Personal

I really like this idea... You could use this with any digital elevation model that you contour - bathymetric or elevation. It would be cool with LIDAR especially..

Really it's simple what he does:

1) Convert contours to polygons or create polygon contours
2) Set the rendering levels, so the highest elevation render up top (elevation) or lowest elevation render up top (bathymetric) <- This is the key step! 3) Use the layer styling to set either outer shadow (elevation) or inner shadow (bathymetic) I plan to use this to make some pretty maps.