Atlas

Notes on maps, terrain and the tools around them.

Contour lines from open elevation data

Working through SRTM and Copernicus DEM tiles: resampling, smoothing and choosing a contour interval that reads well at 1:25k without crowding steep slopes.

Hillshade that does not lie

Multi-directional hillshading versus a single north-west light source, and why the classic 315° azimuth still wins for most readers.

Labels on curved paths

Placing river and ridge names along a smoothed centreline, with spacing that survives zooming between levels.

Small tools

A short list of command-line utilities for tiling, reprojecting and simplifying geometries that we use every week.