Mapping the Nation's Physiography by Computer

Recent advances in computer technology present opportunities for the machine visualization of topography. A new shaded relief map of the conterminous United States is the first one-sheet graphic of U.S. landforms larger than Erwin Raisz's classic 1939 hand-drawn panorama. The 1:3,500,000-scale digital image (about 4.5' long), reproduced here at 1:10,000,000, has greater fidelity and detail than portrayals of this large area by artistic (manual) techniques. The new map also shows synoptictopography more clearly than contoured elevations, satellite images, or radar mosaics. We created the map by processing 12,000,000 elevations (digitized from 1:250,000-scale topographic sheets at a grid resolution of 0.8 km) on a V AX-11/780 computer, using proprietary software, a modified Lambert photometric function, 255 gray tones, and the method of Pinhas Yoeli as implemented by Raymond Batson and others.