Big thanks to everyone who made the weekend happen. It was very enjoyable despite the Sprint discipline not being my favourite.
IMHO the Individual race maps were more legible than the Relay map. I think this is due to the decision to use a thin black line around the edge of the olive green rather than the thick (do not cross) lines. This then helped make the control circles stand out better.
I have one observation regarding the Finals area. Most fences are crossable but not, for some reason, the low fence around the park containing control no 148 (our 3rd control). I observed one (M60ish) competitor stepping over this fence which is obviously gaining an unfair advantage. I wonder why this fence was mapped as uncrossable given it was so easy to cross? I would not have been comfortable with this control site if I were Controller.
Thanks again MDOC/DEE/SELOC.
British Sprint Championship Weekend
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Re: British Sprint Championship Weekend
The relay area was characterised by small courtyards (smaller than a control circle) with low walled areas of planting. These courtyards were typically bounded by 2.5m high walls. They are not just "edges of OOB", but the defining features of the terrain - that the other side was OOB was incidental. To delete high walls from a map while showing low walls would be absurd. Now the map could do with decluttering, taking off things such as kerb lines and some of the micro detail, and checking minimum gaps between symbols.
The other time I came across the 3 controls in a straight line issue was the SHI relay at Newborough - where the middle control was on top of a hill - so the circle blended with the contours. #12: https://www.dee.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#226&course=1 Nobody suggested deleting the wiggly brown lines to make the overprint clearer.
The other time I came across the 3 controls in a straight line issue was the SHI relay at Newborough - where the middle control was on top of a hill - so the circle blended with the contours. #12: https://www.dee.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#226&course=1 Nobody suggested deleting the wiggly brown lines to make the overprint clearer.
- pete.owens
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Re: British Sprint Championship Weekend
Homer wrote:IMHO the Individual race maps were more legible than the Relay map. I think this is due to the decision to use a thin black line around the edge of the olive green rather than the thick (do not cross) lines. This then helped make the control circles stand out better.
Agree with this. If somebody wants to try and scale a 2.5m high wall that is clearly part of a block of housing/gardens and is marked OOB on the other side simply because the wall isn't marked as thick black, let em go for it.
- Len
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Re: British Sprint Championship Weekend
I didn't go to the event.
And I haven't seen the printed maps, only Routegadget.
But surely at the end of the day it's the runner's responsibility to check that the next control they're going to has the correct sequential number and then control code?
And I haven't seen the printed maps, only Routegadget.
But surely at the end of the day it's the runner's responsibility to check that the next control they're going to has the correct sequential number and then control code?
- Arnold
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Re: British Sprint Championship Weekend
Arnold wrote:But surely at the end of the day it's the runner's responsibility to check that the next control they're going to has the correct sequential number and then control code?
Yes, of course, that's why AFAIK nobody protested. But if almost half the field fail to complete a course, a planner should want to figure out why.
On the high walls, I think you should map them because:
1/ They're high walls (even if they're wood)
2/ The planner might use them for control features
3/ They give a clear picture of the terrain - the individual map could easily be buildings in (keep off the) grassy surroundings, The relay map is obviously claustrophobic and low-visibility.
4/ Strong feature = strong symbol.
5/ Using thin line almost always means you end up mapping a high fence end where there is no high fence end.
6/ The way you map a feature shouldn't depend on what's on the other side, especially if you cant see over it!
7/ Too often, one sees cater-cornered ambiguity (no example here, tbf)
I also think the thick lines are generally easier to see, although I take homer's point about circles and numbers. The individual had a lighter shade of purple which stood out better on the mainly dark background.
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Test races at SprintScotland (Alloa/Falkirk) and Euromeeting (near Stirling).
Test races at SprintScotland (Alloa/Falkirk) and Euromeeting (near Stirling).
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graeme - god
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Re: British Sprint Championship Weekend
Yes, a "kink" in the leg would have been a much better option, after all, the aim isn't to catch people out, as far as I'm aware, but is to promote fast, head-to-head racing.... i.m.h.o. most relay events have far too many gaffles making the likes of RouteGadget a joke - 30 teams / 20 gaffles and you end up with 2 or 3 people on each "course" to compare with at best! Surely, especially given the number of teams you can expect in Relay events in the U.K. is to limit the number of gaffles per Class to a minimum to encourage the head-to-head element that Relay racing is suppose to be?
