When cartographers talk about ''optimizing a computer display'', they're usually talking about how to see things better, i.e., remove fuzziness, ensure all the information is shown, etc. This contrasts with how computer technology folks use the term ''optimize'', which usually means make the screen display draw faster. Faster screen drawing has ...

Most of us use digital elevation models (DEMs) which are raster data sets that represent a continuous elevation surface in which each cell represents the elevation at its location. DEM data are typically available in tiles that are sized to balance ease of data sharing with coverage so that those who need several tiles to cover their area of ...

Last week in the User Conference, I did a demo for a few people.  To a person, they were delighted to see what was possible.  If you've got ArcMap 9.3 and a few minutes, do the following: Start ArcMap with a new empty map. Go to http://resources.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/ Click on the Content tab.  Immediately below ...

We got a good question on Ask a Cartographer this morning. The gist of the question was how to go about symbolizing street centerlines so they could be drawn using line symbol widths that reflected, at scale, the actual width of the road (as shown in the image to the left). This is a good cartographic solution because varying the line width adds ...

I've spent the last few months immersing myself in ArcGIS 9.3, particularly ArcGIS Server and ArcGlobe in order to create some map and globe services and see how they work in ArcGIS clients, Google Earth, and Virtual Earth. These services need to look good and draw fast. One factor that can dramatically influence drawing performance is ...

We got one of those perennial 'tough nut' questions on Ask a Cartographer today. The question has to do with using annotation versus on the fly labeling with Maplex and what are often called overflow labels, which I have also heard called ''key lists''. While we are able to recommend tips and tools for specific circumstances or implementations, ...

The vertical change in the elevation of the land surface, when determined over a given horizontal distance-along a road or stream, for instance-is known as its slope (Figure 1). There are three primary ways to quantitatively express the slope between two points. In each, the lower the slope value, the flatter the terrain, and the higher the slope ...

I have recently ''invented'' a method for simplifying polygon map layers, which seems to give reasonable results. Probably many others have invented it before me, but I would like to present it in order to receive comments and advice on setting the appropriate parameters. My task was to produce a national soil map suitable at 1:1,000,000 scale on ...

An aspect-slope map simultaneously shows the aspect (direction) and degree (steepness) of slope for a terrain (or other continuous surface).  Aspect categories are symbolized using hues (e.g., red, orange, yellow, etc.) and degree of slope classes are mapped with saturation (or brilliance of color) so that the steeper slopes are ...

If you're making a map that is either a large format print map or a map that will be served via ArcGIS Server, squeezing every bit of wasted time out of drawing performance is critical.  Don't get tired of sitting there drinking extra cups of coffee watching the word ''Drawing'', all your layer names, and that little blue globe. If you're ...