9 replies to this topic

[Tommo]

Hi All

I've been working on a series of geological cross sections to be posted on the company web page along with press releases. All comments welcome.

A couple of things to note - the image looks crowded to me due to the number of labels. Unfortunately these all have to be on there to match the stated results in the press release. Has anyone got suggestions on how to make it seem less crowded?

The focus of the section is the mineralized zone and the mineralization intersected by the drillholes. I had thought of highlighting the drillhole mineralization intersections by use of a drop shadow to give depth to the image - any comments?

The image was generated by a geological software package as a dxf. I stripped a lot of the layers out in AutoCad and imported into Corel Draw X3. Abundant use of the "reduce nodes" tool simplified the image slightly, then some manual tweaking to finish off. The most time consuming part was adding the labels. Is it possible to intelligently label objects in Corel?

An alternative method I tried involved importing the dxf into ArcView and assigning values into the attributes table. It made it easier to label the objects, but the end result didn't look as good as the Corel end product (in my opinion.)

Cheers for your time
Tommo

 1550E_for_review.jpg   577.5K   205 downloads

[ELeFevre]

Hey Tommo,

Suggestions:
I would remove the boxes that surround the text. They are unnecessary clutter IMO and do not add to the readability of the diagram. The heavy black tapered call-out lines also add a lot of unnecessary visual clutter. A thin gray line (almost black) would work better. You could always add a small circle to at the end of the line to help clarify what the line is pointing to. You could also remove "legend" from the legend and give it a more meaningful title. On a final note I would avoid using any additional drop shadows or effects and keep this as clean and simple as possible. Looks good. Welcome to the forum! Erin

[Rob]

i'd get rid of the white crosses on your fill and just go with the solid colors. the crosses seems to just be distracting from the more important info. imho.

[frax]

with things like this, it might be very important to follow the conventions to communicate to specialized map readers - that are used to a special representation - the white crosses might fall into that (but they might be designed differently?)

One thing that I think you could think about - Would it be possible to communicate one of the variables that are in the callouts in the map - by color or weight on the lines?

I would also consider using more pastel colors (more washed out) for the different types of rock/mineral - the central part is very busy now with the blue with white crosses, the read hachure over that (mineralized zone) and then labels and lines on top of that...

But it looks good, and interesting! Thanks for sharing!

[GISRox]

Tommo - Overall, I like the look.

1. Did your customer request the rock type patterns used? They seem too similiar from my point of view.
2. I haven't seen the parallel mineralized zones used that often. Most cross sections use perpindicular bars to indicate intensity of the cu/au/ag zones.
3. I thought the mineralized zone should stand out a bit more. It is a bit washed out with the blue.
4. You might consider removing the drop shadow behind the text.

[MapMedia]

Real decent - thanks for sharing.

I would simplify callout boxes (not shadows) and use black leader lines. Also, the AW- labels should be aligned consistently with lines. Lastly, I suggest combine pastel colors and + marks. Lastly, as it is it doesn't translate well to grayscale. Maybe this isn't an issue - but if it goes into a report that gets printed, maybe make it grayscale compat? I always deal with this issue with certain clients - often leads to awkwardly colored maps! lol

Nice job!

[Tommo]

Excellent, Team. Thanks for the input.

Most ideas have been put into place, the only exception being the patterns of the rock units. The patterns have been consistently used to display the units for over five years. I believe that the continuity of the symbology outweighs the gain in clarity achieved by changing the patterns.

I have made the solid colours lighter so the overlying hatched layer displays better.

An interseting point raised about how the image would display in greyscale. Its the bane of my life seeing a map I've spent hours on reproduced in someones report at a fraction of the size and without the colour! Some people just don't appecite great work! :-)

Again - thanks very much for the input.

Tommo

[GISRox]

Tommo - Do you know what software generated the borehole sections? Was it something like Techbase or Downhole Explorer?

[Tommo]

PaulM - The software used was an inhouse tool used for logging core in the field.

It was developed for direct data entry while logging as a way of removing the data entry process. As an end result, it generates cross sections for printing and interpretation in the field camps.

[margaret]

a couple more comments, although maybe you are already finished:
- Is it possible to move the drillhole labels to the drillhole lines themselves? They are all placed differently with respect to the drillhole lines and where the drillholes end. If the drillholes are the focus, then the places where they end should be as clear as possible, I think. If the labels (e.g. AW-06-023) refer to the end of the drillhole, maybe they could all be on the inside/ to the right of that end bracket, top side of the line. The location of the shortest drillhole is esp. murky.
- For the legend I would put the patterns in the order you read them in the map, from upper left to bottom right, touching each other as they are in the map, and separated by the same dash line pattern that you use in the map.
- If you are an Imhof type placement stickler, the label on the historical drillhole on the top left should be reading bottom to top, rather than top to bottom.
- The meter depth labels are far from the map focus; can they be moved to the claim boundary edge, to make them easier to use? Or does that make the map too noisy. I would also put them in the line, the way you would label a contour line on a topo map. Then grey back the line a little, make it a little wider, and put the label also at grey so that they are readable but not visually competing with the "Cu" labels.
thanks for posting!