Course Overprint on Urban Maps

[ianandmonika]

Don’t we need to have a more legible spec for IK urban course overprints. Maybe it is my eyesight but I find it difficult to see the overprint on many urban maps. The purple needs to be more visible, line thicknesses increased and control numbers in bold. It may be that the IOF spec is for ISSprOM sprint maps, which do not have the amount of olive green found on UK urban maps. On yesterdays Ludlow urban MHV race there were 11 out 50 competitors with missed controls (some common missed controls with WHV) and I suspect the overprint visibility was an issue.

[rf_fozzy]

Don't know if you did the Little London/Leeds University UKUL/UKOL event last summer, but there I turned off the transparency of the purple, increased the line thickness, *slightly* increased the circle size and the numbers were bold with a 0.15mm white outline.

I tend to do this with all my ISSprOM events (sprint and urban) as it is *much* clearer.

However (and this is v important) - it does mean that you need to be extra careful about cutting circles and lines and perhaps making cuts where you wouldn't normally or making cuts bigger.

I notice a lot of planners cut circles only to the size of the feature they are trying to show, which is often unhelpful - particularly with things like Uncrossable barriers and trees as these just blur into the circle - cut further away to show the feature clearly!

[King Penguin]

You need to be careful with white surrounds on circles, it can make it look as if there are narrow passages where there are not.

[rf_fozzy]

You need to be careful with white surrounds on circles, it can make it look as if there are narrow passages where there are not.

You should not be putting white surrounds on circles on a proper competition map.

I do it **very** occasionally for informal events in very special circumstances (Snooker-O where we use different colours for the circles as per snooker).

Should never be on a proper event map.

White outlines on the control numbers though should be standard. Again people need to be careful about positioning of numbers - seen loads of examples where planners haven't thought about moving the numbers and just end up with whatever PP dumps out.

I probably spend at least 3-4 hours in the final map prep stage ensuring all circle/line cuts are right and all numbers are in the best positions.

Even for an informal, I'll spend a good hour making sure it looks right.

[Scott]

I suspect that people using "overprint effect" is a large part of the reason for the issue here. The spec explicitly advises against doing this, but it is particularly problematic on urban maps where the purple is easily lost amidst the mid-green.

As I learned when we discussed this last month, apparently Purple Pen is now capable of layering the "lower purple" under the appropriate colours - although I've not yet experimented with it myself.

[rf_fozzy]

I haven't played with it yet myself - got an informal event coming up in a month, so I'll have a play when I've finalised my courses.

I will add now that the debacle that seems to be unfolding for the CLOK Richmond event has been pointed out to me - an event where the mapper and controller have publicly disagreed with each other (If I were controller, I'd be stoppping the event if I felt as strongly as the statement is worded), that I do think it might be wise to have some Urban guidelines for use of ISSprOM.

Clearly in the case of Richmond, the mapper has overinterpreted the wording of the ISSprOM specs in not mapping *any* buildings in Olive Green areas, except for enormous buildings.

To the letter of the specs in preparing a map for a **sprint** event, the mapper may have a case (although I think I would still map personally). For an urban event, I think they've got this one wrong.

If I can work out who to email, I might suggest some clarifications to BOF.

[rf_fozzy]

If you haven't seen the argument, and the maps, go here: https://www.clok.org.uk/events2025/2506 ... nd_fly.htm

[pete.owens]

Were the MHV and WHV courses at Ludlow using the same scale (and hence line thicknesses) as the Open courses?

[NeilC]

IOF have posted a useful document on best practice for ISSprOM mapping
https://orienteering.sport/iof/mapping/

which confirms what we all know - houses in olive should be mapped (although can be simplied to a block rather than a long row of semis mapped individually) but sheds and the like should be missed off.

[King Penguin]

I can see why someone might think it is not worth spending time on mapping all the buildings in big olive green areas when mapping a new area for the first time, but I cannot understand why it would be worth the time and effort to remove them from an existing map.

[Arnold]

For the Richmond event, interesting choice to "wash your dirty laundry out in the open".

Could be a slippery slope though if all arguments between controller and mapper or planner are henceforth recorded in the final details without them trying to find a solution they're both happy with.

Message from controller: "I don't like control 165 much to be honest, runners be careful"
Response from planner: "I thought it was perfectly fine so I'm using it."

And so on

[Atomic]

For the Richmond event, interesting choice to "wash your dirty laundry out in the open".

I can only assume that the mapper has never had to deal with unhappy land owners when someone has gone OOB inadvertently because this is asking for that in my opinion.

Message from controller: "I don't like control 165 much to be honest, runners be careful"
Response from planner: "I thought it was perfectly fine so I'm using it."

I must be lucky because controllers have never worded my stupidity like that... I can't ever remember thinking they were totally wrong, and we've always found a sensible solution. If the controller is there to ensure the fairness of the competition, and publicises an area they didn't think was fair before the start are they not simply inviting protests? As an organiser I would see it as my job to get the controller and planner on the same page.

Its an interesting approach from CLOK - because if everyone runs it and agrees with the controller, will UKUL be less inclined to allocate them future events?

[MChub]

While deleting those buildings would not have been my personal choice, it is hard to understand why the controller thinks that the resulting map "is not suitable for a UK Urban League event". It has all the information needed for navigation and route choices and is fair. This should be a matter of personal preference of mappers, but perhaps BOF does need to clarify that the standard allows the mapping of individual houses in olive green areas, if there are any doubts about that.

[MacMan]

Maybe more people should read the advice published by iof this month
https://1drv.ms/b/c/663580750d0c0bce/EaNXW7DoolFCjIyJo2WgYFQBW6lKaIPN_CTY4u7Pzy83Eg

[pete.owens]

While deleting those buildings would not have been my personal choice, it is hard to understand why the controller thinks that the resulting map "is not suitable for a UK Urban League event".

^^^ This.
While you can agree or disagree whether a 3 bed semi constitutes a small or a large building. What detail to put within areas that are not going to be visited by competitors (nor the mapper presumably) are hardly critical to the competitor - so it seems odd that the controller has made so much of an issue of it. For me the important detail is the nature of the boundary at the edge of the competition area - though this is often missed. Out of bounds areas are usually good places to put control numbers - and these are clearer if the underlying area is a simple block of colour.

But it also seems a bit odd that when the mapper has made a start to decluttering the map the first thing they pay attention to is the least important - things within OOB areas. Most urban maps are over-detailed and priority should be on increasing the clarity of the parts of the map WITHIN the competition area. Things such as removing kerb lines, widening paths, ensuring minimum spaces between objects, exaggerating short impassable walls, clarifying passage entrances, simplifying fiddly contours, ensuring minimum spacing for steps, etc. Most O maps would throw up a huge amount of red if put through the OCAD legibility checker - and this would be a good place to start.