23 replies to this topic

[Hans van der Maarel]

As requested in this thread, here's some detailed images of the new Apeldoorn city maps I'm working on. The map is being developed at 1:10.000 scale as a general-purpose road map meant for wall-mounting, a scaled down version (1:16.000-ish) will be used as a folded map that will be used more widely.

 apeldoorn_1.jpg   200.4K   206 downloads

This shows my experiments in using the drop shadow in Illustrator to make overpasses and viaducts become more 'alive'. The SW-NE highway runs over the N-S one, usually that's indicated by that little black overpass symbol. But by adding a polygon underneath the road layers (and underneath the road itself) and giving that a drop shadow effect, you can make it 'pop out' quite easily, which I think adds a nice visual touch to it.

 apeldoorn_2.jpg   355.06K   223 downloads

A view (more zoomed in, this is at 200% in Illustrator, the other one was 150%... For reference: the small street names are 6 pt Frutiger Condensed) of the centre. What's (IMHO) especially interesting here are the special buildings, such as the 'Stadhuis' and 'Centraal Beheer'. These were usually placed as just building outlines, but since this version will show all buildings in industrial areas and outside city limits, we needed to make the special buildings stand out a bit more. So I created a copy of the buildings, gave it a darker color and gave it a slight offset to the bottom and right. The result is a 3d-ish effect.

Some more general information:
All of the text placement was done by hand and I keep going back and touching it up on a regular basis The first one shows an interesting street name: "Kaartenmakershoeve" (first street name top left from the intersection), meaning "Mapmakers Court". The second one shows my favourite example of street name length being inversely proportional to the length of the street itself. The "Burgemeester Jonkheer Quarles van Uffordlaan" used to run from the Deventerstraat south towards the bridge left of "De Haven", but it got extended last year (finally)

[Charles Syrett]

I think your use of drop shadows is tasteful and effective. I've also experimented with soft shadows for bridges, but I did it in Photoshop, back in the days when such effects weren't available in vector apps.


You may notice I also had a shadow in the river. What can I say? Back then I was, well, shadow-happy.

I also enjoyed your building shadows. I've tried this kind of "hard" shadow effect on two levels of buildings. The idea is to create another layer of supplemental building features that are "above" the base footprint level (for example, a tower rising from the middle of a building), and shadow them as well. The selection of building features for this kind of portrayal is quite subjective and often swayed by the bias of the client!

Charles Syrett
Map Graphics
http://www.mapgraphics.com

As requested in this thread, here's some detailed images of the new Apeldoorn city maps I'm working on. The map is being developed at 1:10.000 scale as a general-purpose road map meant for wall-mounting, a scaled down version (1:16.000-ish) will be used as a folded map that will be used more widely.

 apeldoorn_1.jpg   200.4K   206 downloads

This shows my experiments in using the drop shadow in Illustrator to make overpasses and viaducts become more 'alive'. The SW-NE highway runs over the N-S one, usually that's indicated by that little black overpass symbol. But by adding a polygon underneath the road layers (and underneath the road itself) and giving that a drop shadow effect, you can make it 'pop out' quite easily, which I think adds a nice visual touch to it.

 apeldoorn_2.jpg   355.06K   223 downloads

A view (more zoomed in, this is at 200% in Illustrator, the other one was 150%... For reference: the small street names are 6 pt Frutiger Condensed) of the centre. What's (IMHO) especially interesting here are the special buildings, such as the 'Stadhuis' and 'Centraal Beheer'. These were usually placed as just building outlines, but since this version will show all buildings in industrial areas and outside city limits, we needed to make the special buildings stand out a bit more. So I created a copy of the buildings, gave it a darker color and gave it a slight offset to the bottom and right. The result is a 3d-ish effect.

Some more general information:
All of the text placement was done by hand and I keep going back and touching it up on a regular basis The first one shows an interesting street name: "Kaartenmakershoeve" (first street name top left from the intersection), meaning "Mapmakers Court". The second one shows my favourite example of street name length being inversely proportional to the length of the street itself. The "Burgemeester Jonkheer Quarles van Uffordlaan" used to run from the Deventerstraat south towards the bridge left of "De Haven", but it got extended last year (finally)

Attached Files

•  HoustonDntn1.gif   63.8K   146 downloads
•  BrookfieldPlace.gif   210.55K   103 downloads

[Adam Wilbert]

Hans, nice work as usual. Those images are going straight into my "inspiration" folder!


Charles, I actually like the inner shadowing on the river. It has an interesting paper-cutout look.

[Hans van der Maarel]

Thanks guys.

I have something special in mind for the layout of the folded version (and maybe for the wall-mounted one too), but I can't show that just yet.

