Zion national park

[Francissimo]

Hi there
Us West coast has 2 essentials quality for mappers, really interesting relief shapes and quality gis data easily avaible. That's why i've started this little attempt to map the Zion National park. I've mainly worked on the basemap, and labels and icons are just started. I'm still not sure if i'll go in 3D for this one, those canyons are a bit hard to depict well.
zionf.jpg

[Josiah VE]

This is extraordinary! Incredible! Fantastic! Brilliant! And lots of words like that.
It really does look amazing. How do you even do something like that?
Is the tree placement realistic? I imagine having a map like that in the bush would be very useful.

I applaud you. Great job.

[Francissimo]

Wow thanks Josiah, i didnt expect a so good feedback
The tree placement is realistic, i'm using an aerial view to get the green pixels and then rework the result in photoshop on top of my map. About the relief, i'm starting with existing DEM data that i convert into an hillshade using qgis, that's how i get so detailed relief, just enhancing a bit existing data.

[BlindBlake]

After Josiah, I couldn't come up with an other word but I'll just say that it's real beauty you made here! Have you heard of Leland Brown's algorithm to create rocky texture on relief shading? I think it would fit very well on that map because it's used to create realistic topographic features. Here a link to this awsome tool I discovered a few years back. There are no GUI at the moment for Linux and Windows users (Mac has one, but you'll need to pay) but its use is pretty simple, just follow the user guide. http://www.textureshading.com/Home.html

[snodsy]

This is a great start, looking forward to seeing this come together. I went this last summer with my wife, incredible valley and the climbs are awesome. Angels Landing and the Narrows are don't miss sites. If you haven't been and get the chance to go, don't miss the route out, and to, Bryce Canon only a couple hours away. You can fly into Las Vegas. This whole area of southern utah is spectacular.

[Francissimo]

Thanks for the feedback about this tool BlindBlake, i just started playing with it and it surely had an awesome potential!
here's an update where i used the texture shading relief instead of a classic hillshade:
zionf.jpg
i'm still learning how to use it well, i think something cool could be done by mixing textureshading and classic hillshades, still watching the links you gave about that, thanks for sharing

And i strongly agree with you snosdy those are incredible landscape, i've visit bryce canyon once and the relief was so unique! I think i'll try to do a map of Bryce canyon one day but it is damn challenging.

[BlindBlake]

I'm happy to help; I usually mix both classic hillshading and texture shading, because the classic one always bring contrast and allows to see larger topographic feature.
But the output is really nice, the darker canyons give a good feel of height, great work!

[Francissimo]

Thanks BlindBlake, i think i'll have to practice on a few maps before i can take the best of texture shading but that tool you pointed is really simple to use!
Here's another small update, i'll work a bit more on labels and borders and post the map in the finished section, i had to reduce greatly the size of the map as i was working with a 10kx10k resolution.
zionf.jpg