Golden Software Blog

Cross sections are an important tool in illustrating subsurface geology.  Among the many new features added to Strater 5 are several new cross section options including water level display, retaining custom levels, and adding wells to an existing cross section. This blog will address how a new well can be added to a cross section. For this example, we will use the Cross Section.sdg sample file that ships with Strater.

The Strater 5 sample file “Cross Section.sdg” contains a cross section with four wells, well headers, two inset maps, a horizontal cross section, a depth log, and a legend. We will further manipulate this file by adding a new well and reshaping the default layers.

There many methods for displaying contour lines in visualization and GIS software programs. In most cases, representing terrain data with standard contours or hillshading techniques are sufficient. In other cases, you may want a more artistic technique to help emphasize specific features in the data or to make the map more pleasing to the eye. One of these techniques is using the Tanaka method for creating illuminated contours. I recently read an article about how to create illuminated contours in ArcGIS and couldn’t resist trying to replicate the results in Surfer's mapping software.

The Tanaka method applies a northwest light source to a contour map. The contour lines then change in color and width based on their relationship to the light source. Contour lines facing the light source are drawn in white while those in the shadow are drawn in black. The contour lines facing the light source (or facing away from it) are thicker, and the contour lines in the orthogonal direction are thinner. A more detailed explanation of the method can be found online at: http://www.mbmg.mtech.edu/pdf/gis_illum.pdf

As December ushers in snowy days and fewer daylight hours, I find I am grateful for every minute of sunshine I can get.  Even ten minutes outside in the sun can renew my energy for the remainder of the day.  I grew up in the Midwest where winters often consist of many grey snowy days and very few opportunities to enjoy the sun.  As a result, I find winters in Colorado much brighter and happier.

As the days got shorter and shorter before the winter solstice, I found myself wondering which areas in the U.S. receive the most sunshine each year.  I found some historical sunshine and cloud data online consisting of the total hours of sunshine each month at over 250 monitoring locations in the U.S collected between 1908 and 1992.   I used this data to calculate the average number of sunny days per year at each location and then plotted the results as a gradient map in MapViewer 8 GIS software.

High resolution imagery and a shapefile draped over a HeightField in Voxler.

Voxler mapping software is Golden Software’s premier 3D volumetric modeling program. Voxler mapping software does an excellent job generating detailed 3D models by seamlessly combining your XYZC point data, Surfer grids, DEMS, and well data in true 3D space. With the latest release of Voxler, there is now a way to incorporate GIS imagery and vector files into the 3D context of your project. You can now add image overlays and vector overlays that drape over any 3D surface or HeightField.