{"id":165681,"date":"2009-11-24T22:12:53","date_gmt":"2009-11-25T06:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=165681"},"modified":"2018-12-18T10:42:24","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T18:42:24","slug":"symbolizing-the-hillshade-for-the-world-topographic-map","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-living-atlas\/national-government\/symbolizing-the-hillshade-for-the-world-topographic-map","title":{"rendered":"Symbolizing the hillshade for the World Topographic map"},"author":4351,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":""},"categories":[22851,22931],"tags":[23171,32321,31301,23031],"industry":[],"product":[36581,36551],"class_list":["post-165681","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-government","category-imagery","tag-basemaps","tag-hillshade","tag-symbology","tag-world-topographic-map","product-arcgis-living-atlas","product-arcgis-online"],"acf":{"short_description":"Our symbolization of the hillshade is one of the design characteristics that most distinguishes this map.","flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/downloads.esri.com\/MappingCenter2007\/blog\/Nov09Images\/SymbolizingTheHillshade_Thumb.png\" alt=\"Symbolizing the Hillshade thumb\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" vspace=\"5\" \/><\/p>\n<p>One of the things I promised myself that I would do last summer was write about some of the key design solutions used in the\u00a0<a title=\"ESRI JavaScript viewer using the World Topographic Base Map\" href=\"http:\/\/downloads2.esri.com\/mappingcenter2007\/maps\/worldtopomap\/worldtopomap.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">World Topographic Base Map<\/a>. Our symbolization of the hillshade is one of the design characteristics that most distinguishes this map. The design intent was two-fold: 1) show shading similar to how hachures were used on hand-drawn maps [to see what I mean one of my favorite\u00a0<a title=\"Library of Congress American Memory website\" href=\"http:\/\/memory.loc.gov\/cgi-bin\/map_item.pl?data=\/home\/www\/data\/gmd\/gmd376\/g3764\/g3764b\/ar090900.jp2&amp;style=gmd&amp;itemLink=D?gmd:8:.\/temp\/~ammem_vVpJ::@@@mdb=gmd,klpmap,ww2map&amp;title=A%20plan%20of%20the%20action%20at%20Bunkers-Hill,%20on%20the%2017th.%20of%20June,%201775,%20between%20His%20Majesty%27s%20troops%20under%20the%20command%20of%20Major%20General%20Howe,%20and%20the%20rebel%20forces,%20by%20Lieut.%20Page,%20of%20the%20Engineers,%20who%20acted%20as%20aide%20de%20camp%20to%20General%20Howe%20in%20that%20action.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">18th century maps depicting the Battle of Bunker or properly Breeds Hill<\/a>\u00a0is a good example], and 2) display the low slope areas in white because this creates a\u00a0\u201dnon-competitive\u201d background for data that is mashed up on this base map.<span id=\"more-1404\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>How default hillshade symbology works<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/downloads.esri.com\/MappingCenter2007\/blog\/Nov09Images\/SymbolizingTheHillshade_Fig1.png\" alt=\"Symbolizing The Hillshade - Figure 1\" width=\"300\" align=\"middle\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"5\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The image at the right shows the default hillshade symbology, which is displayed by default with a\u00a0black to white color ramp. The darkest part of the ramp is used on the high slope areas that are in shade, while the lightest portion of the ramp is applied to the highest slope areas that are illuminated. The result is that flat areas are in the middle are displayed in gray.<\/p>\n<p>The image below shows the distribution of values in a hillshade dataset and how they relate to the colors of the default black to white hillshade. If you look at the\u00a0shading under the\u00a0histogram, you can see that colors that relate to the hillsahde values.\u00a0 0 relates to the highest slope\/most shaded areas and the black end of the color ramp while 255 relates to the highest slope\/most illuminated areas and the white end of the color ramp. The important thing to note is that the value of 180 is flat, and that these areas are shown in gray if the\u00a0default color ramp is used.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/downloads.esri.com\/MappingCenter2007\/blog\/Nov09Images\/SymbolizingTheHillshade_Fig2.png\" alt=\"Symbolizing The Hillshade - Figure 2\" width=\"500\" align=\"middle\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"5\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Creating Distinctive\u00a0Hillshade Symbology for\u00a0the World Topographic Base Map<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Because most of the cultural information that would be displayed on this basemap would likely occur in flat areas, we modified the hillshade color ramp.\u00a0We made thia decision based on our assumption that humans tend to build, live and work in areas of flatter terrain. Our goal was therefore to reduce the gray and increase the white in the flat areas.\u00a0 Here is what the World Topographic Base Map\u2019s hillshade layer looks like:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/downloads.esri.com\/MappingCenter2007\/blog\/Nov09Images\/SymbolizingTheHillshade_Fig3.png\" alt=\"Symbolizing The Hillshade - Figure 3\" width=\"300\" align=\"middle\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"5\" \/><\/p>\n<p>When other geographic content, such as roads, boundaries and buildings, are drawn on this hillshade, the flat white areas\u00a0do not compete with the cultural feature symbology.\u00a0Unadorned, you might rightfully criticize it for looking like an overexposed photograph of the default hillshade layer. However,\u00a0it is not meant to be viewed in isolation, and it is meant to be viewed as a basemap for other and potentially multiple layers of information.