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Tom Patterson

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description Tom Patterson Overview

Tom Patterson is an American cartographer who served as a senior cartographer for the United States National Park Service (NPS). He is widely recognized for his expertise in terrain visualization and for revolutionizing modern digital shaded relief mapping techniques. Patterson is also a principal co-creator of Natural Earth, a widely used, public-domain global GIS dataset designed for producing small-scale maps. His tools and datasets are primarily intended for cartographers, geographers, and graphic designers creating detailed visual maps.

help Tom Patterson FAQ

What is Tom Patterson's role in Natural Earth?

Patterson co-created Natural Earth with cartographer Nathaniel Vaughn Kelso. The project supplies public-domain vector and raster map data at 1:10 million, 1:50 million, and 1:110 million scales.

Can Tom Patterson's Natural Earth maps be used commercially?

Natural Earth data is in the public domain and may be modified for personal or commercial projects. Users can download coastlines, borders, populated places, shaded relief, and other global layers without a licensing fee.

How does Tom Patterson create his shaded relief maps?

Patterson combines elevation data with careful manual editing, tonal control, and digital painting techniques. For his generalized world relief, he used tools including Adobe Photoshop and a Wacom tablet to remove the visual noise common in automatic hillshading.

What is the difference between Natural Earth data and the Natural Earth projection?

Natural Earth is a public-domain map dataset co-created by Patterson, while the Natural Earth projection is a separate way of displaying the globe. The projection was developed by Tom Patterson, Bernhard Jenny, and Bojan Šavrič as a compromise projection for world maps.