Inverse reliefs in virtual globes

Authors

  • Miguel Bernabé-Poveda, Dr. Secretaría Nacional de Enseñanza Superior, Ciencia y Tecnología (SENESCYT). Gobierno del Ecuador.
  • María Ester González, Dra. Secretaría Nacional de Enseñanza Superior, Ciencia y Tecnología (SENESCYT). Gobierno del Ecuador

Keywords:

false relief, virtual globes, relief inversion, map visualization software

Abstract

Most users of Virtual Globes (Google Maps, Microsoft Bing, Apple Maps etc.) interpret images with an inverse relief (they see ridges that are actually valleys and rivers that are actually mountain ranges) being unaware of it. This happens in 80% of Virtual Globe users who observe land in the Northern Hemisphere. The phenomenon does not occur in the Southern Hemisphere because the land is illuminated by the Sun from the north. The fact that most of the Earth's Northern Hemisphere is illuminated by the Sun from the south makes southern slopes be illuminated and northern slopes be in shadow. This paper aims at showing evidence of this problem, explaining visual perceptual limitations, showing that the effect occurs because the Northern Hemisphere is illuminated from the south and providing some solution that could be easily implemented by those responsible for geoportals that use these Virtual Globes or use their own orthoimagery as georeferencing basis for their geoportals. The wide use made of land pictures offered by Virtual Globes, mainly by Google Maps, and their inclusion in a great number of applications that use land images as a basis to show other land features, require that the land relief perceived by the user should be perceptually adequate. Moreover, these Virtual Globes providing mostly an inverse relief are used in many institutional geoportals (Cadasther, displays of Spatial Data Infrastructures) as the basis for referencing other land features and, therefore, a correct display of the relief is essential

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Miguel Bernabé-Poveda, Dr., Secretaría Nacional de Enseñanza Superior, Ciencia y Tecnología (SENESCYT). Gobierno del Ecuador.

Español. Ingeniero T. en Topografía. Licenciado en Bellas Artes. Doctor en Filosofía y Ciencias de la Educación por la UNED (España). Becario PROMETEO. Secretaría Nacional de Enseñanza Superior, Ciencia y Tecnología (SENESCYT). Gobierno del Ecuador.

María Ester González, Dra., Secretaría Nacional de Enseñanza Superior, Ciencia y Tecnología (SENESCYT). Gobierno del Ecuador

Argentina. Licenciada en Geografía. Doctora en Ingeniería Geográfica por la UPM (España). Becaria PROMETEO. Secretaría Nacional de Enseñanza Superior, Ciencia y Tecnología (SENESCYT). Gobierno del Ecuador.

References

Arnheim, R. (1976). “The Perception of Maps.” Cartography and Geographic Information Science 3: 5–10. doi:10.1559/152304076784080276.
Bernabé-Poveda, M., Manso-Callejo, M., Ballari, D. (2005). “Correction of Relief Inversion in Images Served by a Web Map Server.” In Proceedings of the International Cartographic Conference, ICC 2005, A Caruña, Spain.
Bernabé-Poveda, M., Sánchez-Ortega, I y Cöltekin, A. (2011). “Techniques for Highlighting Relief on Orthoimagery.” Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 21: 346–352. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.07.028.
Bernabé-Poveda, M. y Cöltekin, A. (2014). Prevalence of the terrain reversal effect in satellite imagery . International Journal of Digital Earth,. Mar. 2014.Taylor &Francis. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17538947.2014.942714.
BERTIN, Jacques (1967). Semiologie graphique. Mouton Gautier-Villars, Paris.
Bertin, J. (1988). La gráfica y el tratamiento gráfico de la información. Madrid, Taurus Ediciones.
Imhof, E. (1967). “Shading and Shadows.” In Cartographic Relief Representation, edited by H. J. Steward, 159–212. Redlands, CA: ESRI Press.
Patterson, T (2001). ”See the light: How to make illuminated shaded relief in Photoshop 6.0”. En http://www.shadedrelief.com/illumination/ (activo 16/04/2005)
Patterson, T. (2002). “Getting Real: Reflecting on the New Look of National Park Service Maps”. ICA2002 Mountain Cartography Workshop. Oregon. En //www.reliefshading.com/colors/Realistic_Maps_Patterson.pdf
Patterson, T. y Vaughn, N. (2004). “Hal Shelton Revisted: Designing and Producing Natural-Color Maps with Satellite Land Cover Data”. En Cartographic Perspectives (No. 47, Winter 2004)
Patterson, T (2013). Illumination. A Digital Repository for Cartographic Relief Art. http://www.shadedrelief.com/retro/discussion.html (Accedido en febrero 2015).
Saraf, A, Das, J, Agarwal, B y Sundaram, R. (1996). “False Topography Perception Phenomena and Its Correction.” International Journal of Remote Sensing 17: 3725–3733. doi:10.1080/01431169608949180.
Saraf, A., Shina, S, Ghosh P., y Chourdhury S. (2007). “A New Technique to Remove False Topographic Perception Phenomenon and Its Impacts in Image Interpretation.” International Journal of Remote Sensing 28: 811–821. doi:10.1080/01431160701269796.
Saraf, A, Zia, M, Das, J. Sharma, K y Rawat, V (2011). “False Topographic Perception Phenomena Observed with the Satellite Images of Moon’s Surface.” International Journal of Remote Sensing 32: 9869–9877. doi:10.1080/01431161.2010.550950
Wu, B, Li, H y Gao, Y (2013). “Investigation and Remediation of False Topographic Perception Phenomena Observed on Chang’E-1 Lunar Imagery.” Planetary and Space Science 75: 158–166. doi:10.1016/j.pss.2012.10.018.
Zhou, A, Zhang, X, y Gao, L (2006). “DEM Terrain Reversal.” Geography and Geo-Information Science 22: 42–44.
[1] https://queescondenlasilusionesopticas.wordpress.com/category/ilusiones-opticas/
[2] http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilusi%C3%B3n_auditiva
[3] http://cmccaafauplluch.jimdo.com/los-cinco-sentidos-para-los-m%C3%A1s-peque%C3%B1os/el-tacto/
[4] http://www.monografias.com/trabajos46/vision/vision2.shtml
[5] http://personal.us.es/jcordero/PERCEPCION/Cap02.htm
[6] http://www.reliefshading.com/design/lightdirection.html
[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKa0eaKsdA0

Published

2015-06-01

How to Cite

Bernabé-Poveda, M., & González, M. E. (2015). Inverse reliefs in virtual globes. Ágora De Heterodoxias, 1(1), 72-89. Retrieved from https://revistas.uclave.org/index.php/agora/article/view/275

Issue

Section

Original articles from researches