Northern Virginia Roll Call

No stupid about it as I've witnessed it first hand as a civilian and fully understand where you're coming from! Thanks for your service.

 

Thank you for Thankn' me.

 

This is a hell of a time to move an old bed outta the house, and a new one in.

 

I saw when I took my wife up the easy route over the summer. She didn't want to go out that way, so we went back the easy route. I think this may be my way out.

 

Right on. it's a good time down the mountain. 1-2 water crossings towards the bottom, Assuming water is flowing across 'em. Not always tho.

 

Are my eyes fucked up or is the shading on this map making the elevation/contours lines look reversed? The road follows a ridgeline but it looks like a valley and the elevation changes are going up but it looks like a valley instead of a ridge.

This looks more natural to my eyes.

 

Weird. Now I look at the original map and it looks correct. Like my eyes got reset or some shit.

 

Which road? The one down to switzer is a valley.

 

The main Forest Service rd that runs up to FPK. Dunkle Hollow criss crosses the valley on it's way down to the lake. But like I said, everything looks correct now. Some weird optical illusion thing going on with my eyes. Need more coffee.

 

Lmao. Fair enough.

 

I thought the same thing. I had to follow the elevation lines. Also pre-coffee.

 

I hear you! I retired back in 2010 and I look back on the crap days fondly....character building moments right?!?! It's gonna go into my box of stories I throw at the kids later on in life....you know. "I used to walk up hill both ways to school in the snow!"

 

It's been a long time for me since learning about topos (love using them of course), but doesn't the shading have something to do with East/West also? Please educate me if I'm wrong on that.

 

I didn't think so. I always just associated the shading with a rough indication of how much vegetation/tree cover there was.

 

I found this on the wiki.

 

And here's an example of with and without shading. Now take all this with a grain of salt as I'm just pulling this from Wikipedia.

 

Top one is the format I learned to read maps on.

 

Shaded relief, or hill-shading, shows the shape of the terrain in a realistic fashion by showing how the three-dimensional surface would be illuminated from a point light source. The shadows normally follow the convention of top-left lighting in which the light source is placed near the upper-left corner of the map. If the map is oriented with north at the top, the result is that the light appears to come from the north-west. Although this is unrealistic lighting in the northern hemisphere, using a southern light source can cause multistable perception illusions, in which the topography appears inverted.[8]

This is what I used to do as a manual cartographer. Back in the day we'd have sheets of thin aluminum and special tools to push up the ridges and push down the valleys. Once done, the sheet would be placed under a light source to replicate sun thus creating the "shade" you see. It was then photographed and processed into the final map product...

I certainly hope not, those grid lines are fucked!!

 

Damn! Did I opened up a can of worms.

I will never post a pic of a map again in topo form. Haha just kidding, I do like the topo. Just a ME thang.

That said, For the most part, I associate shading (in mountainous terrain topo’s) as east to west, with the sun in the west. Being the east side of the hill/mountain in the shade. Am I right or wrong??? Who knows, just works for me. At the same time. On a flatter terrains with vegetation.

I guess this also would be where I was in the country as well. The difference being, trees and mountainous terrain in the east. and rocky/desert in the south western part of the US.

As for the lighting the way a topo map is made (top left and down to the bottom right) I don’t really pay attention to that. My reasoning is.. Well, the closer to the equator and south of it, the map lighting plays in. The farther north you are, not so much, Unless you start taking into account this here blue ball we are on is also rotating on a little angle.

So, then again, the map lighting and shading does play in to a point.

So I just subscribe to what works for me.

Did I confuse you all, or do I sound like an idiot?

My Nat. Geo. Topo hard copy map for the fun of it under bad lighting.



Edit: The original topo pic was in google maps, changed over to the terrain feature.

 

With the new fuel pump, the truck really drives differently. Gas lag is almost non existent compared to how it was.

Anyone else experience this?