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Re: British Sprint Championship Weekend
On the high walls, I think you should map them because:
1/ They're high walls (even if they're wood)
2/ The planner might use them for control features
3/ They give a clear picture of the terrain - the individual map could easily be buildings in (keep off the) grassy surroundings, The relay map is obviously claustrophobic and low-visibility.
4/ Strong feature = strong symbol.
5/ Using thin line almost always means you end up mapping a high fence end where there is no high fence end.
6/ The way you map a feature shouldn't depend on what's on the other side, especially if you cant see over it!
7/ Too often, one sees cater-cornered ambiguity (no example here, tbf)
I also think the thick lines are generally easier to see, although I take homer's point about circles and numbers. The individual had a lighter shade of purple which stood out better on the mainly dark background.
Disagree with this. Too many thick black lines overly clutter the map and make it difficult to read. I only did the individual and not the relay, but the relay map looks very cluttered whereas the individual was clear.
In the same way you wouldn't map every boulder in a boulder field, only the most prominent, not every boundary surrounding an OOB area needs mapping as uncrossable - even if it is an uncrossable wall.
I've now mapped a number of similar-ish areas to Skelmersdale in and around Leeds and now for all OOB - whether high walls/fences or not, my default is to use symbol 520.002 (Area that shall not be entered - boundary line) for all OOB.
For example, here's couple of recent efforts of mine - I actually took off quite a few uncrossable walls around OOB on this one to make this clearer: https://www.aire.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#215 (It's still a bit too fussy and one or two of the paths need widening as they're a bit narrow), and another area here: https://www.aire.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#220 - most of the OOB boundaries on this could have been thick black lines and you'd never be able to read it!
I use the uncrossables for emphasis as and when they are required - sometimes this is completely surrounding an OOB area, othertimes it's just part of the boundary - it's a question of what is clearest to an orienteer running at speed and necessary for navigation - I don't see any difference on this principle whether or not it's an ISOM and ISSprOM spec map.
In fact, my often complaint on some ISOM maps is that they've simplified too much...
Plus if you have thick black lines everywhere surrounding every OOB, it ensures the uncrossable features you really don't want people crossing (e.g. walls that are low on one side and have a big drop on the other) just don't show up as clearly. So yes, I agree, the thick black lines are easier to see - but that's the problem, they pull the eye from the other important detail.
The point about control sites is taken, but there are often other ways to describe the control site on a sprint event (e.g. corner of open paved area), which I noticed was done for the individual event. If it cannot be described in any other fashion, then it can always be added back in at a later date on an event-specific basis.
I thought the individual maps were exceptionally clear - the only thing I noticed was that I'd have cut the circles a fraction more on one or two of my controls, but that's because I'm a bit anally rentitive about showing as much detail in and around the control as possible. I'd have also possibly moved a couple of the numbers too (I try to locate them entirely within OOB areas or areas of no detail/importance as much as possible).
The bold control numbers and white outline (I use 0.15mm, but looks like they used 0.1mm on the individual maps) is something we've been using for AIRE events for a while now - they're much clearer to read on any map.
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Re: British Sprint Championship Weekend
rf_fozzy wrote:Plus if you have thick black lines everywhere surrounding every OOB,
This is missing the point.
The thick black lines are mapping high walls - the biggest most significant features in the area. It is about representing the terrain - not emphasising uncrossability.
They are NOT round every OOB - They are NOT the boundaries of OOB - They are major features in their own right that sometimes happen to be OOB on one side, just as OOB areas sometimes happen to be bounded by walls, sometimes by buildings, sometimes by fences and sometimes by the edge of a paved area. It is the appearance from the running side that needs to depicted on the map - and there is a significant difference between a small walled courtyard or the enhance to an alleyway and paved paths running through ornamental gardens or a narrow road bounded by front lawns.
- pete.owens
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Re: British Sprint Championship Weekend
I don't think he's missing the point - here's an example from near the start of rf_fuzzy's Cottingley map. The issue is whether to map the fence on the left in the same way as the OOB grass on the right.
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Test races at SprintScotland (Alloa/Falkirk) and Euromeeting (near Stirling).