Most of the design is the result of many internal discussions and trial-and-error, which sometimes makes it difficult to get radical changes happening (I lobbied for years to make the major roads yellow, which is kinda the standard over here). We want to produce something that can compete with commercial maps in terms of quality and I think we really got it worked out with this version.

[MappyB]

Thanks guys.
I lobbied for years to make the major roads yellow, which is kinda the standard over here.

Don't you hate it when you have to really push for something that seems SO logical?!? I worked at a major Government organization in D.C. doing hurricane mapping, and all of their rainfall maps, all of them - they wanted a purple gradient. Seriously. I don't know if it's a Prince thing or what, but have you ever ever seen purple used as a color on doppler radar?! I would always walk around saying, "I am cartographically offended by this!" and people thought I was nuts because I'm just a GIS Analyst (which, let me tell you, GIS-users usually don't care about cartographic things...). Luckily that tide is starting to change...Oh, and another good one, we were making U.S. maps, but Canada and Mexico were in a bright green, while the U.S. was shaded gray. AH! (I'm over it, really...)

Hans - I do like the river shadowing on the map - it adds depth to the river bed!

Adam - I like your idea of having an inspiration folder, I might thieve that from you.

[frax]

hans, are you sure you have enough churches there in the city centre?

 churches.jpg   69.13K   89 downloads

[Hans van der Maarel]

Hans - I do like the river shadowing on the map - it adds depth to the river bed!

Actually, it was Charles who did that, but I hope you like my map as well

I'm sure we've all ran into the dilemma who's right: the mapmaker or the person paying the mapmaker?

Hugo,



First of all, they're not all churches... Well, the majority are, but there's some mosques, a synagogue and a buddhist temple in Apeldoorn as well. We decided to not make the distinction (which is a shame, because I came up with a really cool symbol for the buddhist temple...) but mark them as "religious building" and use the church as symbol. We then proceeded to have lengthy discussions about where we should draw the line for inclusion. A group of people congregating in somebodies living room for prayer services was listed right along a major church... So we (well... I) drew the line at whether or not they had actual buildings. Still a tough call because many of the smaller ones would be multifunctional.

[Charles Syrett]

I'm sure we've all ran into the dilemma who's right: the mapmaker or the person paying the mapmaker?


Actually, I've found that in the majority of cases the client respects our professional expertise. But in the kind of situation described here -- after years of approaching this in different ways I decided that it's actually the client's map (I'm talking about custom cartography here), and that if I think the product was done "right" I include a credit note (IF the client allows it). Otherwise I do what's asked for, accept payment, and walk away. And I *never* place a credit note on an editable file sold to a client!

Charles Syrett
Map Graphics
http://www.mapgraphics.com

[Hans van der Maarel]

Another sample

 apeldoorn_3.jpg   185.18K   122 downloads

This one showing an area in the north of the city, including the Loo Palace (a Royal Palace, but currently in use as a museum). This one also shows the ring road around the centre of the city, for which we had to come up with a new, distinctive, visualisation.

[Polaris]

I really like the maps (both Hans' and Charles') - they go in my inspiration folder too.

I have a question about the typesetting for street names on Hans' map though... quite a bit of the type is (necessarily) tortured into the available space. Might it help to add a bit of leading to the type - so that when it makes a sharp bend, the characters do not pile up?

e

[Hans van der Maarel]

I really like the maps (both Hans' and Charles') - they go in my inspiration folder too.

I have a question about the typesetting for street names on Hans' map though... quite a bit of the type is (necessarily) tortured into the available space. Might it help to add a bit of leading to the type - so that when it makes a sharp bend, the characters do not pile up?

Don't you mean tracking?

But yeah, that could certainly help in those cases. The thing is that I'm afraid it may not be feasible to do it with one single setting for the entire text layer, but that we'd have to do this on a per-text basis where necessary, so it'd be rather time-consuming. Like I said, I'm quite often going back to touch up the texts, so I'm sure they'll be improved upon before the final version is done.

I like that expression though: "tortured into the available space"

[Dennis McClendon]

What's the really cool symbol for the Buddhist temple?

[Hans van der Maarel]

What's the really cool symbol for the Buddhist temple?

Here's the symbols I suggested for the various religions:

 symbols.jpg   12.16K   56 downloads

The first three came from Wingdings (I know, I cheated...), the last one was drawn by me.

[frax]

Did you toy with the thought of using a swastika for buddhist temples? (like on Japanese maps)

[Polaris]

>>>Don't you mean tracking?

er, yeah tracking, or range kerning - that is, more space between the chars - you got it!


e