A Map from a radar image

[Hilded]

A few weeks ago, a rather large storm front moved through our area late one afternoon. I checked the local radar and saw that it extended several 100 kilometers east and west. Looking at it shift and change on the weather map, it started to take the shape of a rather large height map. I was then inspired to convert it to an actual map of a large island or continent. Many tutorials for making maps recommend using random clouds generated in PS or Gimp to create land masses. I don't know of any that suggest using actual radar maps from real clouds. The image I selected kind of looks like a rotated and reversed South America. Here's the original image that I chose to convert:



I then opened it up in Photoshop and converted it to a greyscale image and selected the red, yellow and green as separate layers. I then replaced the colors with vary shades of grey, red being near white and green been darker grey. I cleaned up the edges somewhat and blurred out any artifacts from the original radar map, such as placenames and roads. Here's the final greyscale image before I imported it into Wilbur:



Once in Wilbur I followed some of the Fun with Wilbur tutorials outlined on the Wilbur website. I added some noise (more noise in flat terrain to get the rivers to bend, twist and curve more), filled basins and added some blur before eroding the map a few times via precipitation and then incise flow. I did the incise flow about twice, the first time to define the main river valleys and flatten out the coastal plains. I also resampled the image and doubled the image size to provide some greater detail. Here's the end result:



I guess I should label it at some point, but I wanted to get this out there before then. It might take me some time to complete that. I still have a WIP map from February on here some place.

Hilded

[Meshon]

That's a great idea! Maps are everywhere...

Thanks for posting this, yet another example of why I should try Wilbur. I think I looked at it once awhile ago but the barriers to getting started (I'm using a Mac of all things!) turned me away.

Also I am very familiar with the joys of having several things on the go. Just come back when you have the chance!

Cheers,
Meshon

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[Chashio]

That's fun! Look's like a really interesting island, too... kind of reminds me of Taiwan. Darn. Now I wish it was a real place I could explore.

[tilt]

lovely map, and what a great idea. I have often sat and looked up on the clouds thinking there were some nice map shapes there. Never bothered to actually go and fetch my camera though ... so kudos for the idea, and I like the colors, looking forward to seeing the continuing work on this.

[Pixie]

Brilliant idea!

I completely agree with Chashio - it looks like an average sized island in a very wet climate. Incisive flow was a little too strong in my opinion, but that's peanuts when compared to the originality of the idea. Yes, you should adopt, label and have lore developed for this beauty!

Here's some some rep!

[arsheesh]

That's a really neat little trick. Kudos.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Hilded]

Thanks for the responses. Looks like this idea has caught on, or was, at least, developed simultaneously elsewhere.

http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?...ht=storm+radar

Hilded

[Akubra]

I'm a bit late to the show, but this is a really great idea! Some of the shapes of my islands/continents originated from pictures of peeling paint I took, but they don't come with height included. This does! I'm sure I'm going to use it whenever I need an extra island or so...
Cheers - Akubra

[groovey]

What a neat idea for interesting land shapes and almost auto height-map! Thanks for sharing.