World Maps

 
Raieh is a Fractal planet. The maps presented here on this web site are entirely generated from custom built fractal software. The software also uses rudimentary climate modelling algorithms to determine annual mean temperature and annual mean precipitation. Using these values the software then determines the Biome of each point on the map.

The Fractal World software is available free for download.

How Maps Are Generated

The rectangular map images are produced at a 2:1 ratio such that horizontal and vertical axes represent degrees of longitude and lattitude. The rectangular images are mapped (sorry for the overloaded term) onto a sphere in a 3D rendering program to create the globe images shown below.

Elevation and Topographic Grayscale

The initial product of the fractal software is a grayscale elevation map. Black areas are the deepest parts of the oceans, while white areas are high mountain peaks.

The elevation map is post processed using commercial paint software to convert the elevation map to a shaded topographic map. This makes the map look more like a 3D image.

A View of the Biomes

The next stage of the process detemines mean annual temperature and mean annual precipitation. The map of mean annual temperature is computed from the latitude and altitude of each region on the world map. The mean annual precipitation map is computed as an integral of "wetness", taking into account geographic boundaries and convection zones. Those maps are not shown here, but they are used to predict the global biomes, as shown in the map here.

A more detailed discussion of this process, including Whittaker's Biome Diagram, is given on the Biome page.

Adding Elevation to the Biome Map

The Next step is to combine the biome map above with a grayscale topographical map. The result is that you can see an exaggerated view of the land contours. This map is probably one of the most visually interesting of all the maps. The expanded images clearly reveal mountains, valleys, and abrupt changes in elevation.

Finally, the spinning globe at the top of this page was produced by wrapping the topographic biome map onto a sphere. The sphere was then animated in a 3rd party 3D rendering program.

Maps With Names

Here are maps that have many of the area and city names added. Click each of the images below to view the names of the cities and regions of Raieh.