Woodward’s Wisconsin Map and the Shaded Relief Archive



Woodward's Wisconsin relief map Via Daniel Huffman comes word that David Woodward’s relief map of Wisconsin, first published in 1971, is now available for download on the Shaded Relief Archive. The archive, the brainchild of Tom Patterson, who previously gave us the Shaded Relief website (previously), and Bernhard Jenny, is a collection of scanned manually shaded relief maps — relief maps before computers came along.

Our dual goals are giving cartographers a stylish option to generic digital shaded relief — manual relief often provides a clearer picture of major terrain features, especially at small scales, as shown in this comparison. And scanning the best hand-drawn relief before it is permanently lost. We are in a race against time. Mapping organizations having now shifted to digital production are discarding photomechanical materials, including manual shaded relief. Much of this beautiful art deserves to be used by future mapmakers.

Some lovely stuff in there.

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