I am a newbie and would like to know about standards...
I am intending to start compiling a map for the southern appalachian mountains. I was not intending to bound the map within a specific state, instead wishing to follow the range from approx. anniston alabama to tazwell virginia. This would include parts of NC, GA, TN, AL, SC and VA but only a limited portion of each state. I have compiled a new spread sheet with the 40 DEM downloads needed to represent the topography from the usgs map locator and the spreadsheets provided here for the states.
The reason I'm looking to do it this way is to provide a reference for those interested in hiking and outdoor recreation in the southern mountains. I am not all that interested in having a topo map for the flatter areas. Will this approach work? I was intending to use the elevation data, hydrology data, points of interest, public lands, and trails if I can find them. I wasn't going to include roads as it seems a comprehensive nation wide road map is already compiled. Any hints or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
It is a great idea. The only reason I would include the roads though is because the nationwide map (Ibycus USA) is not transparent so there would be no roads when your topo is displayed.
And, I actually have some commands that I started running in postgis that make it so that I don't include any water data outside of where I want (normally state boundaries for me). If you want the command let me know. All you do to use it is draw an area where you want your map to exist and then anything outside will get deleted.