Comparison - Vectors to Raster or Mr Minton on the Scene

Zooming in Using Vectors

This post is aimed to all readers that are content to look at a picture (image) of a map and never enjoy the thrill of a good vector zoom. When I first began using maps, I was a picture user. Never having been exposed to vectors and their inate characteristic of zooming to amazing levels of detail. I know that the levels of detail are only as good as the original map maker can construct them, but given the right map maker one can discover amazing features tucked away within a vector map. Such as my map of Jabal al-Tayr. Who would have imaged that Mr Minton, yours truly, had his avatar perched on the northwestern plateau of Jabal al-Tayr. I'm sure he is safe, even after the volcanic eruption of a few days ago. He is writing this post after all.

Seriously, the ability to add levels of detail to maps is outstanding in today's world of readily available hi-res digital imagery compliments of Landsat, Google Earth and DigitalGlobe.

Comparison of a Raster to Vector - Jabal al-Tayr at 1-cm : 1,562-m

So, all of you raster rookies, explore the exciting world of vectors. Once you've been there, you'll never want to go back to static rasters.

Enjoy!

Jabal al-Tayr YM - Red Sea Volcano

Jabal al-Tayr Island Location from Google Earth

Jabal al-Tayr - Landsat Image N-37-15_2000 (1:25,000)

Jabal al-Tayr - EVS Map (1:25,000)

In the southern portion of the Red Sea at 15.54N 41.83E is this small island. If you didn't know where it's located and you are using Landsat to find it, it's very difficult to see. Using some image modifying features found in Global Mapper v9.0 the island shows up. It looks like there are clouds swirling off of the southeastern portion of the island. These clouds appear to be very dark and dusty, like volcanic ash. Well it turns out that this little round island is actually a very active volcano. According to a post in Google Earth Blog this little island's recent eruption led to the death of 8 Yemeni citizens. The post includes a KMZ file that includes the above posted Landsat image.

My EVS precision map of Jabal al-Tayr accents the island's simple shoreline. In addition, it
includes 20-meter elevation contours. I used Global Mapper's contour generation routine. One needs to import the appropriate SRTM, then generate your contours.

Jabal al-Tayr - DigitalGlobe Image (Non-obscured)

DigitalGlobe has a non-obscured image of the island, for a price ($400+) for those of you wanting to do additional research on this island.

The Red Sea is one of the world's critical ship transit channels and smack dab in the middle is this active volcano. If that doesn't beat all!

Enjoy!