16 replies to this topic

[A. Fenix]

Hello everyone,

Attached you will find my most recent mapping adventure. It's very simple at this point, serving mainly as locator map to fuel discussions and generate ideas for more content/maps.

BTW, All data on this map is from free online sources, and was constructed using ArcGIS products (with small touch-ups in Illustrator).

Fire away with any feedback that you may have. Per usual, any and all comments are always welcome.

Thanks in advance!

a

Attached Files

•  skeena_111607.jpg   1.52MB   237 downloads

[Matthew Hampton]

Nice map. I love your North Arrow!

• The scale bar has a little extra white on the end.

• Having different colored riparian features seems a little confusing - you could keep them the same color and adjust the width. I also think the outlines for the parks are difficult to differentiate from the roads.

[Jimbo]

I'm concerned that the minor river courses are overlapping the major one's, minor location points in this case First Nations points are overlapping population centre's of over 10,000. The problems exist in the legend as well. I'm also thinking that the lakes in the key map should be the same & not dominating over the oceans.

[Hans van der Maarel]

Here goes:
(in addition to the other comments)

• Some of the texts along rivers are kinda scrunched up...
• Are the locations right of the legend important? If not, I'd either remove them or cover them with the legend. If they are, I would try shuffling things around so that they are not 'cut off' by the legend
• The borders on the locator map appear very thick and pixellated
• I wouldn't change both size and color to distinguish between the two types of cities. Just size would be enough imho. I'd also switch them in the legend
• The Spatzisi Plateau Wilderniss, is that the one at the north end of the watershed, by the Sacred Headlands? Maybe it's better to label it in the map.

Also, I'm not really keen on the shaded relief. I kinda looks fuzzy. How did you produce that and what data went into it?

It does look very nice though.

[BioGeoMan]

Nice work! I am not sure if you are finished with the map, so some of these comments may not apply:

• The Pacific Fishery Management area layer seems to overlap where areas share boundaries, creating a solid line, when it should be dashed.
• I am not sure that blue is such a good color for the Fishery Management layer since it does encroach upon the land where there are streams with similar colors being represented
• The colors of the lake layer on the map and in the legend are different (the casing especially).
• The roads layer is very difficult to see, especially in highly shaded areas
• I like the inset map, it has a nice textural feel to it.
• As mentioned before, not really diggin' the different stream order colors, maybe variable line stroke sizes is a solution.
• Maybe you should dissolve some of the National Park polygons to get rid of the interior boundaries since you are not labeling them.
• No marine waterbodies or lakes are labeled.
• It seems your Ecotrust logo got cut off a little on the left end

I love maps made from free data, more challenging!

[DaveB]

Good start and good basis for discussions on further mapping.

Should the First Nation Communities have labels?

[eli]

Those are definitely NOT national parks, they are provincial parks, protected areas, recreation areas and ecological reserves. There are no national parks within the extent of your map.

Also, they are called Indian Reserves not First Nation Reservations. It's interesting that you included the reserves and the First Nations Communities - I'm curious which dataset you're using for the communities?

[A. Fenix]

Hello everyone,

Thank you for the feedback on my mediocre draft base map. I'm glad that this is coming out BEFORE this map goes any further. Let me quickly answer some of the questions that have arisen about data sources (you can also look at a former post of mine that lists all of the free data sources that i found for B.C.): I understand your distaste for the "fuzzy" background Hans! It's due to the fact that I had to use SRTM30 data for the terrain, since I didn't have the time or the computational power to mosaic the free 50k dem data available from Geobase (http://www.geobase.c...cded/index.html). Thank you thank you thank you Eli for pointing out my legend mishap on the national parks. The only online GIS data I could find for "parks" or "protected areas" was from The Ministry of Energy, Mines, Petroleum Resources (http://www.em.gov.bc...ace/geoData.htm). The data didn't come with any metadata ( but at least the projection was defined! ) and so I had to make due guessing off of the data title and the attribute table. Now, to get to your questions about why I chose to use both the Reserves AND the Aboriginal communities... I did this simply to show ALL the data that I could find the represented First Nation anything. Both data layers are from Global Forest Watch Canada (http://www.globalfor...tawarehouse.htm). So there you have it. All I can say in my defense is that this map is tailored to the needs of my clients. For example, I used three separate colors for the rivers because my clients wanted them highlighted to match what they in particular needed to see: stream order based on their work).

