Width and Profile Tools for Tapered Streams in Illustrator

Another new addition to the quiver in CS 5 was the ability to taper individual strokes. The Profile drop-down in the Stroke Pallet offers several options to manipulate a line width along a path. Width Profile 4 is very useful for achieving a tapered stream style in a hydrological network. It will taper any stroke from the set point size at one end, down to a finite point at the other. In addition, the Width Tool allows you to modify that taper at any point along the line, allowing you symbolize rivers in a much more natural way. Combine with stream classes from GIS attributes, and one can create a realistic branching network that tapers from a trickle at the headwaters and expands to a torrent at the outlet. Incorporate this trick into your next map, and set it apart from the rest. The video lays it all out.

Shape Builder Tool in Illustrator

Trimming a lot of lines to a map extent has always been a real challenge in Illustrator. And there always seem to be extras coming out of GIS! There have been a number of third party plug-ins over the years like the Graffix cutting tools, but those no longer work in CS 5. The kind folks at the Swiss Federal Institute of Cartography (ETH) have a nice set of tools, including the Area Builder that does the job, but all the menus are in German (Google Translator sorts that out quickly). But now, Adobe has granted us the Shape Builder Tool, which natively joins overlapping polygons, like separated lakes, or creates polygons from overlapping linework. In its negative function, it can cut dangles right to our map frame, which is all we could have ever hoped for. Watch the video for a short demonstration of this practical and powerful tool.

Custom Shaded Relief in ArcMap

A clean hillshade is only the beginning when constructing a realistic depiction of landscapes for a map. After you have the shaded relief dialed, you need to spice it up a bit with some landcover, and maybe some prominent features like glaciers (if you’re lucky enough to have them). That’s exactly what is demonstrated in the video below. Through the use of layers and transparencies, it is possible to break up the even stretch of a color ramp and add some texture to the scene. There is no “absolute rule” for the combinations of settings that make for a beautiful custom relief. But that’s the fun – experimenting with every option until you achieve the right look. Here are some tips to start, it’s your job to play through to the end.

Swiss Hillshade Model in ArcMap

The iconic Swiss cartographer, Eduard Imhof felt that the base of almost all maps was the relief representation. He further remarked that the “proper rendering of relief is one of the primary tasks in cartography” (Imhof 1982). In the modern digital workflow, rendering relief is as simple as clicking the mouse a few times. But is it “proper,” as professor Imhof would say? With high resolution data, stock relief shading tends to be a complex cacophony of overly detailed valleys and ridges. Like all of cartography, a little generalization can be good. With relief, the ideal would be to highlight the most important features in the landscape, subdue the complex terrain, and brighten the darkest recesses were detail is lost in shadow. The ESRI Mapping Center provides a free Swiss Hillshade model that simulates hand painted relief in a digital workflow. It’s not perfect, but is a great place to start! I have also modified it a little to meet my needs and you can download my version here. The video will get you started on technique, buts it’s well worth grounding yourself in theory on this excellent site. Happy mapping!

Mosaicing DEMs in ArcCatalog

For many years merging multiple DEMs into a seamless scene was a mystery, then just a hassle. It took many, many raster calculations, adding one at a time to get there. But now, it’s a snap. All we have to do is create a blank raster that has the same bit depth as the original, then load all the tiles in. ArcCatalog automatically mosaics them all together, producing a clean DEM, sans the joins, ready to go for our shaded relief fix. Watch the video, it’s a breeze! Correction from the video: National Elevation DEMs (NED) are 1-Arc Second 30m, 1/3-Arc Second 10m, and 1/9-Arc Second 3m. Most of Alaska is covered by 2-Arc Second 60m DEMs. They can all be downloaded at the USGS Seamless Server.

Graphic Styles in Illustrator

Well the masters is finished and it’s time to start the blog up again! In honor of my first cartography lab as an adjunct professor, here’s a quick lesson in setting up graphic styles in Illustrator. Graphic styles allow the cartographer to quickly style raw data exported from a GIS or other source. In production workflow, were each map has a related theme, or all maps for a project need to have a consistent look, styles function as a continuity template that ensures symmetry throughout a project. They also form a solid basis for alteration and experimentation of one-off maps. A word of warning needs to be inserted; cartographers that use the same master template to begin each map, tend to always produce maps that look the same. Therefore, you must force yourself to constantly create new styles, modify existing ones, and combine various styles from different projects. The benefit of styles is that you can recreate the look of a map quickly, and then move beyond the original without having to spend countless hours relearning techniques. For those that prefer to read it, here is a short and sweet tutorial. Enjoy!

