Did you know that the oldest maps were the original topographic plans of the terrain, painted with a pointed wand, a feather, coal, ash, blood.
Later they became the basis for mapping. In this article, we will analyze what a plan of the terrain is.
The science of mapping is called cartography. The history of this interesting field of knowledge lasts for centuries. Maps were applied to a variety of surfaces:
Now everyone knows that a geographic map is an image of the earth's surface on a plane in a reduced form. Let's look at it in more detail.
Earlier it was mentioned that primitive plans were the progenitors of modern maps. The component of any of them will have to answer a number of questions before plotting the terrain plan:
After all, each such plan requires the use ofspecial conventional signs adopted as a basis throughout the world. But first you need to decide on the scale, and after that you need to choose the place from which the topographer will be perfectly visible the entire site, the plan of which is planned to be drawn. By the way, when plotting a terrain plan, the curvature of the earth's surface is not taken into account.
And did you know that a variety of specialized equipment is used to create modern terrain plans: helicopters, airplanes, drones and satellites.
For successful work in the cartographic direction, we advise you to study not only what is a plan of the terrain, but also to master different methods of shooting it.
For example, when carrying out a polar survey, firstthe north is determined, after which the point is taken with which the survey is actually carried out (for this purpose the azimuth is determined and additional axes are applied). Then the basic landmarks (monuments, pillars corners and guides of houses, etc.) are drawn, and then the remaining azimuths (angles between the object and the direction to the north) are measured for each object displayed on the plan.
Objects are all the terrain elements depicted on the plan: buildings, fences, roads, poles, bridges, trees, bushes, flower beds, sports grounds, rivers, lakes, hills, stops, parking lots.
Eye-sighting is the most accessible way. All measurements are carried out with simple tools.
A blank sheet of paper is attached to the tablet, andthe upper corner fixes the compass. When checking with the device, draw an arrow from north to south. Then determine the azimuths of objects, which are denoted by conventional signs. At the final stage, delete all auxiliary lines.
With the route method of shooting, the entire path, including all the turns, is divided into sections and the stop points are selected, from which the area to be viewed is applied to the tablet.
Read the map or plan without missing anything, notso easy. In order to fully understand what a plan of the terrain is, you should study the conventions. And believe me, it's not harder than learning road signs.
The contiguous signs of the terrain plan, as already mentioned, are special symbols used to represent typical objects. They are the same for any region, for every corner of the world.
In topography, conventional signs are divided into the following types:
So, we learned what a plan of the terrain is, and forits self-construction requires the following concepts: scale, azimuth, methods for surveying the plan and methods for measuring distances on the ground (tape measure, tape tape, field compasses).
