Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Karl Mayek, Cartographer

Cartographer Karl Mayek at work, “Schweiz”, scale 1:350,000. © Orell Füssli Kartographie AG.

Section of Mayek’s shading.

Unfinished shaded relief drawn with a pencil.

Originally, a simple pencil was the only tool needed to draw shaded relief. Although pencils do not yield pure black tones, using supplementary black ink can sufficiently darken the shadows on the highest mountain peaks.

The opposite end of the tonal scale exhibits a similar problem. Pure white is not achievable with pencil because even the brightest papers contain pallid tones. As a solution, adding supplementary dabs of white paint emphasizes the brightest illuminated slopes.

The very high expense in terms of time and money of manual drawing excludes it from widespread use today. A better and faster method to obtain high quality shaded relief is by combining analytical shading with enhancements made in Photoshop.

Source is Relief Shading

History

17^th Century – First Relief Shading by Gyger

Shaded reliefs are already found in early manuscript maps. However they could not be reproduced for want of usable methods. One of the most famous examples is the map “Grosse Landtafel des Kantons Zürich” (Great Land Board of the Canton of Zurich; 1664–67) by Hans Conrad Gyger, which he had worked on for about 38 years. It is a pen drawing combined with Gouache painting in a scale of approximately 1:32,000. Its relevance lies both in its accuracy and in its display of the topography in a naturalistic manner.

19^th Century – Relief shading using lithography

Only with the invention of lithography in 1798 it became possible to print half-tones. It is unknown when the first relief shading was printed. Already in 1826 Franz von Hauslab discussed the pros and cons of relief shading in a report. A highlight within the range of small-scaled maps is the Atlas of Japan by Brune Hassenstein, which has been published by Perthes in Gotha in 1885–87.
Cartographers began to combine relief shading with other means of terrain display. Different suggestions using coloured altitudinal belts were submitted. In the second half ot the 19^th century diagonal illumination became prevalent over vertical illumination. In 1904 Hermann Kümmerly caused a stir with his school wall map of Switzerland in the scale of 1:400,000. It deploys aerial perspective in the so-called Swiss style.
The excursion maps of the Swiss Alpine Club have been produced exclusively using stone engraving and lithography (for the shaded relief). Several maps are enhanced with a multi-coloured relief and rock representation. A few examples of these beautiful topographic maps are shown in the section Swiss Alpine Club maps.

20^th Century (first half) – Wenschow process

Nearly at the same time experiments with illuminated three-dimensional relief models were undertaken to derive photographic shaded reliefs. Starting 1925 Karl Wenschow developed a mechanized relief model production process and thus became one of the most well-known representatives of this art. Because of numerous disadvantages, mainly economic ones, mechanized relief shading never became established.

20^th Century (second half) – Airbrush and first analytical attempts

After World War II many reliefs are drawn by airbrush. Since the end of the 20^th century new relief shadings are mostly generated using the computer by analytically computing a shaded relief from digital elevation models. Afterwards, the relief is often locally refined using a raster editor with systematic interventions. Shaded reliefs in topographic maps are mainly held in grey tones, whilst coloured variants are still often found in school atlases.

Source Relief Shading

History of Terrain Models

Model of Munich (Germany) 1:616, 186 x 200 cm, made of painted lime-tree wood, Jakob Sandtner, 1572,

Bavarian National Museum

Relief of the Bernese Oberland (Switzerland) 1:25,000, 76 x 100 cm, Xaver Imfeld, 1908,

Swiss Alpine Museum

History of terrain models

The first moulded terrain models were created for military purposes. Towns and fortifications were predominantly modelled, but also larger territories. Emperor Maximilian I. (1459–1540) for example induced the manufacturing of four primitive terrain models of the eastern Alps during 1500–1540 by P. Dax [1] and Pope Clemens VII used a cork model of Florence created by Benvenuto di Lorenzo della Volpaia and Niccolò Tribolo to plan his siege of 1529/30 [2]. Venice became the first centre of relief modelling in the middle of the 16th century. Nearly 200 models were created to depict the possessions of the Venetian Doges in the Levant. [3]In Germany, Duke Albert V of Bavaria ordered Jakob Sandtner to fashion four town reliefs between 1568 and 1574. [4]

In Paris, Sébastian Vauban (1633–1707), the famous French fortification engineer of King Louis XIV, had outstanding accurate models be made of all his constructions and their environs [5]. But also fortified cities of potential enemies and models of mountain regions were created. Both Paris and Venice in Italy were centres of terrain modelling [6]. These military models as well as topographic maps were not open to the public and of course top secret.

For a long time, topographic maps were very rare and the problem of the representation of the third dimension was not simple to manage on maps. Especially in hilly and mountainy regions it was less difficult to create a three-dimensional model of the earth’s surface than to translate it into a two-dimensional map.

