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Mapping

Show Profile  Linley Posted: 23 August 2014, 7:55 AM  
This interesting snippet came through from up north. Might be of interest to NZ mappers if you haven't seen it already. With the cold winds blowing us here in Christchurch, indoor mapping has a strong appeal! o-zeugs is keen for feedback.
http://o-zeugs.blogspot.no/2014/08/couch-mapper-from-las-to-map-without.html?m=1

Show Profile  Michael Posted: 25 August 2014, 5:23 AM  
Latest OCAD service update fixes something that has been annoying me, the apparently random disappearance of the notepad text. I commend the notepad for a summary of important changes to the file, eg delivery from contractor to club, overhaul of symbol table, major extension, etc. The latest version is 11.5.7.2061

Show Profile  Martin Posted: 26 August 2014, 2:46 AM  
I've been playing around with karttapullautin for a while and produced a few maps using it.

The latest mission is some fairly extensive coverage of woodhill and riverhead.

There's many parameters to test which control dot knolls, cliffs, smoothness of contours and vegetation. Green is used to represent different height of vegetation, rather than strictly being run-ability.

Here's a snippet from woodhill (Restall Road/Inland Road):
http://cmoc.co.nz/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Woodhill_sample.pdf

Show Profile  Michael Posted: 26 August 2014, 6:56 AM  
A few months ago I delved into something called "overprint", which ISOM recommends. I bounced ideas off a couple of other OCAD gurus. Here is my conclusion.

The current OCAD symbol/colour sets (what you get from File... New) use a technique called overprint. In skilled hands this is good. In unskilled hands it can produce undesired colour effects, such as ponds in open land turning out green. These days we expect that what we see on the screen is what we get on a printer, and these overprint effects are not thus.

If you are not familiar with overprint, I recommend you turn it off. Go into the colour table where there is a column for it, and untick all colours which are ticked.

One of the uses of overprint is to allow detail to show through purple course markings. You can do this another way by creating a special purple which is underneath eg black, Personally I find this not enough and I like to go over my course markings and make cuts over any detail.

The message: standard OCAD colour sets do not always print the way you expect. Results depend on how the file makes its way to the printer and you may be lucky. But unless you are skilled it is better to avoid "overprint".

Show Profile  Martin Posted: 26 August 2014, 5:45 PM  
the overprint effect is worthwhile pursuing, but i've found it does need a good quality printer. Overprint (and the colour of the course markings) is particularly important for map legibility for colour blind competitors.

Michael, i've found the colour effects you have come across come about due to lazy cartography where yellow (open) and blue (pond) overlap causing green, for example. Mapping specifications show which symbols/colours are meant to be layered and others that aren't.

There's a good guide to achieving overprint in digital printing here: http://ocad.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Achieving-Overprint-in-Digital-Print-Maps.pdf

Show Profile  Michael Posted: 26 August 2014, 6:28 PM  
True Martin, I don't like colours to overlap. But I don't know anyone who cuts a thin hole in open land for every stream. We may have escaped problems only because our printer's management software has to be set to recognise the overprint effect in our files.

Show Profile  Michael Posted: 8 September 2014, 8:25 AM  
I'm partway thru a wholesale conversion of all our 1:5000-ish park maps to the sprint spec. Sometimes (well often actually) I doubt the benefits will outweigh the effort, but anyway... The issue comes up of the urban vs rural shades of brown for the paving. Where there are areas of rural character (eg bush, riverbank) you get the awkward notion of a path changing colour and sideline thickness at some arbitrary point.

Now I've always had trouble seeing the light brown/thin sideline paths particularly on a background of pale yellow. This was emphasised last week when I went training on a sprint map and I could not read the thing under a reasonable headlamp. Coincidentally I have been reading Australia's submission to the ISOM revision, and a university vision specialist comments that many people, not just the colour-blind will have problems distinguishing colours of low saturation (ie pale). I think the answer may be to use the maximum non-urban brown (50%) for everything. And the thicker non-urban sidelines. With hardly any events providing a larger sprint scale for older eyes, this seems to me to be a sensible all-round solution. Comment?

Show Profile  MikeB Posted: 8 September 2014, 4:12 PM  
I tend to agree with your comments on the paler brown as often different printers can make it look even paler. I would prefer to use the 50% wherever possible. Not sure about using the thicker paving edge symbol though. I think the thinner line still stands out enough. Although having said that most of the school sprint maps we use up here are printed off at 1:3000 maybe 1:4000 at max, so the lines look a bit thicker anyway.

Show Profile  Paul I Posted: 10 September 2014, 8:27 AM  
I prefer the current specs. The darker brown can make everything blend too much. Just make sure the light brown is printed properly.
With edging, again I wouldn't use the thicker line as they be come too important and distracting. The uncrossable thick lines need to really stand out as much as possible.

Show Profile  angelas Posted: 22 September 2014, 3:19 PM  
I am having trouble adding lines on my map using the curve mode tool. I put the cursor down and drag it as usual but some times it picks it up ok, other times it doesnt show up and I cant see where I am drawing. It then stops drawing and I end up with lots of short line fragments. Any ideas how I can improve this? Im using Ocad 9.4


Show Profile  Michael Posted: 23 September 2014, 3:58 AM  
Haven't come across this but first, are you 100% confident in your mouse? An intermittent fault might possibly produce something like this.

Show Profile  Michael Posted: 23 September 2014, 2:33 PM  
Anyone have trouble with background positioning when taking OCAD files into OOM? Or backgrounds that fail to open? Can overcome the former via close/open if I have the world files, but I'm stumped by the latter so far.

Show Profile  Michael Posted: 26 September 2014, 4:46 AM  
Garmin 64S (and maybe others) pull in Glonass satellites as well as US ones. Any experience as to whether it makes an appreciable improvement over the trusty 60/62 series?

Show Profile  Michael Posted: 27 September 2014, 12:24 PM  
Updated my Mapsource to the latest (6.16.3) and now it crashes on attempt to save as GPX. Google reveals this has been going on since 2009 or so. Any advice? There's a kludge whereby you open a successful GPX first, then upload, then delete what you don't want, then it will work. Bizarre.

Show Profile  Michael Posted: 27 September 2014, 1:37 PM  
It doesn't happen to everyone. Further research implicates 64-bit operating systems, and Mapsource versions from 6.15.something. Now where's that old Mapsource disc...


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