How to read topographic maps

Everything reminds me of her

107

Giggity giggity!

5

I always found these very intuitive, but I don't know if that's just due to having an analytical mind, or just learning this stuff early. Do people struggle to understand topographic maps?

99

I think your analytical mind got "typographic" and "topographic" mixed up...

22
- Ah, was it a typo or topo that got autocorrected? We'll never know (fixed, ta).
  
  20
usually topografic maps are a bit more complex so I feel like this guide is useless

13
- It gives a basic idea, but I think something like Cities:Skylines where you can create maps using a height map and then get the topography lines in a 3d space where you can actively shift the camera around to see them overlaid from any angle would probably help people grasp the idea.
  
  Having said that, I'm now imagining drone footage overlaid with the height maps as an additional resource to standard topographical maps. Would be neat if somebody could create software that could calculate and overlay the height maps in real-time using the drone's altimeter or something.
  
  3
In the Land Nav portion of PLDC (US Army training for becoming a Sergeant - is called something else now) there were soooooo many people that failed out/had to do it over again, that I was super worried when I did it. Seemed pretty damn easy to me. 🤷

5

Except all of the hills could be valleys, you need to see the numbers on the contours

83

If it were a local depression instead of a hill, the lines would be hatch-marked on the side pointing into to depression.

37
- Do you have an example, I either never have seen this or never had a depression on a map
  
  20
- That’s interesting, ordinance survey (in the UK) don’t do that, so it isn’t a universal standard
  
  In the UK, you have to notice that the heights are reducing
  
  2

I was expecting boobs for the last one. They’re almost there too.

27

Imagine being down bad enough to get off on a topological map ...

18
- Ok, what should I imagine next?
  
  9
Yeah, very confusing to see an image like this that isn't a smart-ass meme.

6
Nature's boobs

3
- The Grand Tetons are named after boobs (grands tétons is roughly "big tits" in French)
  
  3

Boobies.

22

A couple of those remind me of a different part, from side-view.

1

What the fuck I drew this

22

Thank you for your service o7

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Permanently Deleted

16

Have you considered the following?

71
- Number 3 is basically just my chair if it was soft like a sofa instead of wood
  
  17
- There are depression contour lines for that purpose.
  
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- Permanently Deleted
  
  7
- why you gotta be like that
  
  5

I’ve always been curious about topographical maps that involve curved or hanging terrain and whether there’s a way to denote the existence of an area beneath. That’s obviously going to be irrelevant 99.9% of the time, but grade school curiosity rarely fades completely.

13

The rare overhang distinct enough to be captured in topography is i dicated by a brown dotted line in usgs maps

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- TIL!
  
  3

I made an improved condensed version of this that still gets the point across drawn graphic a single lonely hill, below it another graphic of high hill with a smaller hill on the right side, below it graphic of two high standing hills beside each other, below it graphic of a high hill with another hill that has fallen and is flat

12

Those all look vaguely sexual to me.

11

My brother in Rorschach, you are not alone.

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- Hey, 111000 is the one who keeps showing us all the sexy pictures!
  
  4
- Tell you what, if this ever comes up in a psychological evaluation I'm fucked...
  
  "Tell me, what do you see here?"
  
  "A damn fine rack is what"
  
  3

Boobs

8

Also it helps to look at water on the map. Water always runs downhill. Runs combine to form creeks, creeks combine to form rivers, rivers pour into oceans and lakes. Water gets bigger on its way downhill. The dead end is a spring, it flows downhill from there

6

For the second one, do you need that many rings? Would using less still be correct?

5

Depends on the rest of the map. These are usually set up so the rings mean a certain consistent difference in elevation, say 1ft of 10ft. You don't normally change the spacing partway through the map. If the intervals were 10ft and this was a 20ft peak then you'd obviously have fewer rings than if the intervals were 1ft.

11
The rings are elevation placements. Less would be "correct in that they'd still signify elevations, it's just less detailed.

For example, the widest ring might be an elevation of 2470ft while the smallest ring might be 2570ft. If there are no rings in between, it's still correct, you're just not getting very detailed. You could easily be looking at a perfect sloap on all sides, like a smooth cone. But place 9 rings in between at 10ft more of elevation each, you've got a much more detailed idea of how a mountain or hill is shaped.

So, correct, but not very useful.

10
- Utility may be subjective, but sloap perfection is forever.
  
  2
“Fewer.”

rip stannus

1

This is pretty helpful for something like Zelda for me

4

Throw some height in there and we'll have a real party going

1

What's the joke?

1