MDOC Town and Country weekend.

[slang]

On the Macc Town map, the roads were printed using 10% brown (not white as suggested by the scanned image). The trails and passage ways were mapped using non-urban brown. In this case, 30% brown was used in line with ISSOM. I can't answer why they were mapped using non-urban brown. I think it perhaps makes sense in the parks and open areas.

It looks like the recent York map also used 10% brown (with a minimum bit of 30% brown in the top north west corner). The Ripon map looks like it used about 20% brown through out.

But I think the big difference between the Macc Town map and the other two, is the olive green. On the Macc Town map, the olive green is browner. Which I guess affected the contrast. I'm sorry for getting this wrong.

[NeilC]

Sounds like the weekend was fun but had a few niggling problems like controls out of synch on both days, unorthodox map colours for the town race, slightly off-colour printing and some dodgy control placement in Macclesfield. Most of the above would not worry us too much about so long as we get to run fun courses. However the event was registered at Level B and therefore was advertising itself as top quality which perhaps it then failed to quite live up to. If so is this indicative of a failing Level B band where quality criteria are not being applied rigorously enough? Or is our (or my) perception of what a Level B event should be flawed?

[johnhrobinson]

I'll say it again , as as usual we are focusing on minor niggles. This was one of the best weekend orienteering I have had for a while. A good , varied, tricky forest event (not too long either) and an interesting town, well mapped and thoughtfully planned. With the indoor facilities and two races on the sunday on two contrasting areas everyone involved should be proud of their event. The waterproof maps helped to.

My concerns are more personal, do I have to accept small details are going to be a problem on urban maps, in which case I will need to plan for it or is it just some printing schemes that will give me trouble ( should be alerted by the premaps).

Anyway it seems that much of the very fine detail,( small passages and steps) are on the limits of my visual acuity, but its that detail that makes urban so much fun its just that on some maps it seems clearer than on others so ones expectations of what you expect to be able to see can be confounded

[redpossum]

Firstly, I'd like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend. Macclesfield Forest is a great Middle Distance area and the course was certainly challenging.

Macclesfield and Tytherington were again really good areas with Tytherington providing interesting courses from what looked, on paper, an unpromising area.

I am, however, very disappointed with the amount of criticism that has been levelled at the maps - are we trying to discourage people from making them? Thomas Fellbaum is only young and should be congratulated for making the maps of Macclesfield, which I thought were very good, and I hope that he will continue to make more in the future.

I find the situation with the footbridge/ path to the first control rather bizarre - it was the only way over the road so what was the problem? The use of the non-urban dark brown is down to inexperience and doesn't deserve all the criticism. It is perhaps unfortunate that there are six different shades of brown permitted in the Sprint specifications which led to this situation.

[epocian]

I agree with Red Adder - thoroughly enjoyed the weekend but must admit it's the first urban event I've done where I had to 'shoo' cows out of the way to get to the exit gate!

[johnhrobinson]

I am, however, very disappointed with the amount of criticism that has been levelled at the maps - are we trying to discourage people from making them? Thomas Fellbaum is only young and should be congratulated for making the maps of Macclesfield, which I thought were very good, and I hope that he will continue to make more in the future.

i refer you to my previous post....i was not really criticising the maps but trying to ascertain what is the norm. After doing 4 urban events in quick succession , ripon, york,notts and now macclesfield, it is becoming apparent that the colours used for various areas are far from standardised.. I wondered if this is due to printing constraints or the choices of the mapper, or some variable interaction between the various processes.
no criticism of this mapper intended it was just the latest example...as i as not aware that it was his first map he must have done an excellent job

I find the situation with the footbridge/ path to the first control rather bizarre - it was the only way over the road so what was the problem?

The problem is my suspicious mind..when i see an obvious route apparently blocked i stop and look for alternatives Can I go under the AOB elsewhere for example .obviously don't have your faith

[tomtom]

Thank you everyone for all your positive comments. I was proud to have an event in my home town and even prouder to be given the opportunity to map it.

I had no mapping experience prior to this event and so it has been a steep learning curve for me. It all started back in October when I went to see Martin Bagness and he gave me an excellent crash course in how to map, in just a few hours. Since then I have spent endless hours learning and using Ocad and even more surveying, re-surveying and making corrections - thanks to everyone who helped me out with this!

Therefore thank you again to everyone who liked and enjoyed the maps, and I hope people will be keen to come back again!

With regards to the path colour issue - I can only say that I admit my mistake in that I used the non-urban path symbol and not the urban path symbol. This was fine for the areas of non-urban but I mistakenly carried through using this symbol across the urban sections of the map.

I apologize to the ones who were confused by the colours, and I hope it didn't spoil the weekend for them.


P.S Anyone requiring the services of TF Maps, just email me!! -now with new and improved knowledge of ISSOM path symbols, guaranteed!!

[graeme]

P.S Anyone requiring the services of TF Maps,

That would be me then.
Just looking at the clip johnrobinson posted, it's not obvious to me how you should map it. True, it looks a bit odd when the path changes colour, but the fact is that it starts out as a non-urban path and turns into an urban one. When a path swings out of a field and onto the roadside, without change of surface or anything, where do you have a discontinuous factor-of-3 colour change?

[andypat]

Tom
I found this guidance very helpful when mapping locally for the first time using ISSOM. There are some grey areas and you just have to decide what looks right sometimes. Of course if theres an issue your planner/controller should be pointing it out to you anyway......

http://www.soenniksen.dk/sprintkort/paths.htm

[RS]

[quote="andypat"]Tom
Of course if theres an issue your planner/controller should be pointing it out to you anyway......

Like the controller should have done with control placement

[tomtom]

P.S Anyone requiring the services of TF Maps,

That would be me then.

If you're serious, send me an email - tomfellbaum@gmail.com

I found this guidance very helpful when mapping locally for the first time using ISSOM.

Thanks for this, great info.

Tom
Of course if theres an issue your planner/controller should be pointing it out to you anyway......

They did find and ask me to make some changes to the map. I think because there were lots of important logistical issues to sort out, they may have not thought about it.

[andypat]

They did find and ask me to make some changes to the map. I think because there were lots of important logistical issues to sort out, they may have not thought about it.

Yes - I wasnt trying to shift the blame to them - more so just saying its a shared responsibility so the mapper - ie you - shouldnt feel too guilty!

PS I think graeme may have been making a wry comment about his own perceived mapping skills (He mapped Edinburgh I think) rather than an attempt to buy your services - but you never know!

[graeme]

Semi-serious in that although I've done a lot of urban mapping, I'm still not sure how best to deal with the paths that go from urban to non-urban, especially those running parallel to contours. There's a lot of them in Dechmont. The document andypat linked really only says "its a problem and doesn't look right" - the same criticism of your map - but doesn't give a very satisfactory solution. I especially dislike 506.1, wide with dashed edges, which always looks ugly.

I have a zillion half-baked mapping projects - but you'll have to come up to join EUOC first:lol: .

[King Penguin]

Remember remember the sixth of November, Dechmont (again) is the spot.
The JK's the reason, the following season, you'll regret it if you forgot.

6 Nov 2011 Dechmont & Deans (Livingston)
6 Apr 2012 JK sprint. Mystery Location (Livingston)

Isn't Livingston embargoed, or is it a different bit, or would than be giving too much away ?

[Spookster]

The Dechmont and Deans bits of Livingstone don't look like they're within the JK 2012 embargoed area.