Comments on: Sandvik after 25manna: – We need good legible maps!

By: Samo

Samo — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 12:10:09 +0000

@Jan
I read Norwegian summary about the future of Map norms and I liked. http://www.o-norge.no/wordpress/?p=757

It would be nice if this kind of analysis can be included in the articles as a reference in the future. Any important International discussion should be based on equal information and if possible backed with summaries from TOP O-countries. You are doing a good job and if you could reduce the lack of information further that would be significant improvement.

As you can see IOF and it’s commissions are almost deaf. They don’t recognize WorldofO and its status as one of the most important media in International Orienteering. Are you able to make an interview with the MC president? It is a shame that they don’t have the need to comment, reply or to make public statement about anything. It is a shame that in the same time they pursue International recognition while they can ignore the people who want to lead toward their goals. How bizarre.

By: Martin

Martin — Sat, 26 Oct 2013 21:40:50 +0000

After days of thinking about, I came to this: The big revolution leading to this examples of poor legible maps is not the laser base material. It is the Middle Distance. Todays maps are all middle distance maps.

By: Matti

Matti — Thu, 24 Oct 2013 18:28:38 +0000

I think Tore is both missing and catching the point here. Base material is just base material. Laser scanning doesn’t cause poorly legible maps, mappers do. Why they do? I think it’s because we no longer run in unknown terrains but in very established ones. But that’s another story.

Then Tore has a point when drawing anew the map. That should be done more often.

Mapmaking isn’t just fieldwork and drawing. The main goal there is to produce a piece of paper which you can understand while running. That’s why mappers should evaluate their own work when printed and get feedback of it. And I don’t mean just that somebody says that the mapper’s done a good work or a poor work. No, by feedback I mean that mappers should study their own work printed on paper and see if it’s well legible.

So go through the map you’ve drawn and see if there are detailed areas which are difficult to understand. Look at them again but now only with a short glimpse. If a certain area doesn’t open to you in a quick look even on the second time, something have to be done to it.

Map is not a map if it or some parts of it look only like a brownish-yellowish-greenish salad with black dots. Every detail we put there should have a meaning. Thats why the cleaning and brushing between the first print and the final version is as important as getting the information in terrain and putting it up on a file.

And the best part of it is this: a couple of times doing this finishing work teaches the cartographer’s brain a lesson he can use in the woods too. When tramping the ground again he already knows what kind of mapping works on the paper as well.

By: Jagge

Jagge — Wed, 23 Oct 2013 14:46:22 +0000

Generalization doesn’t make race unfair unless you generalize too much things slowing atheltes down or speeding them up. Like paths, big cliffs (small cliffs are no problem, fast to go around 4m long cliff), vegetation and such. Navigation only objects like small cliffs, boulders, contours, low knolls can be generalized safely. By generalizing nav-only onjects you just leave space for mapping things that has real effect on speed, so generalization of those and mapping other things instead would just may make it more fair.

Note, the flag is seen, how hidden or visible it is and how far must be at par with the map generalization. If map is a tad generalized you can hide the flag behind an unmapped boulder. If flag placement is at par with map it is just fair. 80’s WOC winners hardly were just lucky.