Symbols in Illustrator

Symbols are a great if you want to get ahead of the ball while mapping in Illustrator. They are a quick way to put a lot of information on a map fast. But you need to take the time to construct them or install them from 3rd party symbol libraries. One great library comes from the folks over at MapDiva and there Mac platform cartographic software, Ortelius. They have a really slick package that allows users to create symbol libraries and share them with the world via the web. One the coolest symbol sets consists of over a hundred classic mountain stamps for use on historic maps. Unfortunately, they’re only made for use in Ortelius. However, though the creative commons license and some NACIS networking, the converted symbol set for Illustrator can be found here. Enjoy!

Projecting Natural Earth Rasters

The folks over at Natural Earth Vector have created a great free resource for making maps at 1:10m, 1:50m, and 1:110 million scales. The beautiful natural color reliefs generated by Tom Patterson, of the National Park Service, have been complimented with a set of vector data that cover the entire globe. Nathaniel Von Kelso, of the Washington Post, has created world coverages of rivers, cities, borders, and much more. While the vector layers are ready to go, the raster layers require projection before they will align in the GIS. It’s a simple process outlined here in a lab from my Intro to Cartography class. Once the geographic coordinate system is set, the data can be reprojected to your heart’s desire from within the Data Frame, all at within a few clicks. Check it out!

Cartographic Workflow

One of the most often questions I’m asked is about workflow. At the NACIS 2009 conference I presented on the steps that we go through at Adventure Cycling to produce our bicycle touring maps. We are in the process of converting from old Freehand files to an ArcGIS, Illustrator, InDesign workflow. Needless to say, it has been a long process of trial and error, resulting in a specific set of steps unique to our organization. While this workflow has been designed for our needs, it has many pertinent tips that can translate to other means of cartographic production. Here is a write-up of what I found to be a reasonable set of best practices. I hope you can find something of use for your maps. Cheers.

Contour Masks in Illustrator

The standard convention for labeling contours is to knockout the line behind the label. Obviously we could cut each line and delete it, but in a small scale mapping project this would not be very efficient. In Illustrator, it is much faster to use a clipping mask to style all the contour labels. And thanks to a few tips from my friends at NACIS, it’s quick and easy. Here is a link to the text version, along with a little video tutorial.

Shaded Relief with Contours in ArcMap

One of the most common types of reference map is topographic with contours that represent changes in elevation. It is actually quite easy to produce this kind of a map using GIS programs such as ESRI ArcMap. All one needs is a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of a landscape and within a few clicks you can have a decent looking model of the terrain. Generally, a pure USGS topo map just shows the elevation with the use of the contours set at intervals, and some simple symbolization for ground cover, such as green areas for forest. This exercise incorporates shaded relief, hypsometric tints, and contour lines to display the landscape in a more realistic fashion. Since we can, why not have the best of all worlds? The tutorial for this entire process can be downloaded here, and a great data source for the data is the GeoCommunity website. Also, after working on this, I found it easier to locate a given quadrangle at the USGS Map Locator website. So experiment with the techniques and the next time you go hiking, impress the partners with your own custom topographic masterpiece!

Illustrator Selection Tools

The Selection Tool and its partner, the Direct Selection Tool, are like wrenches for a mechanic: they’re indispensible. These tools let the artist manipulate artwork by selecting and moving the anchor points and lines that comprise a vector drawing. In this video, I go through the basic operations and reveal some of the hidden extras that the Alt and Shift keys add. One tip that got cut in the editing room (against the will of the actor!), was to hold down Shift and click on multiple anchors or objects to select more than one at a time. Then they can be moved all together, like a herd of cats. Take the time to learn the keyboard shortcuts as you use Illustrator, and you’ll be a wizard in no time.

Tracing In Illustrator - Common Cartographic Process

For this exercise, you will be tracing, styling and labeling a map of a fictional golf course using Adobe Illustrator. Tracing is a common practice in cartography; whether it’s an aerial photo, a satellite image, an existing paper map, or duplicating vector artwork as we will do here. In a commercial application, one has to be mindful of copyright before tracing other people’s work, but for an academic exercise, there is less of a concern.