Test races at SprintScotland (Alloa/Falkirk) and Euromeeting (near Stirling).
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graeme - god
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Re: British Sprint Championship Weekend
Silva Surfer wrote: i.m.h.o. most relay events have far too many gaffles making the likes of RouteGadget a joke - 30 teams / 20 gaffles and you end up with 2 or 3 people on each "course" to compare with at best! Surely, especially given the number of teams you can expect in Relay events in the U.K. is to limit the number of gaffles per Class to a minimum to encourage the head-to-head element that Relay racing is suppose to be?
You do have to include sufficient forks to ensure that runners have to pay some attention to their maps. In this case the elite course had 3 forks, but the 1st and 3rd were coupled so that makes 4 course variations for men and 4 for women. I think the way to deal with it on routegadget is to treat it as a score course - then everyone appears on the same list.
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Re: British Sprint Championship Weekend
Silva Surfer wrote:i.m.h.o. most relay events have far too many gaffles making the likes of RouteGadget a joke
I suspect a well planned relay's main objective isn't to provide easy reading on routegadget.
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Re: British Sprint Championship Weekend
pete.owens wrote:rf_fozzy wrote:Plus if you have thick black lines everywhere surrounding every OOB,
This is missing the point.
The thick black lines are mapping high walls - the biggest most significant features in the area. It is about representing the terrain - not emphasising uncrossability.
They are NOT round every OOB - They are NOT the boundaries of OOB - They are major features in their own right that sometimes happen to be OOB on one side, just as OOB areas sometimes happen to be bounded by walls, sometimes by buildings, sometimes by fences and sometimes by the edge of a paved area. It is the appearance from the running side that needs to depicted on the map - and there is a significant difference between a small walled courtyard or the enhance to an alleyway and paved paths running through ornamental gardens or a narrow road bounded by front lawns.
I'm following this discussion with interest (even though I wasn't at the Sprint Champs - shame, looks like I missed a belter) as I'm the planner for North Cambridge on 12th September (entries open on Fabian4! All welcome!) and been pulled up by the controller for putting controls on wall corners which are mapped only as thin OOB boundaries not high walls. He was right in bringing this up as some OOBs mapped in the same way were unfenced front grass gardens. I fear what it would do to the legibility to map boundary walls, but not a problem for this event as there are trees very close by...
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Re: British Sprint Championship Weekend
The thick black lines are mapping high walls - the biggest most significant features in the area. It is about representing the terrain - not emphasising uncrossability.
From a quick StreetView (I wasn't there), it seems that much of the individual area had similarly significant high fences around the gardens. Did any runners complain about inaccurate representation of the terrain on those maps? If not, I would venture that a thin black line around OOB is adequate for this purpose.
I have mapped urban areas where on a single street there are gardens bordered by high fences, low fences, hedges, walls or no barrier at all, all in the space of 50 metres. If I worried about "representing the terrain" in this way I could take far longer to produce a map that was practically unreadable. Most sprint maps I've seen from elite level races seem to favour legibility over strict accuracy in such matters - see the WOC2015 Sprint Quali for a good example - and if it's good enough for them...
Patrick
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Re: British Sprint Championship Weekend
Gross wrote:We were lucky that routegadget wasn't around at the best ever elite competition held in the UK... the AROS Elite Test Hagaby at Devilla... 90 minute planned winning time, 90 minute winning time, 90 course combinations & 90 entries
That was a fun race, back when Devilla was nice. I seem to remember following Stan Hale for about an hour, back when I could run.
WOC2024 Edinburgh
Test races at SprintScotland (Alloa/Falkirk) and Euromeeting (near Stirling).
Test races at SprintScotland (Alloa/Falkirk) and Euromeeting (near Stirling).
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graeme - god
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Re: British Sprint Championship Weekend
Also:
Thanks to Google I now know what "cater-cornered" means (it seems to be an americanism for diagonally opposite). However, I'm still in the dark about what a cater-cornered ambiguity might look like.
Patrick
Too often, one sees cater-cornered ambiguity (no example here, tbf)
Thanks to Google I now know what "cater-cornered" means (it seems to be an americanism for diagonally opposite). However, I'm still in the dark about what a cater-cornered ambiguity might look like.
Patrick
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