7 replies to this topic

[EcoGraphic]

While I am at it I will post a couple of regional tourism maps I worked on this winter for a local business who prints them as Free Tourism Maps and funds them through advertising. This is my first attempt at shaded relief and I have since discovered that GeoBase has an alignment layer which helps align the DEM and roads/streams/lakes properly. The intention with these maps is to have them act as travel-planning tools, providing enough information to help people plan their outdoor activities, but not to replace the need for a proper backroad guide. I tried to build a bit of appeal factor into them so that people would be attracted to them.

Any feedback/advice is appreciated as I am just starting corrections on this for the re-print this winter. I was feeling a bit font-challenged as well when I did this, so any font advice is also appreciated! I think I just used Myriad.

I have posted the original version of the legend but will post the updated version when I can find the file. The Procincial Park sites and Forestry camping sites are differentiated between by the solid black park symbols(Provincial Parks) and transparent park symbols (Forestry campsites)

Shuswap Lakes Map
Shuswap Lakes Map PDF

 shuswap_map.gif   58.18K   217 downloads

Thompson Nicola Map
Thompson Map PDF

 thompson_map.gif   59.75K   174 downloads

Legend (not the up-to-date version)
 legend.gif   15.29K   132 downloads


Cheers,

Gillian

[Martin Gamache]

Gillian,

Very good effort on these. Here are a few things I would consider improving for the second edition.

Your stream density seems to be a little bit greater than your DEM resolution. I would work on maybe generalising this a bit or looking for a better DEM. Maybe it's just a question of increasing the contrast of your Shaded Relief. A scale bar should be added. The Shuswap map seems to be too large a scale for the DEM resolution, when I tried to verify the scale I could not find one....


I would maybe work on the road symbology a bit as well, perhaps adding some casings to the major roads.

I would also add a white background to the NPS symbols to make them easier to read.

I would also check your map edge and make sure everything is inside the edge. This is one of my biggest cartographic pet peeves....don't chop labels or symbols along the map edge

Your shaded relief layer has very subtle color changes, mostly reflecting an earth tone palette. I would play around with this. I also know from my tree planting days that the landcover around Kamloops is very different than areas around Cache Creek for example. It may be difficult to show this with one hypsometry palette but it's something to think about. With your protected area green it is a real contrast betwen all the brown and the protected area such a strong green. I would maybe use only a boundary line for the parks.

In terms of fonts, I would go for a bold or heavier font for town names as a start. I am a big fan of Frutiger. You may want to consider a serif font for hydrologic features. Whatever you choose make sure it is consistent and legible. I've spotted a few differences between rivers, creeks and streams in terms of color and italics. Is this intentional? Try masking your labels when they overlap road features or be more creative with their placement some seem to be obscured.

This is a minor point but when indicating terrain features try to place a dot to indicate the exact location especially when the underlaying terrain does not provide much clues.

If this is a tourist map you may want to add an index and grid.

[EcoGraphic]

Thanks Martin,

The scale bar appears in the printed version, but is not shown on these. All your advice is hugely appreciated. I will post an updated version when I get a chance.

I used the 1:250000 DEM from GeoBase for these. I wonder is it would be better to use the 1:50000 and join them together. I am just concerned that it would create more alignment problems between the surface features and DEM.

How do you mask labels? I have not had to do that before.


Cheers,

Gillian

[Martin Gamache]

I wonder is it would be better to use the 1:50000 and join them together. I am just concerned that it would create more alignment problems between the surface features and DEM.

How do you mask labels? I have not had to do that before.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Merging Geobase DEMs is fairly straight forward and may be the appropriate way to go for the larger scale maps. You can always generalise them using some smoothing filters if they are too detailed. As far as alignment issues I am not sure what your workflow is but it is fairly easy to keep data registered in the GIS or using MAPublisher as long as the datasets are referenced correctly in their original format. Sometimes it help to reflow streams to help them fit your surface....it all depends on the scale you are working at.

As far as masking labels it depends on your background and the color of the object you are trying to mask over. Sometimes it is as simple as adding a stroke behind the label and making it the same color as your background, sometimes you make the stroke an overprinting object a 1% tint of the object you want to mask.... sometimes you chop the line and sometimes you position your text real carefuly.

mg

[Nick Springer]

There is also a description of another technique for masking type in this topic.

[EcoGraphic]

I wonder is it would be better to use the 1:50000 and join them together. I am just concerned that it would create more alignment problems between the surface features and DEM.

How do you mask labels? I have not had to do that before.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Merging Geobase DEMs is fairly straight forward and may be the appropriate way to go for the larger scale maps. You can always generalise them using some smoothing filters if they are too detailed. As far as alignment issues I am not sure what your workflow is but it is fairly easy to keep data registered in the GIS or using MAPublisher as long as the datasets are referenced correctly in their original format. Sometimes it help to reflow streams to help them fit your surface....it all depends on the scale you are working at.


mg

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Martin,

When you want to merge a number of 1:50,000 DEMs together, is there a way of merging the data before it is used to create your shaded relief. I have tried joining individual DEMs after they have been shaded, and have run into some areas where the colour is not quite right between the different DEMs creating an obvious join that would require quite a bit of photoshop manipulation to disguise.

cheers,

Gillian

[Martin Gamache]

Of course you merge the DEMs before generating and reprojecting your shading....the exact procdure for merging will vary depending on the utility you choose to do the job but it is a pretty straighforward process.if there is seam lines it could be due to data problems but usually it has not been an issue for me with that data.

mg

[EcoGraphic]

Of course you merge the DEMs before generating and reprojecting your shading....the exact procdure for merging will vary depending on the utility you choose to do the job but it is a pretty straighforward process.if there is seam lines it could be due to data problems but usually it has not been an issue for me with that data.

mg

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks. Worked fine. I have of course merged data tables in Excel to use in ArcGIS, but just haven't had to do it before with a DEM. Just wasn't sure how it worked. My first shot doing shaded relief for these maps I just used the 1:250,000 scale and joined the east and west DEM in Photoshop which worked fine.