(Post-restored-by-MC) -- How to colour resolved line topology by boundary type (transform vs subduction) in GPlates 2.5?

Q&A
1

This post was originally posted by a user named “marko”. The system detected “New user typed too fast“ and silenced the user. The user deleted the account by self later. I have restored the post here just in case marko’s question could be helpful for other users.

Hi,

I’m using GPlates 2.5 on Windows 11 and working with line topologies where a subduction zone intersects and consumes a ridge/transform system.

I have separate line features for:

  • transform faults

  • subduction zones

I would like the resolved topology segments to keep different colours, for example:

  • transform = green

  • subduction = blue

even after topology resolution.

I tried adding properties (e.g. Name = “transform” / “subduction”) to the original features and then building a line topology, but in Draw Style Settings I don’t see an option to colour by that property (no map values appear).

My questions are:

  1. What is the recommended workflow to tag different boundary types so the resolved topology preserves them?

  2. Which property should be used (gml:name, custom attribute, etc.)?

  3. How do I correctly colour a topology layer by feature type in GPlates 2.5?

If possible, I’d really appreciate a step-by-step explanation.

Thank you!

2

Have a look at Manage Colouring in the GPlates user manual. Specifically Colour by feature type. Since transforms and subduction zones are distinguished by their feature type rather than by name. And your transforms and subduction zones should already have the correct feature types (since they should have been created with these feature types).

And you’ll want to colour the topology (purple) layer (containing your topologies).

In order to choose your own colours (instead of the default colours) you can Adda configuration in the Draw Style (under FeatureType) and load in your own Palette (a .cpt file). And the format for that file is something like…

SubductionZone 000/000/255
Transform 000/255/000

…where the colours are RGB triplets.