Image Maps

Surfer image maps use different colors to represent elevations of a grid file. Surfer automatically blends colors between percentage values so you end up with a smooth color gradation over the entire map. You can add color anchors at any percentage point between 0 and 100. Each anchor point can be assigned a unique color, and the colors are automatically blended between adjacent anchor points.

This powerful feature allows you to create color maps using any combination of colors. Add a color scale to show the values of the different colors! Image maps can be created independently of other maps, or can be combined with other map layers. They can be scaled, resized, limited and moved.

surfer-image 2

Customize your image map by adding color, including a color scale, and
overlaying it with other map layers to make the map as informative as
possible! The above map is created from an image map of Colorado
elevation overlaid with a base map layer showing the county boundaries.

Image Map Features

  • Display pixel maps or smoothed images
  • Save and load custom color map files for the exact desired display
  • Use one of the built-in presets as the color map
  • Create an associated color scale
  • Overlay image maps with contour, post, or base maps
  • Specify a color for missing data, or choose to make areas of no data transparent
  • Change the rotation and tilt angles
  • Adjust the layer opacity

surfer-image 3

Colorful and smooth image maps can be combined with base maps and
contour maps to create informative displays. Image courtesy of Igor
Yashayaev, Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Canada.

Hillshading

Display image maps with hill shading for a 3D effect!