Topo Map

This page covers the process of making a topo map.

Inspired by this D3 sketch: http://bl.ocks.org/herrstucki/6312708

Github readme for that sketch here: https://github.com/interactivethings/swiss-maps/blob/master/README.md

Ultimate goal: map topo data from the National Map Viewer (maybe even automated somehow!)

National Map Viewer

http://nationalmap.gov/viewer.html

Downloading Data

Selecting a location for which I wanted topological data, I faced the dilemma of not knowing which data set to select.

I narrowed the view down to a specific region. I then clicked the download data link at the top.

I was presented with an array of choices, and I chose "Contour" data. This gave me multiple shape files, two of which covered the region of interest. I went through the checkout process to download these two shapefiles.

The region that I'm looking at is the Barry Goldwater Bombing Range outside of Yuma, Arizona, on the southwest Arizona-Mexico border.

Loading into QGIS

Here is what the shapefile looks like when loaded in QGIS... woah!