How To Make A Contour Map
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This animation shows how to construct a contour map for a surface.
(See notes below.)
Equally spaced horizontal planes slice through the surface, determining its
level curves. After the last plane moves through the surface, the surface itself
disappears and the level curves move down into a common plane, which we then view
from above. The result is a contour map depicting the surface. Depending
on how close the horizontal planes are to each other vertically, a contour map
may represent the surface it came from with more, or less, resolution. (11/27/07)
This animation won the
National Curve Bank's
2008 Renie Award for the Best Deposit of 2007.