• Deebster@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    I always found these very intuitive, but I don’t know if that’s just due to having an analytical mind, or just learning this stuff early. Do people struggle to understand topographic maps?

    • DrMango@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I think your analytical mind got “typographic” and “topographic” mixed up…

      • EldritchFeminity
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        1 year ago

        It gives a basic idea, but I think something like Cities:Skylines where you can create maps using a height map and then get the topography lines in a 3d space where you can actively shift the camera around to see them overlaid from any angle would probably help people grasp the idea.

        Having said that, I’m now imagining drone footage overlaid with the height maps as an additional resource to standard topographical maps. Would be neat if somebody could create software that could calculate and overlay the height maps in real-time using the drone’s altimeter or something.

    • DAMunzy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      In the Land Nav portion of PLDC (US Army training for becoming a Sergeant - is called something else now) there were soooooo many people that failed out/had to do it over again, that I was super worried when I did it. Seemed pretty damn easy to me. 🤷

  • gullible@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    I’ve always been curious about topographical maps that involve curved or hanging terrain and whether there’s a way to denote the existence of an area beneath. That’s obviously going to be irrelevant 99.9% of the time, but grade school curiosity rarely fades completely.

      • Th4tGuyII@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Tell you what, if this ever comes up in a psychological evaluation I’m fucked…

        “Tell me, what do you see here?”

        “A damn fine rack is what”

  • Hikermick@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Also it helps to look at water on the map. Water always runs downhill. Runs combine to form creeks, creeks combine to form rivers, rivers pour into oceans and lakes. Water gets bigger on its way downhill. The dead end is a spring, it flows downhill from there

    • nymwit@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Depends on the rest of the map. These are usually set up so the rings mean a certain consistent difference in elevation, say 1ft of 10ft. You don’t normally change the spacing partway through the map. If the intervals were 10ft and this was a 20ft peak then you’d obviously have fewer rings than if the intervals were 1ft.