Arda

Maps of J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle Earth, using a DEM (Digital Elevation Model), which is a 10k x 10k pixel black and white jpeg image, and place name vectors.

This project was originally created by users on the Outerra Worlds Forum - monks and Redrobes created the DEM using real-world 3d elevation data, hand-editing, and simulated erosion; and monks, SeerBlue, and Redrobes created the place names.

Arda was the name of the entire world, which included the part known as Middle Earth.

Goals

• Make colored elevation maps with hillshading
• Make name placement and size similar to Tolkien's maps
• Use as detailed maps for Adventures in Middle Earth (D&D 5e) games

Data

The folder 'data' includes:

• arda.qgs - the XML project file for QGIS - it describes where to find the raster and vector layers, and how to color the map. Note: you can also use .qgz to save the project, but that is a zip file and I had wanted to use the XML version to try to conserve space in the git repo. As it is though, QGIS doesn't seem to maintain attribute order in the XML, so the text diffs can be large.

• arda_attachments.zip - auxiliary project data stored in a sqlite database, eg for custom overrides to labels. This is a QGD file, and would be included in a .qgz file.

• rasters

  • 10k.jpg - black and white jpg DEM file with 10k x 10k pixels. The entire map covers 2000km on each side, so the resolution is 200m/pixel.
  • 10k.jpg.aux.xml - some metadata
  • 10k.wld - defines how the DEM corresponds to the map coordinate system as used by the vector data. This is currently slightly off - improvements could be made.
  • hillshade.jpg - the hillshade image rendered from the elevation data.
  • hillshade.jpg.aux.xml - some metadata

• vectors

  • contours.gpkg - GeoPackage file with elevation contours
  • vectors.gpkg - GeoPackage file with layers for place names, rivers, roads, forests, mountains, cities, etc.

Resolution

The entire map covers 2000km on each axis, so the resolution of the 10k x 10k DEM is 200m/pixel. Somewhere there is also a 40k x 40k DEM version with 50m/pixel resolution.

Font

The font is Tolkien, originally from https://fontzone.net/font-details/tolkien.

Installing

Clone this repo

git clone https://github.com/bburns/Arda.git
cd Arda

Note: if you just want to look around without making edits, you can save repo space with a shallow clone -

git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/bburns/Arda.git

Install the Tolkien font (fonts/Tolkien.ttf) in your system - eg in Windows, right click on the file and say Install.

Install QGIS

Open data/arda.qgs in QGIS

You can turn different layers on and off, adjust opacity, change the map colors, add labels, etc.

Building

If you change the DEM and need to rebuild the hillshade layer - Raster / Analysis / Hillshade - enter a Z factor (vertical exaggeration) of 100.0 and click Run. Then adjust the global opacity of the resulting layer to 50% - Layer Styling sidebar / Transparency / Global Opacity. This allows the underlying colored map to show through.

Todo

• Add river sizes in meters and render widths accordingly
• Make map views for the Hobbit (overview, The Shire, Eriador, Misty Mountains, Mirkwood)
• Make map views for The Lord of the Rings corresponding to travels
• Explain QGIS and pull requests for shapefile data in readme
• Switch easily between colorful and minimal color versions - how do?
• Get access to 40k x 40k DEM (50m/px) version
• Render to tiles for Google Maps-like site, using Leaflet - try vector map tiles and mapboxGL? include search index

History

Some users on the Outerra Worlds Forum created the original project, called ME-DEM.

monks and Redrobes created the DEM using real-world 3d elevation data, hand-editing, and simulated erosion.

monks, SeerBlue, and Redrobes created the place names.

jvangeld took over project maintenance.

bburns made the project Arda - added curved Tolkienesque labels, colored the different elevations, and added a hillshade layer.

andewheiss took over project maintenance for the old vector layers - https://github.com/andrewheiss/ME-GIS - so these need to be merged...

tetrakai1 fixed accent characters and moved the shapefiles into geopackage files

License

This project is MIT, though the original 3d DEM elevation data (10k.jpg) and vector layers are uncertain.