Calculating a hillshade layer
A hillshade layer is commonly used to enhance the appearance of a map and display topography in an intuitive way, by simulating a light source and the shadows it casts. This can be computed from a DEM by using this recipe.
Getting ready
Open the DEM that we prepared in the Preparing elevation data recipe.
How to do it…
In the Processing Toolbox option, find the Hillshade algorithm and double-click on it to open it:
Select the DEM in the Input layer field. Leave the rest of the parameters with their default values.
Click on Run to run the algorithm.
The hillshade layer will be added to the QGIS project, as follows:
How it works…
As in the case of the slope, the algorithm is part of the GDAL library. You will see that the parameters are very similar to the slope case. This is because slope is used to compute the hillshade layer. Based on the slope and the aspect of the terrain in each cell and using the position of the sun that is defined by the Azimuth and Altitude fields...
