I have recently freaked out a little bit about Martian maps of all sorts. And finally I was astonished with those highly detailed beauties that I list below. Nonetheless. some of them have huge inconsistencies (crater names) easily noticed when we compare the surroundings of Gusev crater. Enjoy:
http://www.ralphaeschliman.com/
http://planetologia.elte.hu/1cikkeke.phtml...arsmapinte.html
http://pubs.usgs.gov/imap/i2782/
Full Version: Martian Cartography
karolp, I have looked at these maps, and I don't see any real discrepancy with the names - I only checked around the Gusev area, since you mentioned it.
The apparent difference is caused by the fact that these maps only use a selectuion of all available names. Each map has a slightly different selection. For instance, the multilingual map from Hungary does not include the name 'de Vaucouleurs'. You need larger scale maps to include all the names which have been assigned to Mars. The USGS set at 1:5,000,000 is a good start, but of course there is the problem of updating.
Phil
The apparent difference is caused by the fact that these maps only use a selectuion of all available names. Each map has a slightly different selection. For instance, the multilingual map from Hungary does not include the name 'de Vaucouleurs'. You need larger scale maps to include all the names which have been assigned to Mars. The USGS set at 1:5,000,000 is a good start, but of course there is the problem of updating.
Phil
I like the second USGS map.
Click to view attachment
Nice hill shading, nice subtle colors, not the usual fully-saturated acid-trip color schemes you see in a lot of NASA images. My one criticism is that the hypsometric color pallette should go from dark to light monotonically with altitude. It's a little confusing that you go from light brown to dark brown and back to light brown again as you head up the Tharsis rise. Things to keep in mind when making your own maps.
Here are two wonderful sites about map making, full of good ideas and wise advice:
The National Park Service: Shaded Relief
History and techniques: Relief Shading. Explore this site, check out the section on Cartographers and examples of their work. What a fascinating art.
For example, look at this amazing projection of a map of Europe designed by Heinrich Berann:
Click to view attachment
(By the way, to yank pictures out of the annoying pdf files, you can use PDFExtractTiff by verypdf.com)
Click to view attachment
Nice hill shading, nice subtle colors, not the usual fully-saturated acid-trip color schemes you see in a lot of NASA images. My one criticism is that the hypsometric color pallette should go from dark to light monotonically with altitude. It's a little confusing that you go from light brown to dark brown and back to light brown again as you head up the Tharsis rise. Things to keep in mind when making your own maps.
Here are two wonderful sites about map making, full of good ideas and wise advice:
The National Park Service: Shaded Relief
History and techniques: Relief Shading. Explore this site, check out the section on Cartographers and examples of their work. What a fascinating art.
For example, look at this amazing projection of a map of Europe designed by Heinrich Berann:
Click to view attachment
(By the way, to yank pictures out of the annoying pdf files, you can use PDFExtractTiff by verypdf.com)
Here are two constant-scale natural boundary maps of Mars showing color topography.
CSNB maps are made by a geometrical method of my own devising. These of Mars were suggested by Rene de Hon at the 2003 ISPRS meeting in Houston.
The "Mars as a dale" CSNB map has as its edge the primary ridges of the southern highlands. It's the view from the top down, so to speak, from the edge of the map inward.
The Mars as a hill" CSNB map has as its edge the primary valley-lines of the northern lowlands. It's the view from the bottom up, relative to the edge of the map inward.
The dividing line of the crustal dichotomy thus occurs as a ring around the middle of each map.
The maps or as twins, mirrored points of view.
The accompanying cylindrical insets show the boundaries of the respective CSNB maps.
Cheers
CSNB maps are made by a geometrical method of my own devising. These of Mars were suggested by Rene de Hon at the 2003 ISPRS meeting in Houston.
The "Mars as a dale" CSNB map has as its edge the primary ridges of the southern highlands. It's the view from the top down, so to speak, from the edge of the map inward.
The Mars as a hill" CSNB map has as its edge the primary valley-lines of the northern lowlands. It's the view from the bottom up, relative to the edge of the map inward.
The dividing line of the crustal dichotomy thus occurs as a ring around the middle of each map.
The maps or as twins, mirrored points of view.
The accompanying cylindrical insets show the boundaries of the respective CSNB maps.
Cheers
About three years ago, I've written an article on mapping the planet Mars and its Moons (with cylindrical projections of Phobos and Deimos provided by Philip Stooke 
), more specifically about producing 3D models of the planet (4 foot diameter globes) and the Moons (made by Ralph Turner). E-mail me if You wont those articles in .pdf format...
), more specifically about producing 3D models of the planet (4 foot diameter globes) and the Moons (made by Ralph Turner). E-mail me if You wont those articles in .pdf format...
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