DEM styling

[rmacan]

Hi All,

I've had this issue for a long time, and can't seem to find a workaround.  I have a DEM of a certain area and wanted to style it in once color as light as possible, so I initially tried 255, 255, 255.  My DEM then shows as a gray color.  So I tried 254, 254, 254 and it didn't change.  So I tried 252, 252, 252 and it didn't change.  Does anyone know how to get a DEM image to be displayed in white or virtually white?

I'm uploading an image showing the gray DEM and my styling to get it white, or even lighter like 253, 253, 253

Is this a limitation, for whatever the reason, and does anyone know how I can get around it? 

Thanks!
Randy

[bullera]

Hey Randy,

Regrettably, that's by design.  If we had all true white contour information, even with relief nothing would show up.

If you have access to Raster Design, you could try bringing in that .dem file via IINSERT and play around with the the brightness and contrast.  With .dem files you might not be able to convert it to a bitonal or grayscale which will make it tough to edit in Raster Design.

Not sure if this helps but again, this behavior is normal for DEM.

[rmacan]

Thanks for your reply, Alex.

It seems like this is another design flaw for FDO graphic displays/prints.  In reply to your comment that if we had all true white contour information, even with relief nothing would show up.  I don't undertstand...because what I can tell from the DEM being styled true white, then you should still see the hillshade.  Let me explain it by saying, no matter what color I pick for the DEM, blue, red, green, orange, whatever, the hillshade shadows still appear as dark gray shades, or most likely values of black.  So if I pick light gray (253, 253, 253) , then I would expect the DEM to be light gray, and the shadows to still show as shades of black.  But it still comes in as dark gray.  When I need to do one simple procedure, I find myself having to do 5 or 6 unrelated steps in another software package to get a result that finally I can insert and work with.  MAP 3D doesn't seem to be designed very well for productivity and outputting a great looking product to me, the creator of the map figure. 

sigh...

Thanks again for your reply Alex,

Randy

[bullera]

Hey Randy,

You could see what I mean by going to the Style editor and setting the Hillshade Band to (none).  Everything will go white.  

So, typically shaded relief maps are set having the source of light (or sun) in the upper left corner of the map.  You can try playing around with the light location by using the MAPHILLSHADE command.

Take a look at this video:

http://autode.sk/2oa6HRy

Let me know if this helps or is what you're looking for.

Cheers.