GMT The Generic Mapping Tools and SRTM data
I have seen with envy the beautiful maps in Wikipedia created by Captain Blood a Wikipedia contributor and wonder.
Rhodes
Could I do maps like that?
Yea! Otherwise I would not be writing this!
To do something like it you will need GMT (Generic Mapping Tools) and the SRTM data (Shuttle Radar Topography Mission)
Here I will describe what to do to create very nice maps like the ones displayed above from Wikipedia using first the datasets etopo2.grd and data from the National Geophysical Data Center (NGDC).
Later I got also ETOPO1 dataset (bathymetry) and the SRTM data with the objective of producing even better maps.
The respective resolutions for these datasets are
ETOPO2 (Resolution 2′ = 3,6km)
GLOBE (Resolution 30″ = 0,9km)
SRTM3 (Resolution 3″ = 90m)
There is also SRTM1 for USA and territories with a Resolution of 1″ = 30m
The first thing to do for me was to get Cygwin since GMT needs to runs on a UNIX like environment and I got Cygwin from http://www.cygwin.com/ since I was trying to run GMT from windows Vista.
You also need to get the NetCDF libraries from http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/software/netcdf/
When you installed Cygwin you need to install the gcc compiler and perl for the scripts that we will use.
GMT is an open source GIS (Geographical Information System) collection of about 60 programs you could get for free from the Hawaii University. http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/
As can be seen from all the pieces that are needed the task is a bit complex but do not despair since the end result will be your own free mapping system!
To get the GLOBE tiles you should go to http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/topo/gltiles.html
To get the ETOPO2 you will need to get access to http://dss.ucar.edu/datasets/ds759.3/data/
Once you have got everything installed then you should be able to use the scripts at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Captain_Blood/GMT_Example also see the notes I placed on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Captain_Blood/GMT_Example and should also be able to run this nice perl script to use with the SRTM data from http://www.anandarooproy.com/gmt/
by getting the file getsrtm that containt two perl programs one for SRTM1 and another for SRTM3.
For another place to get SRTM data see
http://srtm.csi.cgiar.org/SELECTION/inputCoord.asp
December 19, 2009 at 1:27 am
Hello, my name is Mihai and i’m from Roumania. I’m sorry for my english but I hope to understand me.
I saw the map made by Captain Blood “AntikeGriechen1.png” at wikipedia and I send you this e-mail to please you to help me with a blank version of this map without the cities colonies name.
I don’t know to make maps and I’d like if you are kind to help me. My yahoo messenger ID is: tyras1980@yahoo.com and I hope to talk with you or if you are kind to send me on my e-mail tyras1980@yahoo.com this file. (.jpg, .png no mater, is better if the map can have a High resolution and the north will be until yhe Norway).
Is better the map to don’t have borders,cities name, river name or mountains name on it.
Thank you very much and I apologize for inconvenience!
I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!