Olympia, Washington LIDAR Map

This is a map that I created of Olympia, Washington, by combining modern LIDAR and Satellite Imagery with the aesthetics of an antique, late 19th century map.

I used LIDAR data to create the shading that gives this a 3D look. The elevation data includes both topography and bathymetry, so you get to see the depth and features of much of the sea floor as clearly as you can see the hills and fields on land. This high resolution data is only a few years old and isn;t available for all areas yet. As a result, some of the seafloor is much sharper resolution than the rest and some areas can show patterns which are artifacts of the data aqcuisition process.

One thing I really like about viewing this map is the way it highlights the signatures of the glaciers that created Puget Sound and shaped the surrounding areas. Notice the way the glaciers scraped the land into ridges and grooves (drumlins and glacial striations) that line up with the glaciers flow southward. The line are most evident on the peninsulas that reach out into the sound (toward Steamboat Island for example), but there are some really interesting curved ones just west of Black Lake, in the lower left corner of the map.

The map elements, including the frame style and typefaces, are closely modeled after a map from one of my favorite periods of cartography, the late 19th/early 20th Century. The maps were hand-drawn back then (including the text) which lends them a warmth that’s not common on modern digitally produced maps.

There is no text on the map itself, it has no streets or towns or natural features labeled. This is designed to be an educational art piece rather than a navigational tool, although it does have a latitude/longitude grid.

This map is available as a 18×24 inch museum-quality poster on thick and durable matte paper. Each poster is giclée-printed on archival, acid-free paper that yields brilliant prints to brighten up any room.

-Paper thickness: 10.3 mil (0.26 mm)

-Paper weight: 5.57 oz/yd² (189 g/m²)

-Giclée printing quality