Hi there, has anyone published a feature set of present day country borders? Using plateIDs for the default Muller reconstruction. Would be a nice overlay for a map I’m creating as it provides a frame of reference for the viewer back to the present day. I just don’t want to have to go back to GIS and create one with all the plateIDs if someone has already done it but I’ve searched around and couldn’t find one. Thanks.
Hi Paul,
yes, might be a good idea to have that included with the GPlates Sample data. But country outlines change quite often these days, unfortunately, and people have different preferences re plate models.
However, it is actually pretty straightforward:
- Have your preferred plate model with static polygons loaded
- Download a world country outline dataset - here’s one from ESRI that is probably trustworthy - either use SHP file or GeoJSON
- Drag the file into GPlates’ main window
- Go to Feature → Assign PlateIDs → Follow the wizard. Chose the static polygon dataset of your plate model as the
partitioning layer, your country outlines as thelayer to be partitioned. If you want to retain a polygon geometry, then make sure that you chose “Copy feature properties that most overlaps feature” in theFeature Partinioningfield - if you cookie-cut, then GPlates cuts the polygons at the static polygon boundaries and produces a line geometry dataset. - Reconstruct to your preferred time
You can also get a simple graticule you can reconstruct from here, more details here
HTH,
Christian
ps. @michaelchin @mchin @john.cannon - might be a good suggestion to add such a country outline to the sample data?
Thanks Christian, that worked a treat - was much easier than doing in GIS before export. That import wizard is great!
Paul