Creating Contour Maps

You can create contour maps—also called topographic maps by using contour lines that join points of equal elevation above a given level to show valleys and hills.

Before you begin: Open a clean terrain mesh.
See Also
About Contour Maps
  1. Optional: Adjust the display for the mesh:
    1. From the View section of the action bar, click Shading with Edges.

      For more information about the shading rendering style, see Digitized Shape Users Guide: Experience Models Preparation: Reviewing the Model: Reviewing the Model Mesh.

    2. In the Display Modes tab of the mesh Properties dialog box, select the Flat check box under Mesh category.
  2. From the Prepare section of the action bar, click Contour Map .
  3. Select a terrain mesh, surface or volume or several terrain elements in the Input tab.
  4. To better visualize what you are doing, click the Display planes check box.
  5. The Major and minor option is selected by default. Select Supplementary if you want to create a specific contour map.
    The Contour Map dialog box provides information and options to adjust that are specific to Major and minor selected by default. It comprises four areas: Range (for information), Major planes, Minor planes and Contour lines.
  6. Define the contour lines and planes in the Contour Map dialog box.
    To help you with determining the contour lines and planes, click to display a figure showing the key parameters:

    • in the Major plane area:
      • First plane altitude: In most cases, the altitudes of major planes are the multiples of the major plane step, and the default zero value corresponds to this situation. If this is not the case, you can specify another value for the first plane altitude.
      • Step: the distance between two major planes.
      • Number: number of major planes.
    • In the Contour lines area:
      • Minimum length: the minimum value under which a contour line is not created.
      • Smoothing: defines how the resulting contour lines will be displayed. Various smoothing levels are provided: no, light, medium, strong and with accuracy.
      • Smoothing accuracy: refines the smoothing operation with a user-defined value. This option is available only if you selected with accuracy for Smoothing.
  7. Optional: Modify the terrain origin that is the mean sea level—if it is not specified as 0 along the Z-Axis coordinate.
    • Select an existing point along the Z-Axis to determine the terrain mean sea level or
    • Create a point on the fly by right-clicking the Origin box, and selecting the context menu.
    The map plane is automatically defined by this point and the Z-Axis.
  8. Determine how the contour line labels will appear in the Line Labels tab.
  9. Optional: Select options for the points in the Points tab.
  10. Select the graphical properties for the contour lines in the Graphic tab.
  11. Click Apply to compute the contour lines.
  12. Click OK.
    You can control the display options of the result in the Contour Map tab in Properties dialog box (3D Space and/or Map).