Drawing a Topographical Map

Question

I\'ve been working on a visualization project for 2-dimensional continuous data. It\'s the kind of thing you could use to study elevation data or temperature patterns on a 2

Answer 1

Write the data out as an HGT file (very simple digital elevation data format used by USGS) and use the free and open-source gdal_contour tool to create contours. That works very well for terrestrial maps, the constraint being that the data points are signed 16-bit numbers, which fits the earthly range of heights in metres very well, but may not be enough for your data, which I assume not to be a map of actual terrain - although you do mention terrain maps.