“How big is that mountain?” Although it may be a loaded question, most likely being asked by a child under the age of 7, is it a question that GIS could help answer, or at least display? How do we define “How Big?” How big compared to what? In terms of scale? mass? elevation? For this project, I’ve decided to focus on the height (as opposed to elevation) of the terrain, and intend to display 10 different geographic features in relation to each other, at a standardized scale.
Lets take for example, two well known American peaks, Mt Elbert in Colorado, and Mt Rainier in Washington. Both are the highest point in their respective states, and both are fourteeners, with less than 30 feet of elevation difference between their highest peaks. On paper, they seem pretty comparable. The underlying issue: Anyone who’s stood near and gazed up at the daunting peaks of these fourteeners would instantly be able to perceive that Mt Rainier dramatically dwarfs Mt Elbert in apparent scale, even though Rainier is technically the “shorter” of the two. I intend to address this perceptual disconnect caused by simply ranking peaks by elevation.
I’m using USGS 3DEP DEM’s for this project, along with a standardized buffer boundary for all 10 locations. To perform comparisons, the DEM’s need to be reprojected, clipped to a buffer, and displayed in a local scene. I’ve also been working to develop a tool interface to repeat the process for multiple study areas. Using standardized symbolization for elevation, I’ve displayed them all next to each other in one layout, at identical scales.
With some experimentation, I believe I have developed a way to display this data in a way that effectively communicates my point, along with a unique method for performing these kinds of comparisons.