this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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Cool Guides

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[–] [email protected] 110 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Everything reminds me of her

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Giggity giggity!

[–] Deebster 102 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think your analytical mind got "typographic" and "topographic" mixed up...

[–] Deebster 20 points 9 months ago

Ah, was it a typo or topo that got autocorrected? We'll never know (fixed, ta).

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

usually topografic maps are a bit more complex so I feel like this guide is useless

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months 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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months 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. 🤷

[–] [email protected] 83 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Except all of the hills could be valleys, you need to see the numbers on the contours

[–] [email protected] 38 points 9 months ago (2 children)

If it were a local depression instead of a hill, the lines would be hatch-marked on the side pointing into to depression.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Do you have an example, I either never have seen this or never had a depression on a map

[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You want an example of local depression just swing by my place anytime

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 19 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Here's a slide describing how depressions are represented, and here is a topographical map of a sinkhole showing the hashes.

That said, I had to look pretty hard for a map with those marks. Numbers are much more common.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Ah, awesome. i appreciate you taking the time to put this together. I dont recall these on maps, but as you said numbers are common. And i typically use the topomap with shading, so shading helps with understanding the terrain

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago (3 children)

I was expecting boobs for the last one. They’re almost there too.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Imagine being down bad enough to get off on a topological map ...

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

Ok, what should I imagine next?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Yeah, very confusing to see an image like this that isn't a smart-ass meme.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

The Grand Tetons are named after boobs (grands tétons is roughly "big tits" in French)

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The rare overhang distinct enough to be captured in topography is i dicated by a brown dotted line in usgs maps

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

I made an improved condensed version of this that still gets the point across drawn graphic a single lonely hill, below it another graphic of high hill with a smaller hill on the right side, below it graphic of two high standing hills beside each other, below it graphic of a high hill with another hill that has fallen and is flat

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Those all look vaguely sexual to me.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (2 children)

My brother in Rorschach, you are not alone.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Hey, 111000 is the one who keeps showing us all the sexy pictures!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months 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"

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months 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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (3 children)

For the second one, do you need that many rings? Would using less still be correct?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months 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.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The rings are elevation placements. Less would be "correct in that they'd still signify elevations, it's just less detailed.

For example, the widest ring might be an elevation of 2470ft while the smallest ring might be 2570ft. If there are no rings in between, it's still correct, you're just not getting very detailed. You could easily be looking at a perfect sloap on all sides, like a smooth cone. But place 9 rings in between at 10ft more of elevation each, you've got a much more detailed idea of how a mountain or hill is shaped.

So, correct, but not very useful.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

This is pretty helpful for something like Zelda for me

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