Mapping Hacks

Mapping Local Areas of Interest with Quantum GIS #64

Chapter 6, Mapping on Your Desktop

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HACK

Click on the Symbology tab, move the transparency slider to the desired

level, and click the Apply button. There are a number of other settings that

can be adjusted. You can modify the colors, invert the color map, and

change the pseudocolor. On the General tab, you can set the display name

for the layer. Right now the display name is set to the filename. You can

change it to something more aesthetically pleasing if you like.

After adjusting the transparency and any other setting you would like to

change, click OK. Now we get a pseudo-3-D effect with the aerial photo and

the topographic layer working together, as shown in Figure 6-5. Notice that

we have changed the display name for the two layers. We also zoomed in a

bit to better display the Burro Canyon area.

Adding Vector Data

The pseudo 3-D image is nice to look at, but we could add more data to the

map that would give us even more information. Some examples might be

GPS tracks or waypoints, cultural features, or other boundaries. There are

numerous sources of free data on the Internet. Since the Grand Canyon is a

National Park, data is available from the National Park Service

Figure 6-4. QGIS’s Raster Layer Properties dialog

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Chapter 6, Mapping ...