Lets not loose the 'art' in cartography

[canol]

Should maps just be functional or should they look great to?

I am all for having accurate orienteering maps that I can navigate on at speed. Now that maps are individually produced or tinkered for events then the days have passed of using out of date maps with map corrections (remember copying them down at registration, or worse memorising them on the start line).

Recently I have run on what felt like bits of maps, sometimes with no name, legend or scale and not always at small Level D events. There are standards I know and I might not want to hold an A3 size map when my course is only in one area. The map might be accurate but just doesn't look well presented.

My thought is that accuracy and presentation should go hand-in-hand.

[graeme]

If anyone has a good resolution to this I'd love to know...

The Edinburgh and Livingston maps are both about A1 size at 1:5000. I keep them updated, but I'm only willing to maintain the cartography on one version. For any individual event, only a subsection can be used. To keep the courses "fresh" its best to use different bits, and occasionally I even to get a run myself, so would rather not know which bit.

Plus I'm rubbish at graphic design

Is there anyone out there who actually enjoys making artistic maps, and would be willing to do graphic design with legends, north arrows, titles etc? You wouldn't have to leave the comfort of your own home.

[Wayward-O]

Well, no one has responded on this yet. What a surprise.

If anyone has a good resolution to this I'd love to know...

Not really a resolution, but some suggestions ...

1. Create a set of colour layers for the 'map furniture' above those used for the map symbols, with a set of numbers that are unlikely to be to be reached otherwise, e.g. 901 upwards. Colours could be the normal colour palette (black, yellow, blue, green, brown), augmented with other colours e.g. those required for club or event series logos, etc. Semi-transparent colour layers can also be created and used. At the bottom of these new colour layers should be white, which can be used to mask off areas of the map not required for the event by creating an area symbol of this colour.

2. Symbols do not need to be single colour. Club logos, arrow heads, scale bars and anything else can be created as a symbol for inclusion on the map as required. For this type of symbol, it's easier to draw on the mapping surface and copy into a symbol. Text can be used in symbols by copying, but the text is converted to graphics and can't be edited in-situ. This technique has the advantage that different fonts can be used that, possibly, others (for example the club map printer) do not have on their computer. This can also be done on the map by using the To graphics button.

3. Borders / frames can be created in a number of different ways; here are a few:

a. Frames can be created as a symbol using Symbol - New - Rectangle symbol menu command. Within the dialog box, you can set line colour, width and corner radius and set as a Horizontal rectangle. This symbol can then be used to draw a frame for the map when required. A variant on this is to use a semi-transparent colour (e.g. 100% Black with Trans. set to say 50%) and to draw the frame five or so millimetres in from the edge of the map so that the map can both be seen through the frame and to extend beyond it. I use this technique on Urban maps with a width of 2mm and a corner radius of 5mm.

b. Frames can be drawn using a line symbol and the Rectangular mode drawing tool. A trick here is to draw whilst holding down the Alt key on the keyboard, which keeps the frame aligned. One advantage of this method is that the line symbol can be edited to include Framing . Setting the Framing to the white map furniture colour layer of a suitable width will cover up any odd bits at the edge of the map (e.g. cut ends of road symbols) and provide a neat white line inside the frame.

c. Frames can be produced to enable the map to bleed over the frame (good for maps that are long and thin, etc.). Here the colour layer for the frame is created at the bottom of the colour layers. The frame can be created using one of the techniques described above. When the frame is drawn, it will disappear under the mapped area. To provide a bit of separation between the frame and the map, create a white colour layer above the frame colour layer, but below those used for the map. Create a line symbol using the white colour layer of twice the width of the separation you want to achieve (e.g. to have a 2mm separation, set the line width to 4mm). Now select each symbol in turn that is at the edge of the map where it crosses the border and use the Fill or make border button with the new white line symbol to draw a white line under the map but on top of the frame.

I hope that these suggestions will be useful to some of you out there. Experiment to see what works for you.

[usuallylast]

We were just looking at some previous Sale Fell maps before yesterday's evening event and were very amused by some of the little personal touches, eg the scale on this one

http://www.wcoc.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#28

Also noted in the small print under Survey and Cartography - 1,000,000 Years BC - 2014

[martin]

Wayward-O step 1 can be simplified with one map containing the legend etc and the white mask, with the actual map included as an Ocad template.

Martin

[BenM]

In my mind, rule no.1: Ban all use of Times New Roman or Comic Sans on any map, ever.

[King Penguin]

We were just looking at some previous Sale Fell maps before yesterday's evening event and were very amused by some of the little personal touches, eg the scale on this one

http://www.wcoc.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#28

Also noted in the small print under Survey and Cartography - 1,000,000 Years BC - 2014

Resurvey by Grumpy, presumably without the help of his 6 little friends ?

[MIE]

Wayward-O step 1 can be simplified with one map containing the legend etc and the white mask, with the actual map included as an Ocad template.

Martin

Thats how the BNC /UKOL2 maps were done, plus the Guildford map of Blackheath
(Feb 2014) the British 2013 and BRC2013 . In nearly all cases the surveyed area was
larger than the printed area, but in each case the surveyed map area was not extracted.
(except for BOC2013 where there were problems with overlays and off-set printing
and a rapid re-think/re-design was needed)

[Glucosamine]

We were just looking at some previous Sale Fell maps before yesterday's evening event and were very amused by some of the little personal touches, eg the scale on this one

http://www.wcoc.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#28

Were those scalebar graphics a comment on the climb to the start?

[usuallylast]

Were those scalebar graphics a comment on the climb to the start?

You may be right - certainly a 'personalised' map as far as I'm concerned
Nice tree shaped north arrows too.

[Red Adder]

Our club's mapping team manage about 7 or 8 areas which are significantly larger than the footprint used at an event. Generally it all comes down to time. We have certainly tried a methodology similar to that outlined by Wayward-O and it can be made to work. Less experienced users found it a bit confusing and I found the doubled up key and colour palette a bit irritating. As I have the time I tend to plan on the complete file of the area and then, once I'm pretty sure the map is not going to change, take an extract from the full file of the event footprint and then edit in all the bits around the edge. It takes a day on average but I'm lucky enough to have that time and generally the results are good, and every event has a unique map.