First off, thanks a ton for this data! It’s an amazing resource for cartographers.
I have a question (or request really) regarding the river with scale ranks + tapering. Could someone please post a brief description of how you create your taper effects?
I know of two basic techniques for doing this in Adobe Illustrator: 1) use some classification (stream order or “StrokeWeig” attribute) to break the rivers into different sections and apply varying stroke thicknesses. This looks ok but isn’t very smooth. 2) Create a special art brush in Illustrator that tapers the line thickness. Apply to river segments to be tapered. This has a smooth transition and ends in a nice fine taper, but there are issues with its application to very sinewy lines (see my post from CartoTalk here: http://www.cartotalk.com/index.php?showtopic=5313&hl= ). Lots of knock outs where the lines pinch or loop.
If you have any tips or tricks for how to create great looking river tapers please share!
Thanks,
David
We break our linework up into sections to get that effect. If they are broken on straight line sections, this is “good enough”. Often is just needs to be done at the headwaters to get the right look. Brushes will improve with time.
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