Before you begin, please take the time to run through the tutorials linked here at this blog. The University of Michigan has a great Illustrator Reference Guide as well. Ignore these resources at you own peril!! Illustrator is a complicated and deep program that takes years to learn. However, the basics can be mastered fairly quickly if the initiative is taken to gain a thorough understanding of the most important tools and concepts. At a minimum, I suggest that you research the use of the Selection Tools, the Pen Tool, the Shape Tools (Rectangle, Ellipse, etc.), and the Type Tool. You should also learn about the Layers Panel, the Stroke Panel, the Character Panel, the Color Panel, and the Swatch Panel. Type any of these names into the Help menu within Illustrator to get an overview. Countless other tutorials on the web will broaden your knowledge. To get you started, I will walk through the steps to set up your document and trace the first layer. After that, get busy and get into it!

1. Download the golf course map image named “Golf_Map_MP.tif” here.
2. Open Adobe Illustrator and choose Create New → Print Document from the welcome screen.
3. In the Pop-up, name the document, leave the default size at Letter – 8.5” x 11”, select landscape orientation, and click OK.


4. In the Menu, go to File →Place, and then navigate to the “Golf_Map_MP.tif” image. Make sure the Link box is not checked and click Place.
5. The Image of the golf course map will be placed in the center of the workspace. Lock that layer and name it "Map Template." Create a new layer above the first. Name the new layer “Background” and lock it. Draw the “Background” layers later so they don’t obscure the Template. Now create another layer and name it “Rough.” 
6. Go to the Menu and click File → Save → navigate to your project folder → check the map name → use the default Illustrator (.ai) format in Save as Type, and click Save.
   Save your project frequently as you work!
7. Set the Stroke to a dark green and the Fill to none in the Color Panel. Tip: Use the Swatch Panel to pick your colors at first. If there are no or few colors in the Swatch Panel, go to the Drop-down at the far right of the panel, (Small carrot with three lines) and select Open Swatch Library. There you will find more colors than you can imagine!

8. Select the Pen Tool and start to digitize the shape of the “Rough” on the first golf hole. Once the polygon is closed, you can fill it with color. Finish tracing the rest of the “Rough” areas, then create another Layer named “Fairways” and start to draw those shapes from the Template. Note: You will have to make the “Rough” layer invisible by clicking the Eyeball in order to see the Fairways on the template.

9. Continue to recreate the Golf Map by tracing the features on the Template. Make new layers as you move up the visual hierarchy keeping them in logical order. See the layer order in the screen capture for my final map. Yours should look similar to this. Remember that the hierarchy should go from areas to lines, then points, and finally text. Think about the concepts of Figure and Ground. What belongs on the bottom, what belongs on top? What would be the most important information a golfer using this map needs to know? Make the purpose stand out!

Alright! With that you should be well on your way. Coming up will be my two cents on the basic tools and panels that need to be in every cartographer’s quiver. Hopefully some of the tips will go beyond the tutorials and into best use practices I gain from everyday mapping. I know that this is starting at a pretty basic level, and if you are already far ahead of this, hang in there. Come back often as the gems will be unearthed as time goes on. Thanks, Kevin

Adobe Illustrator Basics

Getting started in Illustrator can be daunting to the first time user, or even someone experienced in the raster world. As a vector program, we have to remember that it’s all about points and lines. Each line has a stroke color and weight, and if we connect them, they become polygons that can be filled with any color of our choosing. If it’s day one for you in this program, I would strongly advise watching a few tutorials on the Adobe TV site. “Must See TV” should include Starting a New Document, how to work with Layers, and the operation on the Pen Tool (click on Illustrator, then Pen Tool or Layers video). With those basics, one can get started on an empty page.

Following are my intro tips to the workspace with some of the lingo for various elements. This will help decipher all the “insider” explanations on the Adobe site.

Besides all the helpful stuff at Adobe, the web is full of great resources for learning a new program. This Blog has a super list of the top 20 basic Illustrator tutorials including a highly recommended one on the Pen Tool, and a Map specific one or Two as well. Please take a couple of hours to look these over, open the program, and just play. After that, we’ll get right to making a make.

