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cartographic perspectives 43 Number 43, Fall 2002 Getting Real: Reflecting on the New Look of National Park Service Maps Tom Patterson U.S. National Park Service Harpers Ferry Center Harpers Ferry, WV 25425 t_patterson@nps.gov o make more inviting and understandable maps for general audi- ences, the U.S. National Park Service has been experimenting with cartographically realistic map design. Using rasterized geodata and unconventional image processing techniques, cartographic realism draws inspiration from traditional cartographic art, modern graphic design, ob- servations of nature, and aerial photograph maps. The aim is to combine the best characteristics of imagery and maps into a more intuitive hybrid product. Discussed techniques include aquafication, texture substitution, illuminated relief, and outside land muting. Keywords: Cartographic realism, park landscapes, shaded relief, illumi- nated relief, cartographic art, Walensee, aerial photograph maps, Aitutaki, raster map design. Note on illustrations: The online version of this paper (www.nacis.org/ cp.html) contains color illustrations. Map samples of the described tech- niques are located in the color section at the back of this issue. This paper examines the techniques being developed by the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) Harpers Ferry Center for designing plan (2D) maps with a faux realistic look. The NPS produces tourist maps for 388 parks in a system spanning a large swath of the Earth's surface from the Caribbean to Alaska to the South Pacific, and which is visited by nearly 300 million people each year. Many park visitors are inexperienced map readers and non-English speakers. In our ongoing effort to make NPS maps accessible to everyone, the design of NPS maps has become less abstract and increas- ingly realistic, particularly in the depiction of mountainous terrain and natural landscapes (Figure 1). Many of the techniques discussed herein are borrowed from or inspired by 3D mapping (Patterson, 1999). However, the scope of my paper deals exclusively with plan mapping—a format that has received scant attention in the digital era in regard to abstract vs. realistic depiction compared to the 3D world. It is also the format in which the majority of NPS maps will continue to be made. Cartographic Realism As one would expect, the term "realism" occurs frequently throughout this paper. It is important to define the meaning of this term in the carto- graphic context before continuing. Webster's New World Dictionary defines realism, in the artistic sense, as: The picturing in art and literature of people and things as it is thought they really are, without idealizing. Applying this definition to maps is problematic because all maps (and even many remotely sensed images) are idealized representations of the Earth and are inherently abstract. On the other hand, most of us would agree that some maps appear more realistic and are more intuitively comprehensible than others. For example, a shaded relief map with terrain represented by softly modulated light and shadows appears more realistic than a contour map with a multitude of isolines connecting points of equal INTRODUCTION "In our ongoing effort to make NPS maps accessible to everyone, the design of NPS maps has become less abstract and increasingly realistic, particularly in the depiction of mountainous terrain and natural landscapes."

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