Color Relief / Hypsometric Tint (GeoTIFF)
Open BetaColor relief (hypsometric tint) colours terrain elevation, like a classic paper topo map: green lowlands, yellow-brown uplands, white peaks. Built from the global Copernicus GLO-30 DEM (30 m). Six elevation colour scales are available; the default is the soft natural one with light shading, the rest are chosen in the settings. For a stronger effect the tint is combined with hillshade (multiply blend). Delivered as a georeferenced GeoTIFF file or as a background underlay beneath the vector map.
Key Features
About Color Relief Format
Hypsometric tinting is a way of showing relief with color, familiar from paper atlases: lowlands are green, middle elevations yellow-brown, peaks white. Every elevation mark has its own color on the chosen scale, and the terrain reads at a glance, without contour lines and labels.
Such a base is taken when the map has to explain the landscape: a topographic sheet, a poster or an atlas, an illustration for geology and hydrology, teaching material. Roads, rivers and labels sit well on top of hypsometric tinting — the color works as a background without arguing with the vector layers.
The raster is built from the global Copernicus GLO-30 elevation model with a step of about 30 meters. Six elevation colour scales are available; the default is the soft natural one with light shading, the rest are chosen in the settings. The shading gives volume, as on classic shaded relief maps; for a stronger effect a hillshade is multiplied on top of the tint.
The output is a georeferenced GeoTIFF that lands in its place in a GIS right away. Where there is no elevation data (over the sea, for example), the pixels stay transparent, so the base can be freely laid over other layers. Using Copernicus data requires crediting the source — the attribution is given on the format page.
What Program Opens Color Relief Files
The following programs and applications can open, edit, and work with Color Relief / Hypsometric Tint (GeoTIFF) (.tif) files exported from OSM2CDR:
Format specifications
- Open standard
- 2D only
- Lossless (no quality loss)
- No attributes
- Output: 1 file
- Hypsometric color relief from Copernicus GLO-30 DEM. Georeferenced GeoTIFF; six colour scales (soft natural with light shading by default), optional hillshade blend.
Who Uses Color Relief Maps
How to Export Color Relief
How to Open After Export
- QGIS — Layer → Add Raster Layer; put the hypsometric tinting under the vector map and, if needed, tone it down with transparency so the labels stay readable.
- Photoshop or GIMP — use the raster as a base under the vector map; for a volumetric effect a hillshade is laid on top in Multiply mode.
- GDAL — gdalinfo shows the extent and the coordinate system, gdal_translate converts the file into PNG or JPEG if the georeferencing is not needed.
- Printing a poster — the file is a raster, so estimate the size in advance: for a large format take a smaller area, otherwise the pixels will show on paper.
- Attribution — when publishing, credit the source of the elevation data (Copernicus DEM), as the license requires.
Popular maps in Color Relief
Get Color Relief / Hypsometric Tint (GeoTIFF) map exports
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