Whereas today a terrain model is usually shaped after the contour lines of a map, the approach at the end of the 18^th century was reverse. The greater part of the “Atlas Suisse par Meyer et Weiss”, the most accurate map of Switzerland during the first half of the 19^th century, based on a terrain model of a great area of the Swiss Alps created by Joachim Eugen Müller (1752–1833). [7]

The art of terrain modelling in Switzerland reached a first peak towards the end of the 19^th century. Prerequisites for this evolution were several new technical achievements like reliable contour maps of the whole country, the invention of photography, the upcoming alpinism and the strengthened scientific interest of geologists.

Between 1880 and 1940 Swiss relief modellers like Xaver Imfeld (1853–1909), Carl Meili (1871–1919) and Eduard Imhof (1895–1986) created a lot of impressive relief works.

Whereas large scale models benefitted from the use of photographs depicting even the smallest details, the production of small scale models was facilitated by the use of a pantograph. At the end of the 19^th century, this method allowed milling out a model from a block of plaster, using the contour lines of a map to guide the milling cutter. Based on the pantograph, Karl Wenschow (1884–1947) developed a method to rapidly produce a large amount of accurate terrain models by pressing paper-moulds using the die stamping technique.

During World War II the Allies produced huge amounts of terrain models using different techniques. These models provided crucial information for the landing operations in North Africa and Normandy.

After World War II a procedure using vacuum formedplastic sheets had been developed in the USA to produce cheap reliefs in large quantities. Maps of the corresponding area where printed on the plastic sheets before their forming. This technique is still used today.

In the last few years, a new technology emerged, allowing the entire model to be generated directly by a computer-controlled 3D-printer. Different printing techniques producing uncoloured terrain models exist, which are all subsumed under the label Rapid Prototyping. A technique to paint the model after forming has also been developed.

[1] Gygax, Fritz. Das topographische Relief in der Schweiz. 1937. S.14 and Grün, W.-D.. Kretschmer, Ingrid. Relief. 1986.

[2] Stempien, David C.. Terrain models as battlefield visualization training tools. 2002. p.33. and Gottschewski, Adolf (ed.). Die Lebensbeschreibungen der berühmten Architekten, Bildhauer und Maler. Die italienischen Architekten und Bildhauer des 16. Jahrhunderts. Band VII. Strassburg 1910. S.229,230. a German translation of: Vasari, Giorgio. Delle vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori. Firenze 1568.

[3] Gerola, Giuseppe. I Plastici di fortezze venete al museo storico navale di Venezia. In: Atti del reale istituto veneto di scienze. Lettere ed arti. 1930,31. p.217-221. cited after Roux, Antoine de. et al.. Les plans en relief des places du roy. 1989. p.22.

[4] http://www.bayerisches-nationalmuseum.de/Win/d/d.htm access 19.3.2006. and Reuther, Hans. Wesen und Wandel des Architekturmodells in Deutschland. In: Daidalos, II. Gütersloh 1987. cited after Roux, Antoine de. et al.. Les plans en relief des places du roy. 1989. p.22.

[5] Imhof, Eduard. Bildhauer der Berge. 1981. S.107.

[6] Grün, W.-D.. Kretschmer, Ingrid. Relief. 1986.

[7] See also Imhof, Eduard. Bildhauer der Berge. 1981. and Caminada, Paul. Pioniere der Alpentopographie. 2003.

Terrain Models

Glass Relief

It is possible to simulate a three-dimensional relief via stacked glass layers. Each glass layer, often consisting of a transparent plastic sheet, corresponds to one elevation level. Several layers stacked vertically can represent a three-dimensional object. All layers together form a transparent block and the features depicted seem to be suspended. The steps originating from the discrete layers cannot be eliminated. In such manner, it is possible to easily create reliefs derived from contour maps by gluing maps on the layers: For each contour level, a map cut along the corresponding contour is glued on a new layer. Instead of using maps it is also possible to draw directly onto the glass.

This technique allows depicting even tiny details like the framework of a latticework bridge as well as caves, mines or tunnels.

This article bases on Terrain models and relief map making. 1956. p.53-62. and Mühle, Helmut. Manuelle Geländemodell-Herstellungsverfahren unter Berücksichtigung des Standes der Technik. 1963. S.44,45,53.

Relief of St. Gallen and Appenzell (Switzerland) as illustration of a map, 1:500,000, vertical scale 1:200,000, Carl August Schöll, about 1855,
Swiss Alpine Museum

A little pocket relief that could be taken along during a trip facilitated the navigation of people untrained in interpreting maps. Particularly before the circulation of contour maps, a little model of the terrain could help finding one's way in mountainous regions. Carl August Schöll (1810–1878) created such a relief based on a map of 1813 created by Heinrich Keller (1778–1862).

Source Terrain Models

Claes Oldenburg, Born 1929 Sweden

Soft Alphabet, 1978

41 sand-filled, sewn cloth pieces in wooden box, drawing screen print on box lid

29.21 x 22.2 x 2.83 inches

SOFT MANHATTAN #1 (POSTAL ZONES), 1966

stencilled canvas filled with Kapok

70 x 26 x 4 inches

Soft Manhattan #2 (Tactile Form of the New York Subway Map) 1966
Canvas filled with kapok, patterned with spray enamel; wood
68 x 32 x 7 inches
Private Collection

source Zwirner and Wirth