Applications of the Agile Image Editor

Evergreen, Colorado

A USGS Topo map of one degree coverage and several maps of 7.5 minute coverage were blended to create this scene of Evergreen. It is draped over the one degree DEM at a resolution about halfway between the two originals. (July 17, 1998)

The 7.5 minute maps were seamed together by making the white background color transparent, then automatically registerering them against the DEM. You can see the boundaries of the four maps just above and East of Evergreen Lake.

It is interesting to note how the two scales of maps have very different contours because they are based on different data, and also just how difficult a cartographers job is in providing detail appropriate to the scale.

This scene requires a VRML 2.0 viewer such as Cosmo Player or WorldView. 		Evergreen Topo
85 KB + 25 textures
totalling 375 KB

Boulder, Colorado

The Boulder, Colorado, Open Spaces Department has created a marvelous trail map of the area. These VRML 2.0 scenes were prepared using the Image Editor and show the trailmap over a composite of one degree and 7.5 minute DEMs, re-projected to the Colorado North region of the State Plane Coordinate System. (Updated July 17, 1998)

A coarse VRML view (60 KB VRML file + 12 images of 18KB each) of the entire Open Space Trailmap does not do the map justice, but shows the coverage. It requires a VRML 2.0 viewer such as Cosmo Player or WorldView.

Note the strange step east of town - that's an artifact of different resolution DEMs.

The Trailmap Scene (165 KB VRML file + 30 images of 25 KB each) is much more detailed and shows the mountainous area around Boulder.

You can see a great deal of the map detail in this view. It is built as a 3 x 10 grid of textures and elevations.
A VRML 2.0 Satellite Scene (46 KB VRML file + 127 KB image) of Boulder was built from from bands 3, 2, and 1 (red, green, blue) of a December 1982 Landsat Thematic Mapper image provided courtesy of the Center for the Study of Earth from Space. If you do not have a VRML 2.0 browser, you can content yourself with a larger image of the scene (115 KB).

Rocky Mountain National Park

Another example shows a VRML 2.0 view of the Longs Peak area of Rocky Mountain National Park with both the Landsat image above and the official Park Service map. (Updated October 17, 1997)

The Park Scene requires a VRML 2.0 viewer such as Cosmo Player or WorldView, or you can content yourself with a larger snap of the Scene (93 KB).

If you click on a part of the scene and wait a bit, you'll see a Virtual Christo! If your browser does not support vrmlscript, you'll have to view the Map Scene (185 KB + textures totalling 192 KB)independently.		 Park Scene
87 KB + textures
totalling 352 KB

The textures are a combination of the Landsat image described above and the official Park Map. They have been built as smaller textures that tile the area.

The elevation map was formed from a USGS one degree geodetic DEM registered with several 7.5 minute Universal Transverse Mercator DEMs. Several artifacts of the are visible.		 Landsat Map DEM
128 KB 80 KB 23 KB

Monterey Canyon

Another example shows a view of Monterey Canyon which combines a Landsat image from Robert Stacey of WorldSat, Inc, with bathymetry from Norman Maher of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and elevation data from the USGS. (Updated October 27, 1997)

The Monterey Bay Scene requires a VRML 2.0 viewer. This will be the site of the VRML '98 Symposium.

It demonstrates how a number of textures can be combined in tiles to produce a fairly small scene - 60 KB compressed VRML file plus 24 textures of about 10 KB each - but with resolution that approaches the original 30 meter resolution Landsat image.

The color of the ocean floor shows the direction it faces.

Monterey Bay Scene

With textures, a total of 384 KB

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