<\/p>\n<p>Here is what the histogram looks like for the hillshade symbology of the World Topographic Map:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/downloads.esri.com\/MappingCenter2007\/blog\/Nov09Images\/SymbolizingTheHillshade_Fig4.png\" alt=\"Symbolizing The Hillshade - Figure 4\" width=\"500\" align=\"middle\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"5\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Notice that the white end of the color ramp extends further into the\u00a0values for the flatter areas.\u00a0In order to make the color ramp and have it be applied this way, we had to do two things:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>We customized the color ramp by turning it into a multi-part color ramp with three ramps.\u00a0 Middle ramp was our normal warm gray (RGB: 189, 167, 155) to white (RGB: 255, 255, 255) color ramp.\u00a0 The first color ramp was a single color ramp using the warm gray. The third color ramp was a single color, using white.\u00a0 (The illustration above uses black instead of warm gray to visually emphasize this technique).<\/li>\n<li>We customized the display histogram as shown below:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/downloads.esri.com\/MappingCenter2007\/blog\/Nov09Images\/SymbolizingTheHillshade_Fig5.png\" alt=\"Symbolizing The Hillshade - Figure 5\" width=\"300\" align=\"middle\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"5\" \/><br \/>\nThe histogram for every hillshade dataset has a slightly different shape, based on the character of the local relief that it represents.\u00a0The main point is to force the color ramp values that relate to white to the right of the peak that represents the values in the hillshade.\u00a0 The peak indicates values for the\u00a0flat areas.\u00a0To force the white values to the left of the peak, move the topmost point of the line with the vertices just to\u00a0the left of the peak.\u00a0Then, using the\u00a0curved line tools, edit the line to follow the\u00a0shape of ascending limb of the original histogram.\u00a0 The curve can be adjusted so that it is\u00a0closer to\u00a0the histogram or further away than what is shown here.\u00a0Moving the line closer will make more pixels lighter, while positioning it further away will result in a darker depiction.<\/p>\n<p>It takes experimentation to achieve the final effect\u2013it took me 20-30 minutes for this example.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/downloads.esri.com\/MappingCenter2007\/blog\/Nov09Images\/SymbolizingTheHillshade.png\" alt=\"Symbolizing The Hillshade - Figure 6\" width=\"500\" align=\"middle\" border=\"0\" hspace=\"5\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Also, note for large hillshade datasets, we converted the hillshades to 8-bit unsigned integer raster datasets because the time required to generate the histogram was prohibitive.\u00a0 I wrote a post on\u00a0<a title=\"Hillshade Data management tips\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.esri.com\/Support\/blogs\/mappingcenter\/archive\/2009\/03\/11\/tips-for-hillshade-data-management.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this and other tips for hillshade datasets<\/a>\u00a0earlier this year.<\/p>\n"}],"authors":[{"ID":4351,"user_firstname":"Charlie","user_lastname":"Frye","nickname":"Charlie Frye","user_nicename":"cfrye","display_name":"Charlie Frye","user_email":"cfrye@esri.com","user_url":"","user_registered":"2018-03-02 00:15:58","user_description":"I am the Chief Cartographer at Esri and work on the Living Atlas Team. I have been with Esri in Software Products since 1994. I specialize in GIS engineering and information product design. I am the author of many global scientific and thematic layers on topics that include ecosystems, landforms, population, climate, emissions, etc.  Contact me at cfrye@esri.com with questions or feedback.","user_avatar":"<img data-del=\"avatar\" src='https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/app\/uploads\/2018\/04\/CF_R3.png' class='avatar pp-user-avatar avatar-96 photo ' height='96' width='96'\/>"}],"related_articles":"","card_image":false,"wide_image":false},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Symbolizing the hillshade for the World Topographic map<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-living-atlas\/national-government\/symbolizing-the-hillshade-for-the-world-topographic-map\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Symbolizing the hillshade for the World Topographic map\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-living-atlas\/national-government\/symbolizing-the-hillshade-for-the-world-topographic-map\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"ArcGIS Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/esrigis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-12-18T18:42:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ESRI\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":[\"Article\",\"BlogPosting\"],\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-living-atlas\/national-government\/symbolizing-the-hillshade-for-the-world-topographic-map#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-living-atlas\/national-government\/symbolizing-the-hillshade-for-the-world-topographic-map\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Charlie Frye\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/#\/schema\/person\/cb24d44b9b7464f8eafd9fde29ae5c7a\"},\"headline\":\"Symbolizing the hillshade for the World Topographic map\",\"datePublished\":\"2009-11-25T06:12:53+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-12-18T18:42:24+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/arcgis-living-atlas\/national-government\/symbolizing-the-hillshade-for-the-world-topographic-map\"},\"wordCount\":8,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"basemaps\",\"Hillshade\",\"symbols and symbology\",\"World Topographic Map\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Government\",\"Imagery &amp; 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