8 replies to this topic

[David Medeiros]

Here's my latest work. This is a general reference guide map to the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge in SE Oregon. It includes a vegetation or habitat layer. This was done as my final project for cartography class and was simplified for that purpose. I may flush it out later by adding in more 4wd roads, trails and naming the rest of the features. It probably needs a spec change for rivers and lakes to represent seasonal versus permanent water. I'll also add mileage markers between rd's, some other park related notations and possibly grid coordinates of important features.

If I can pull this together enough I may try to sell it to the park who currently has no reference map.

Let me know what you think (please see the PDF file for best version).

dave

HartNAR PDF (4.76mb): http://www.sonic.net...les/HartNAR.pdf

[snowgage]

Nice Map!

I like your color schemes and many aspects of this map! I really like the outline of Oregon with drop shadow for your inset/locator map. Excellent, subtle color palette.

A couple nitpicky things

I am having a hard time seeing the boundary line in some spots where its gradiential color melds with the color of the big sagebrush veg-type. Maybe a different line type would alleviate that.

I'd like to see a little more separation between the kilometer and mile part of the scale bar (i.e. the upper limit of km melds with the miles below).

All of the lakes might better be names using the same color text.

Great work and a beautiful map!

-Josh

[Mike Boruta]

Looks good so far! I think I drove by this once. It is a pretty neat area, not what normally think of when I think of Oregon

Here are few suggestions for your revision:

-The darkness and drop shadow on the locator map make it very heavy. It was the first thing I noticed and my eye keeps getting pulled back to it. The same could be said for the scale bar.
-Try making the thick park boundary transparent. Also, smooth it out a bit (example: near Hart Lake)
-The color for the water labels makes the text hard to read where the relief is dark or the land cover is green/grey (ex: Bond Creek) Also, why are some lakes labeled in blue and others in white?
-The spacing on many of your road/stream labels is oddly spaced (ex: Flagstaff_____Lake_____________________________Rd.)
-On your veg zones legend perhaps you could use swatches from the actual map instead of solid colors to account for the different shades that occur because of the relief/transparency
-Mountain is misspelled twice
-Why do the veg zones have to stop right at the park boundary?
-Do those roads really change from 2wd to 4wd right at the park boundaries?


I hope those are helpful. Good luck with the revise and selling it to the park. They should definitely be interested!

[David Medeiros]

Thanks for the feedback so far.

I think your right on the drop shadow, could be lighter. When I try the locator with no shadow it seems to become part of the map too much.

I do not like the scale bar either but gave up on it. I'll go back and redo it.

The boundary I do like but see where it gets a little muddy near the eastern edge (sage fill). I designed the map so I could turn the veg layer off and have just a general reference map that may be more appealing to the refuge. With the veg layer off the boundary works much better. I tried the inner section of the bndry transparent but though it conflicted with the transparent fills even more.

Not sure what to do about the lake labels. The cartographic standards I'm used to from CSAA were that we labeled water features in the water color if the label was outside the feature. If the label fit inside the feature we colored it darker. I switched that to knock out type instead, but agree it's distracting. What I want is a type color that is readable both inside and outside the water fill but will not stand out as much as the other type (water type should usually be in the background a bit more).

Similar answer for road label spacing. That was our type convention, to spread the suffix out a bit to claim the road without having to over do multiple labels. I'm really interested in feedback on this, is this only suitable to larger maps? Should I do as I've seen others do and keep the type closer together?

The veg zones stop at the bndry because I'm only interested in showing what's in the refuge, similar to the Mojave NP park map which was my model for this map: http://www.nps.gov/m...ad/MOJAmap1.pdf
Also if I had gone to the frame I'd have tripled the number of veg types and would never have finished in time.

The roads are probably 4wd beyond the bndry, I was being lazy and will fix it.

I'll make some changes and post up a new version later. Thanks again.

[Matthew Hampton]

It's interesting to note that you shaded the fault block uplight with a light source coming from an uncharacteristic angle (not the NW). I think it's really effective given the orientation of the elevation/uplift. You might change the shading under the inset to match.

Nice job!

[David Medeiros]

It's interesting to note that you shaded the fault block uplight with a light source coming from an uncharacteristic angle (not the NW). I think it's really effective given the orientation of the elevation/uplift. You might change the shading under the inset to match.

Nice job!

Thanks. It took several iterations to get the right angle, I'm sure I could have kept playing with it. The sharp relief along the fault section and the subtle land features on top of the plateau made it difficult to light properly. Light from the NW or W washed out the fault relief while E light left it totally in the dark. Other options inverted the terrain. NE seemed to be the best compromise. I consulted Imhof during this phase but ultimately it was simple trial and error.

I've made a few changes to the file. The new version is at the same link as above (and here below), thanks all.

HartNAR PDF (4.76mb): http://www.sonic.net...les/HartNAR.pdf

[razornole]

Hello David

This is a very aesthetically pleasing map. I applaud your effort to map 12 veg zones with similar yet different colors, well done. I'm currently working on a method to map 9, and I can't even do that. I'd hate to have three additional colors to work with.

