives a cleaner, crisper look. What do you think?

Enjoy!

Nosy Antaly-Be, MA - Fishermen, Tourists and WWII Japanese Midget Submarines

Nosy Antaly-Be, MA,

Nosy Antaly-Be, MA - DigitalGlobe Image from Google Earth (1:12,500)

Nosy Antaly-Be, MA - EEVS Precision Map (1:12,500)

Every so often I like to scout a coastline in Google Earth to find an interesting island to map. Nosy Antaly-Be's image is cloud-free, hi-resolution and located along the eastern shore of the northern peninsula of Madagascar. The two islands I mapped are the northern most of a cluster of islands that are just off shore as one enters Diego-Suarez Bay. I mapped these two islands because I was bored with my current project, remapping Papua New Guinea, a very big job. I wanted to make a pretty map and to use DigitalGlobe imagery. So far, so good!

I mapped the islands quickly and completed all of the additional details using Global Mapper. My cursory check for information concerning these two islands initially turned up nothing of great interest. The semi-permanent population was made up of fishermen and tourists. Then came the WWII Japanese midget submarines. In 1942 Japan flush with a number of victories in Southeast Asia looked to control the entire Indian Ocean. A key area to control was the northern end of Madagascar. From this vantage point they would have been able to intercept allied shipping with ease. They attacked ships located in Diego-Suarez Bay in May, 1942. One ship was damaged and another was sunk with a lose of 6 crewmen. If you would like to know more about the "Whys" and "What Fors" follow this link, Imperial Submarines. The article will give you loads of background information concerning Japanese midget submarines and the war in Madagascar.

Life never fails to intrigue me. I select two nondescript islands and they turn out to be used to screen Japanese ships prior to an attack on ships in Diego-Suarez Bay. Who would have thunk it.

Enjoy!

Caspian Sea Isobaths from Russian Topographic Maps

Caspian Sea Isobaths - Taken from 1:1,000,000 Mapping

Caspian Sea Isobaths - Entire Sea (1:5,000,000)

If I'm not careful, I can turn a finite mapping project into a never ending task, one that requires tweaks on top of tweaks. My Caspian Sea isobaths fall into that type of project. I have worked on the Caspian Sea shoreline and now isobaths since 2006 and I'm still not finished. The northern shore, including the Volga River delta remain my final shoreline to map. At my current rate I should be finished around 2012. In the mean time I would like to share my recently completed Caspian Sea isobaths. These isobaths were taken from Russian topographic maps downloaded from Poehali.org. One can download Russian topographic maps for free. The maps are georeferenced and load easily into most mapping programs. My Caspian Sea topographic map is a mosaic of 65 individual maps at scales between 1:500,000 to 1:100,000. All of these maps contain isobaths. Using the most detailed scale, I constructed the following isobaths: -10m, -20m, -50m, -100m, -150m, -200m, -300m, -400m, -500m, and -700m. Compared to the other Caspian Sea isobaths, mine differ. I hesitate to claim my isobaths are more accurate. I suspect they are, as they were derived from 1:500,000 to 1:100,000 scale maps. The other isobaths were taken from 1:1,000,000 scale maps.

Caspian Sea Isobaths - Baku Vicinity (1:250,000)

Where my isobaths prove most interesting is when one zooms into an area. An interesting area to study these isobaths is around Baku, the site of many oil rigs. The isobaths twist and turn in and around oil rigs as one would expect.

Caspian Sea Isobaths - Baku Vicinity Offshore (1:62,500))

Currently, my Caspian Sea isobaths are quietly residing on my hard drive. Before I do anything with them, other than my own mapping, I need to secure permission from Poehali.org. I know I did an excellent job tracing these unique isobaths. Not sure this is going to be a "give away". Would love to make a buck or two off of this data set. We'll see.

Enjoy!