Collaborative Mapping

The internet has really changed cartography over the last decade providing nearly everyone with the tools to make maps. Tools like Google Maps, Maker, and Open Street Map have democratized mapping in ways that no one could have predicted even twenty years ago. This plethora of mapping has been both beneficial and harmful to the profession of cartography. While it’s good to see the geographic knowledge of the general public increase, it’s also disheartening to witness the flood of trashy maps that poorly display information and pass for cartography. Some would say that cartographers are no longer needed, but I would counter that there is no time in history that they are needed more. We have to educate users and makers on what constitute acceptable cartographic conventions, what techniques best communicate information, and what pitfalls lurk when data is presented as truth, when in fact in may not be. I could write an entire post just on this subject, but let’s get back on track.

One of the most recent developments in online mapping has been the ability for multiple people to collaborate on a single mapping project. As shown in the video tutorials below, we now can all have our say and represent our opinions spatially. Imagine how useful these tools can be for professional and community decision making. Where should we put that new bike path? Do we need another liquor store near these five other locations? How many types of projects can you envision using this technology with? The tools are right at your finger tips; put them to good use!

And here are a few extra tips for working in Google Maps. I also did a video of the basic tools before I found Google's slick tutorial. It has some repeat information, but you can watch it HERE if you like. All this should be enough to get you started. Cheers!

Cartography Tools

The main tools of cartography in the digital age are all computer based. There are three types of computer programs that almost all maps are made with these days. Sometimes only one is employed, sometimes all three. Here is a short introduction.

The first are the vector drawing programs like Adobe Illustrator. They deal mainly with vector artwork, which consists of points connected by vectors, commonly known as lines. Vector artwork tends to have smaller files sizes and can be enlarged almost infinitely without losing quality. On a map, elements like roads, contours, rivers, etc. are usually drawn in vector.

The next group are tools like Photoshop that are designed to work with raster data, or pictures that are made up of many small pixels. Raster artwork can have very large files sizes and can only be enlarged to within the limits of the image resolution before degrading. Shaded relief on a map is raster data.

Raster vs. Vector

Finally there are the Geographic Information Systems. GIS programs like ESRI ArcMap deal with both vector and raster data. The big difference is that a GIS also stores the coordinates of all the map elements, locating their exact position on the earth. GIS programs are very good at analyzing spatial questions and organizing vast amounts of geographic data, but they lack precise drawing tools. Many nice maps are constructed entirely within a GIS, but for complete control of style and aesthetic appearance, most cartographers turn to graphics programs.

A common cartographic workflow would be to compile and organize all the map data in ArcMap, and then export the vectors and rasters out into separate files. The raster data would then be processed in Photoshop, while the vector data would be styled in Illustrator. Finally the raster could be placed beneath the vectors in Illustrator, and the map could be labeled and printed. Here is a map that was created in this way:

That’s one of the ways it’s done, so let’s do it!

Purpose and Audience

The very first maps, probably drawn in the dirt with sticks, had a purpose. They showed where the game was for hunting, the easiest pass over the mountain, or the villages that were friendly or not. As we use maps today, the first thing we do, at least sub-consciously, is ask “what’s this thing telling me?” With a reference map, that’s usually easy enough. A good road map will get you through the city, a topographic map through the wilds. But what about those travesties of lines and points, type and symbols, that make no sense at all? We’ve all seen them; maps that are not! The problem is, they don’t have a purpose in life. Or maybe too many purposes! As cartographers, we should never forget to be users. Always ask; “What am I making this map for?” This becomes even more important with thematic maps, when we are trying to show more than just the lay of the land.

Occasionally, I run across a map that’s over my head. Say a map of the elementary particles in Physics. That’s not a problem of purpose, but one of audience. That map wasn’t made for me, it was made for Dr. Electron. So as cartographers, we have to keep that in mind as well. “Who am I making this map for?” Whether it’s for geniuses or layman, we have to play favorites right up front. Personally, I prefer a target audience; making a map for everyone is harder than one would think!

So the first step in map design is to define a purpose and audience. Why? Because it’s also the first step in map reading. Luckly, we have the tools to get the job done. We can lead the user with the title, legend, colors, symbols, hierarchy, and yes, even the font. The map is the stage, the elements are the actors; use them to tell the right story to the right crowd!

For fun, I like to go to a cool website like Strange Maps, and find one that catches my eye. Then, before reading the description or comments, I try to figure out the purpose and audience. What techniques were used to draw it? What elements did they use to tell me what? Were they successful? What would I do differently? Then I read further to see if I was even close. I believe that to be a good cartographer, you have to be critical of maps. You can learn a lot from details, and if nothing else, it’s a break from Facebook!