[area-elevation-profile] Terrain Elevation Profile Along Transect

[MarkusNeusinger]

Description

A cross-sectional line plot showing ground elevation along a path or transect line. The area below the profile is typically filled, creating a silhouette of the terrain with distance on x-axis and elevation on y-axis.

Key Visual Elements

• Distance along transect on x-axis
• Elevation on y-axis
• Filled area below profile line
• Vertical exaggeration factor noted
• Key landmarks/features labeled
• Start and end point markers
• Gradient coloring by slope (optional)

Applications

• Hiking/trail planning: visualizing route difficulty
• Civil engineering: road/rail corridor design
• Geomorphology: terrain analysis
• GIS applications: profile extraction from DEMs
• Cycling: stage elevation profiles (Tour de France style)

Domain

Geology / Geography / Earth Sciences

[claude]

Valid and useful plot type. This is a terrain cross-section profile commonly used in hiking apps, cycling stage profiles (Tour de France style), and GIS/civil engineering. No existing spec covers this - area-basic and line-basic are generic and don't address the domain-specific requirements like landmark annotations, vertical exaggeration, and gradient coloring by slope. Assigning spec ID area-elevation-profile.

[github-actions]

✅ Specification Ready: area-elevation-profile

PR: #4603

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specification.md

area-elevation-profile: Terrain Elevation Profile Along Transect

Description

A cross-sectional line plot showing ground elevation along a path or transect line, with the area below the profile filled to create a terrain silhouette. Distance along the transect is plotted on the x-axis and elevation on the y-axis. This visualization is widely used in hiking and cycling route planning, civil engineering corridor design, and geomorphology to convey terrain shape and difficulty at a glance.

Applications

• Hiking and trail planning: visualizing cumulative ascent, descent, and route difficulty along a trail
• Civil engineering: evaluating elevation changes along a proposed road or railway corridor
• Cycling stage profiles: showing climb categories and sprint points along a race stage (Tour de France style)
• GIS and geomorphology: extracting and analyzing terrain cross-sections from digital elevation models (DEMs)

Data

• distance (numeric) - cumulative horizontal distance along the transect in km or miles
• elevation (numeric) - ground elevation at each sample point in meters or feet
• landmark_name (string, optional) - name of notable feature at that point (e.g., summit, pass, town)
• landmark_distance (numeric, optional) - distance value where the landmark is located
• landmark_elevation (numeric, optional) - elevation value where the landmark is located
• Size: 50-500 sample points along the transect
• Example: a 120 km hiking trail with elevation sampled every 250 m, featuring 6-8 labeled landmarks (summits, passes, huts)

Notes

• The area below the profile line should be filled with a solid or gradient fill to create the terrain silhouette effect
• Label start and end points with location names and elevations
• Annotate key landmarks (summits, passes, river crossings) with vertical marker lines and text labels
• Use a vertical exaggeration factor (e.g., 10x) and note it on the plot to make terrain features visible
• Optional: apply gradient coloring to the profile line or fill based on slope steepness (green for flat, red for steep)
• The x-axis should show distance units, y-axis should show elevation units with appropriate tick spacing

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Next: Add approved label to merge this specification to main.

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🤖 spec-create workflow

[github-actions]

🚀 Specification Merged!

Specification: area-elevation-profile
PR: #4603 (merged)

The specification is now in main and synced to PostgreSQL.

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Next: Add generate:{library} labels to start generating implementations.

Available libraries: matplotlib, seaborn, plotly, bokeh, altair, plotnine, pygal, highcharts, letsplot

Or use workflow dispatch for bulk operations.

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🤖 spec-create workflow