Tutorial: Create an EZ Contour Map

Estimated time: 4 minutes.

Contour maps illustrate elevations or other measured data in the study area using lines or colored intervals. "Easy" contours are constructed using the same technique you would draw contours by hand, using a "Delaunay" triangulation technique. (See Creating a Grid Based Contour Map in the next lesson for another contouring method.)

! This lesson assumes that you have completed the previous lesson. We are just going to change a few settings to create a new map.

1. With the point map still displayed, return your focus to the map options in the pane on the left side of the window. (If necessary, you can re-display the Options pane by clicking on the small "+" button on the divider.)

2. Click on the Map Layers - Options button.
   1. Contour Lines: Insert a check here, and click on the Contour Lines tab. 
      1. Intervals
         •  Regular: Choose regular contour intervals to get contours at regular intervals (e.g. every 5 meters).
           • Confirm Intervals: Check this.
      2. Label Contours: Check this.  The default settings should be fine.
      3. Skip Zero Contour: Unchecked
      4. Skip Low Values: Unchecked
      5. Skip High Values: Unchecked
      6. Omit Segments Near Faults: Unchecked
      7. Color / Styles
         • You’ll see the default line style for labeled and unlabeled contours.  You can adjust these if you like.
         • Smoothing: Click here and type in: 1.
            
   2. Colored Intervals: Insert a check in this check-box, and click on its tab to access the settings.
      1. Scheme:
         • With 2-Colors selected, try clicking on the small color button on the left edge of the palette bar, and choose a color.  Do the same for the color button on the right side - you'll see a gradation of colors
         • Another method for choosing a scheme is to click on the large color palette bar - you'll see a popup list of some pre-configured color schemes.
         • In this exercise we will just use the default Cold -> Hot (Medium) palette.  This means that lower elevations will be color-filled with cold colors (purples, blues), and higher elevations with hot colors (orange, red).
      2. Confirm: Insert a check in this box.
      3. Legend: Insert a check here, too. The default settings should work well.
         
         
   3. Click OK to close the Map Options window.
       
3. Interpolate Edge Points: This prompt should NOT be checked. This tells the program to build contours only to the given map points, not all the way to the edge of the map area.
    
4. Click the Process button at the bottom of the EZ Map window to re-create the map.
   
   Because you activated the "confirm intervals" options, the program will display a window summarizing the Z (elevation) values found in the datasheet, and some recommended labeled and unlabeled contour intervals (top) and color-contour intervals (bottom).
    
5. Click OK to accept these.
   
   The program will scan the datasheet, determine the location coordinates for each sample site, and build line contours and color-filled contour intervals to represent the surface elevations. It will overlay point symbols and labels to illustrate the control point locations, and it will annotate the border with titles, ticks, and coordinate labels. The completed map will be displayed in a new RockPlot2D tab on the screen.
   
   Let's keep a copy of this map around while we make a grid-based contour map in the next lesson.
    
6. Click on the Copy to New Window button and you'll see a new, stand-alone RockPlot window, displaying the EZ Contour map.
    
7. Move this window to the upper-right corner of your screen or to another monitor - to move a window, just click-and-hold on the RockPlot title bar, and drag the window to a new location. Or, minimize the window if you need the space.
    
8. Click on the small Save button to save this map.
   Type in the name:  ez map   and click the Save button.
    
9. Leave this new contour map window open (we can compare it to the grid-based map in the next step).
    
10. Close the original EZ Map window ; you can answer No to the save-file prompt.
     

  EZ Maps

  Back to map menu     |     Next (grid-based contours) 

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