Thanks so much for all the feedback everyone. While seeing your own mapping mishaps is never very fun, I take a little comfort knowing that this map was meant for internal use only, and is no where near ready to be published. whewwy, this site sure is good at keeping us all humble.

If anyone knows where I can find better data layers and metadata, please let me know!



the humble mapper

[Martin Gamache]

I highly recommend moving to the higher res DEM....I mosaiced over 60 tiles in Northern BC with Manifold a while back and while it took a long time to do this...I think it was worth it.

Attached Files

•  shading.jpg   821.66K   107 downloads

[Jimbo]

Nice, & I just got Manifold today. The best I produced was Pictou County, Nova Scotia using Topogrid. As you can see my hillshade is not nearly as good as Martin's.

 Pictou_County_Hillshade.jpg   55.33K   110 downloads

[rudy]

I'm going to have see if we can work some DEMs into our maps . . . I miss that sort of stuff.

Of course, adding a DEM to a map brings in a number of printing related complications, if I remember. Any tips to avoid the worst?

[A. Fenix]

Hmm, I've never used Manifold before. I'm curious to know how it measures up, both in price and sheer analytical brute force, to the suite of ArcGIS products that I use for most of my GIS processing work. I was anything but happy with the only hillshade I had for this map, so I spent a ton of time downloading all of the dem tiles for the region. But by the time I got to the point where I could start doing the heavy lifting I remembered that I could only merge up to 2gb or something ridiculous like that at a time (i don't think that my memory is serving me correctly on that)... so, voila... no time, no way to complete this task. I'm still scratching my head and wondering where I must have taken a wrong turn. Am I misjudging/using ArcGIS spatial analyst, or should I be putting Manifold on my X-mas list?

Anyway, I can only answer Rudy's question on raster related printing problems from an ArcGIS perspective, but here it goes. I avoid them by doing a number of of things which often fluctuate depending on the complex they symbology is and the background raster (aerial, dem, etc) for the specific map. One of the most successful little tricks I have found is to create a small template (8.5x11 or smaller) map in ArcMap, regardless of what your final size needs to be, and then always exporting the map with the Output Image Quality set right inbetween "Best" and "Normal". This will greatly reduce your output size, while you will loose a very mediocre amount of resolution. Then, I either scale up my map in Illustrator (if I'm doing cartographic detail work) using the Transform tool, or I simply export to pdf and change my printing properties to my desired size. I will also do a variety of compression techniques (based on size and resolution required). Can't wait to hear from everyone else on this... I remember once creating my first poster with a base of aerial imagery, a number of embedded photos of the region, complex symbology... needless to say it took me longer to figure out a way to print the poster than it did to make the map! And the only solution that ESRI tech support offered was getting a computer with 4 times the ram I already had... we're talking 4-8gb... yah, right. Of course, the release of ArcGIS 9.1 really helped...8.3 had serious export issues. And using the above little work-arounds has meant that I haven't had serious plotting headaches since.

the humble mapper
a

[Hans van der Maarel]

or should I be putting Manifold on my X-mas list?

It's certainly worth considering. Inexpensive, so it's quite likely to repay itself in a short amount of time. I can say the same thing about Global Mapper by the way.

[rudy]

Hey analisa - thanks for the ArcGIS printing advice. Never thought of doing it that way - and the image still comes out at a decent resolution, even when scaled? Hmmmm . . . time for some experimentation.

With regards to Manifold - it's cartographic capabilities can't compare to ArcGIS BUT it can do alot of other things that ArcGIS can do and sometimes quicker and easier. Working with DEMs, if I recall, is one of them. If you always export your maps to Illustrator for finishing up anyway, this might be a worthwhile tool to get. Don't expect any great text placement, though. Still, a great deal for its price (better than the Avenza / illustrator combination in my humble opinion).

[A. Fenix]

Hello again,

Here is a revised version of the Skeena map. Unfortunately, I spent a significant amount of time working to mosaic all of the 250k dems for this map only to find that much of the western part of this area is not covered. So I clipped out the 250k dem for the watershed, and used the srtm hillshade for the surrounding area.

If down the road there is more time/$$$ I will happily mosaic the 50k data, but it simply was far, far out of scope for this map (I had to mosaic the 250k on my own time).

Curious what you all think...

~a~

Attached Files

•  skeena_1204_sm.jpg   1.41MB   103 downloads