Network for Lightning and Thunderstorms in Real Time - Real time lightning map
This page allows you to create own individual maps in Mercator, Miller, Cylindrical Equidistant, Equal-Area, and Stereographic Projection. The maps are created by GMT (The Generic Mapping Tool) and the ETOPO1 Ice Surface relief data set. If the width and height fit then drag and drop the image on your desktop. To reduce the file size, we recommend to transform the png image from RGB colors to indexed colors. This can for example be done with GIMP "the GNU Image Manipulation Program" (Picture->Mode->indexed and File->Save). Check also that the border of the image does not contain white pixels resulting from rounding errors during conversion from postscript to png. If this happens, change the south coordinate a little bit.
width = 670 px / height = 566 px
North: °
West: °East: °
South: °
Projection:
Resolution:
Scaling:
Minimum Area: km²
Shorelines:
Boundaries:
Rivers:
Dry Area:
Wet Area:
Lakes:
Color Palette:
Azimuth: °
Normalization:
Example 1 (3sec)
Example 2 (3sec)
Example 3 (2sec)
Example 4 (3sec)
Example 5 (2sec)
Example 6 (2sec)
Example 7 (10sec)
Example 8 (3sec)
Example 9 (2sec)
Example 10 (8sec)
Example 11 (2sec)
Send further
extraordinary
examples to
info@blitzortung.org
Parameter description:
  • West, East, South, North: All coordinates are decimal (-180.00° to 180.00° and -90.00° to 90.00°, respectively).
  • Projection:
    • Mercator
    • Miller
    • Cylindrical Equidistant
    • Cylindrical Equal-Area
    • Cylindrical Stereographic
  • Resolution: Selects the resolution of the data set to use ((f)ull, (h)igh, (i)ntermediate, (l)ow, and (c)rude). The resolution drops off by 80% between data sets.
  • Scaling: Selects image size in dpi (2 - 400).
  • Minimum Area: Features with an area smaller than Minimum Area in km² will not be plotted.
  • Shorelines: The level/pen of shorelines (empty for no shorelines, command can be repeated seperated by spaces). To set the pen for each level differently, prepend level/, where level is 1-4 and represent coastline, lakeshore, island-in-lake shore, and lake-in-island-in-lake shore. When specific level pens are set, those not listed will not be drawn.
  • Boundaries: The type/pen pair of political boundaries (empty for no boundaries, command can be repeated seperated by spaces). The type is one from the following list.
    • 1 = National boundaries
    • 2 = State boundaries within the Americas
    • 3 = Marine boundaries
    • a = All boundaries (1-3)
  • Rivers: The type/pen pair for rivers (empty for no rivers, command can be repeated seperated by spaces). The type is one from the following list.
    • 1 = Permanent major rivers
    • 2 = Additional major rivers
    • 3 = Additional rivers
    • 4 = Minor rivers
    • 5 = Intermittent rivers - major
    • 6 = Intermittent rivers - additional
    • 7 = Intermittent rivers - minor
    • 8 = Major canals
    • 9 = Minor canals
    • 10 = Irrigation canals
    • a = All rivers and canals (1-10)
    • r = All permanent rivers (1-4)
    • i = All intermittent rivers (5-7)
    • c = All canals (8-10)
  • Lakes: The fill for lakes (empty for no lakes (default defined by Wet Areas)).
  • Dry Areas: The fill for "dry" areas (empty for no dry areas).
  • Wet Areas: The fill for "wet" areas (empty for no wet areas).
  • Color Palette: The color palette defines the colors applied over a z-range. Using the RGB system, the format of a color palette is
    z_0R_0G_0B_0z_1R_1G_1B_1
    z_2R_2G_2B_2z_3R_3G_3B_3
    ...
    z_n-2R_n-2G_n-2B_n-2z_n-1R_n-1G_n-1B_n-1
    For each z-slice defined as the interval between two boundaries (e.g., z_0 to z_1), the color can be constant (by letting R_0=R_1, G_0=G_1, B_0=B_1) or a continuous, linear function of z between R_0, G_0, B_0 and R_1, G_1, B_1.
  • Azimuth: Azimuth is the angle in the x,y plane measured in degrees positive clockwise from north (the +y direction) toward east (the +x direction). The negative of the directional derivative, -[dz/dx*sin(azim) + dz/dy*cos(azim)], is found; negation yields positive values when the slope of z(x,y) is downhill in the azimuthal direction, the correct sense for shading the illumination of an image by a light source above the x,y plane shining from the azimuthal direction. Optionally, supply two azimuths, azimuth/azimuth2, in which case the gradients in each of these directions are calculated and the one larger in magnitude is retained; this is useful for illuminating data with two directions of lineated structures, e.g. 0/270 illuminates from the north (top) and west (left).
  • Normalization: The actual gradients g are offset and scaled to produce normalized gradients gn with a maximum output magnitude of amp using a cumulative Laplace distribution yielding gn = amp * (1.0 - exp(sqrt(2) * (g - offset)/ sigma)) where sigma is estimated using the L1 norm of (g - offset) if it is not given.
Specifying colors:
The color is a valid color name; a gray shade (in the range 0-255); or a decimal color code (r/g/b, each in range 0-255; h-s-v, ranges 0-360, 0-1, 0-1; or c/m/y/k, each in range 0-1). Examples: "39/62/88", "blue", "64", "280-0.1-0.5".
Specifying pens:
The pen is a comma delimetered list of width, color, and texture, each of which is optional. The width can be indicated as a measure (points, centimeters, inches) or as faint, thin[ner|nest], thick[er|est], fat[ter|test], or obese. The color specifies a gray shade or color (see specifying colors). The texture is a combination of dashes "-" and dots ".". Examples: "1p,39/62/88,", "thinnest,128,...", "thick,blue,-.-".
Specifying fills:
The fill specifies the solid shade or solid color (see Specifying colors) or the pattern used for filling polygons. Patterns are specified as pdpi/pattern, where pattern gives the number of the built-in pattern (1-90) and dpi sets the resolution of the pattern. Examples: "green", "24/67/88", "p300/26"
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