Colour Basics for GIS Users

An essential handbook that provides a step-by-step guide to the use of colour for GIS users and cartographers.

All GIS users face the task of visualising the results of complex analysis, but the wealth of options available can be overwhelming. Even if a user manages to pick suitable colours on screen, the printed result often proves inaccurate and unusable. Brown and Feringa have put together a concise guide to the use of colour for all GIS users, cartographers and those involved in remote sensing. The handbook explains the importance of colour, how it can be input, then manipulated, and most importantly, displayed. The authors also include an essentail colour chart produced by the ITC - this colour chart is the definitive version used by GIS users worldwide.

Colour Basics for GIS Users

SEE IT IN CONTEXT

is an accessible and comprehensive text that brings together all aspects of colour science and technology, relevant to GIS and cartography.

SEE IT IN FOCUS

As the study of colour is a very wide subject the main aim of the authors is to bring the subject together and give it a focus suitable for GIS users and thus avoid what would otherwise require the study of many different sources.

SEE IT IN CLARITY

GIS users frequently wrestle with the problem of how to make clear, attractive visualisations of the results of complex analyses. Having finally produced something that on the computer screen looks acceptable, it is surprising how others do not understand these colour schemes, or there is disappointment when the printed result has a totally different colour balance. This book has been written and designed to help overcome these difficulties.

Features

· comprehensive through bringing together all aspects of colour relevant to GIS users

· vividly explains the differences among the different colour spaces in common use and illustrates the most important of these

· up to date, contains much new material, especially in the chapters on colour charts and colour use

· contains brief, well-illustrated descriptions of how input and output devices deal with colour

· succinctly explains the construction and use of colour charts

· highlights examples of good and bad colour use in GIS and cartography

A companion website supports the text with links to other sites and with demonstrations of colour on monitors to compare with the printed versions in the book.

The Authors

Allan Brown (M.A) and Wim Feringa both teach in the Geoinformatics programme at the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), Enschede, The Netherlands