Three Dimensional Landscape Modeling and Environmental Visualization by a Geographer and Cartographer (dual B.S. Geo and B.S. Cart, U of Idaho)
Forty-Seven Years of Experience 1977-2022, University of Idaho, National Geographic Society, U. S. Geological Survey, cartographic and geographic research
Now retired, this is my hobby of creating shaded relief landscape graphics on a computer, as doing this by hand and brush requires months of work!
"Three-dimensional thinking and analysis in the geospatial sciences: design, modeling and printing / framing for over 40 years. I wrote my first Fortran 4 program on a IBM 360, with perforated paper tape, back in 1968 in The Hague, Netherlands. When I came back to The States, all they taught was the mandatory typing class! On to the University of Idaho for geography and computer mapping on a IBM 370 with card decks and Calcomp plotters with SYMVU, SYMAP and CALFORM, and shaded relief overprinted characters on line printers. At the National Geographic Society, Cartographic Division, I continued map assembly with quarterly Magazine inserts but learned shaded relief techniques from artist Tibor Toth, who hand painted, and his protege John Bonner, who airbrushed, and began painting map relief art at home by hand, in my spare time. At the Office of Research at U. S. Geological Survey under Dr. Joel Morrison, I helped convert manual cartography to digital processes with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and added research in GIScience with NCGIS and UCGIS. I am knowledgeable of the cartographic design, assembly processes, computers and software, used to build 3D models and generate large-format images and fly-through animations from large area environmental models … but now in retirement, I continue cartography as a hobby by processing and painting with the old and reliable digital brush, … a trackball." Dave Catts