Unfortunately, I had to consult my Benchmark Atlas of Oregon in order to understand the geomorphology of your map. I interpreted your map that the area has one major escarpment running north/south. However, I couldn't understand how there were lakes on both the up and downside of the escarpment. In your map I don't see Hart Mountain or Poker Jim Ridge (mountain) at all. It is hard to have both hypsometery and a solid thematic layer. I think that this is a case where isohypse lines would work well. The hillshade is just not effective by itself in my opinion.

On the nit-picky side, I would remove the black stroke from your vegy zones on your legend, or add the black stroke to your map. The legend symbology should always match the map.

I would either move Flook Lake completely inside or outside of the lake, not half and half like you currently have it. Is there really a ~2 mile long bridge spanning that lake?

I think that your inset competes too much with the title. Perhaps you could try moving it down a bit where there is plenty of room and increasing the size of the title. This would also help balance the map.

Nice map, hope this helps.
kru

[David Medeiros]

Thanks Kru,

Hart Mtn. is an unusual place. You interpreted the shaded relief correctly, It's a fault block uplift mountain, so there is a long steep escarpment, flat valley on one side, elevated flat plateau on the other. The lakes on either side are on flat ground at different elevations. Hart Mtn. refers to most of the souther half of the uplifted fault block. There is also a Hart Mtn peak labeled between "Hart" & Mountain". Poker Jim Ridge is the ridge along the northern part of the fault block and not a "mountain" at all. This is a common way to label long stretches of a single geologic feature.

I considered using isolines ut they would have competed with he veg polygons too much. There will be a version of this map with no veg info and that will have iso-lines.

The veg coloring was indeed hard to do and took a long time. I clumped some veg areas together by general rather than specific names, otherwise I would have had over 20 just inside the park!

I agree on Flook Lake, thats not standard. I was experimenting. Agree on the inset as well, though I'm still not sure what to do with it. Although I should say I have something of an asian influence in this regard: I don't think appearance needs to be symmetrical to have balance.

Flook Lake, like many of the lakes and rivers on the upper section of the fault are seasonal, and very shallow. So there is no bridge there but a long road that rides right through the depression and is only seasonally under water (or may ride atop a long dike). If I put this map up for sale I'll need to do some fact checking and change the symbology of my water features.

On the veg legend I disagree. Lines in the veg polygons would compete with the subtle road and river lines to much. But in the legend they help isolate and distinguish between the many similar colors. I agree the symbology in the legend should generally match that of the map (colors should be exact for instance), but I think the bounding lines work to help the reader without creating any confusion as to what they are looking for on the map.

thanks for the input.

dave

[razornole]

Thanks Kru,

Hart Mtn. is an unusual place. You interpreted the shaded relief correctly, It's a fault block uplift mountain, so there is a long steep escarpment, flat valley on one side, elevated flat plateau on the other. The lakes on either side are on flat ground at different elevations. Hart Mtn. refers to most of the souther half of the uplifted fault block. There is also a Hart Mtn peak labeled between "Hart" & Mountain". Poker Jim Ridge is the ridge along the northern part of the fault block and not a "mountain" at all. This is a common way to label long stretches of a single geologic feature.

I considered using isolines ut they would have competed with he veg polygons too much. There will be a version of this map with no veg info and that will have iso-lines.

The veg coloring was indeed hard to do and took a long time. I clumped some veg areas together by general rather than specific names, otherwise I would have had over 20 just inside the park!

I agree on Flook Lake, thats not standard. I was experimenting. Agree on the inset as well, though I'm still not sure what to do with it. Although I should say I have something of an asian influence in this regard: I don't think appearance needs to be symmetrical to have balance.

Flook Lake, like many of the lakes and rivers on the upper section of the fault are seasonal, and very shallow. So there is no bridge there but a long road that rides right through the depression and is only seasonally under water (or may ride atop a long dike). If I put this map up for sale I'll need to do some fact checking and change the symbology of my water features.

On the veg legend I disagree. Lines in the veg polygons would compete with the subtle road and river lines to much. But in the legend they help isolate and distinguish between the many similar colors. I agree the symbology in the legend should generally match that of the map (colors should be exact for instance), but I think the bounding lines work to help the reader without creating any confusion as to what they are looking for on the map.

thanks for the input.

dave

Ok, I see the fault now, obviously there was some confusion on my behalf. I was interpreting everything backward. I guess that it is the unorthodox hillshade. I hate the fact that I, along with most, need to see the shading from the NW. In reality it is the southern side of the mountains that are lit and northern aspect that is in the shade. If only we were in the southern hemisphere...

Keep in mind with the legend that the black stroke will fool people into seeing a darker shade of your fill color. Ah metamerism sucks. However, in your case it doesn't much matter because you have varying shades of the same color due to the hillshade. I think the spacing separates your symbology just fine, but your opinion is what matters most.

With the inset, I just don't like anything to compete with the title. In this case the inset dominates the title and is highest on the visual hierarchy for the entire map.

Good luck,
kru