9 replies to this topic

[bob_media]

Hi!

While I’m not a cartographer I’m interested in the ways maps are drawn and the conventions used.

I came across Cartotalk while searching for ‘drawing maps using illustrator’ and what a find www.cartotalk.com has been.

I’m a writer and copy editor rather than an illustrator but this didn’t stop a hobby magazine (I was doing some copy-editing work) from asking me to provide a couple of simple ‘battle maps’ to illustrate an article about the battle for Blenheim 1704.

Great fun but a steep, steep, steep, steep learning curve using Illustrator CS4. Even so I’ve caught the bug and want to develop my ‘information mapping skills’ further.

In the past couple of weeks I’ve bought Designing better maps by Cynthia A Brewer, and Cartographic Relief Presentation by Eduard Imhof. However, apart from these there doesn’t seem to be many books that deal with the ‘graphic’ nature of maps. Obviously there are a great number of books that deal with GIS but not the traditional map drawing skills. Are there any? I'm sure there are but I've yet to discover them.

I've already found the site very interesting and helpful. Where else would you find a discussion on hachures and I look forward to reading how someone coming-up with a simple technique to implement hachures using Illustrator?

Best wishes

Bob

[Hans van der Maarel]

Hi Bob, and welcome to Cartotalk.

Hmmm... another book recommendation I can make is "Making Maps" by John Krygier and Dennis Wood. Aside from that one and the ones you have already, it may be worth checking out the works of Edward Tufte and perhaps Bertin's "Semiologie Graphique" (though I've never read any).

As a cartographer/history enthusiast, I have a small collection of "history atlases". Maybe you can track some of those down and use them for inspiration.

Hope this helps. Looking forward to seeing you map!

[bob_media]

Thanks Hans for your welcome and further book suggestion. I'll check it out next time I'm in London.

In the meantime I have purchased Mapping it out by Mark Monmonier.

Again thanks for your helpful suggestion.

Bob

[DaveB]

Welcome!
I have an interest in maps about history (as well as historical maps).
Monmonier's books are good and accessible. The other books mentioned by you and Hans are great resources, too. A good start to a cartographic library.

[MapMedia]

Hi Bob -

You chose some fine intro texts to the vast subject.
Cartotalk is really the 'What They Don't Teach You At Harvard Business School' for the cartography profession - from the business end to the design and tools end.

[bob_media]

Thank you all for your feedback and encouragement. While I'm not a cartographer I'm keen that my 'maps' reflect the visual conventions. I liken it to typography. The way a page looks is down to all the little details that typographers and those responsible for page design use. Hence my excitement about discovering this site.
Again thanks for your support.
Bob

[DrJill]

Hi Bob, welcome to CartoTalk.
This is such a fascinating topic. We've been working on some style components for hill hachuring of the "fuzzy caterpillar" variety, along with some classic pictorial hill and mountain symbols for our symbol library. Hachuring lend itself so well to manual technique and is challenging to faithfully reproduce in the digital world. I find it fun to experiment and see what you can get. For hachuring, narrow triangles offset and tapered toward the ends of the lines provides a nice effect on symbol stamps and with more linear features. You may find inspiration at http://www.reliefsha...ples/index.html (though not the hachuring technique, one can hardly help but be inspired!). Also take a look at the landform technique of Raisz (here's a nice post http://makingmaps.ne...dforms-terrain/).

Have fun experimenting!

Attached Files

•  HillHatchure.png   5.1K   8 downloads

[bob_media]

Jill,

Thank you for the two links. Very informative.

Particularly impressed with the reliefshading.com site.

I'm not a cartography so it is most informative to obtain an insight into how shading is done if you don't have DEM. Also the war game map example is simply beautiful

I recently drew a table top war game scenario map and tried using hachures. It literally took days of work before I had something that nearly worked. Nothing like a copy deadline to force a solution. Not great but 'fit-for-purpose'. Love the 'fuzzy caterpillar' of the maps of earlier centuries.

The making maps.com link is also useful resource. Thank you.

I note your comment about the use of 'symbol stamps' and the example you have included.

Presumably you have built-up a library of Illustrator symbol stamps?

Sadly there doesn't appear to be any mapping software that I can run on my 1.42 GHz PowerPC G4 Mac which runs Tiger (OS X 10.4.11) so I'm limited to running 'very slowly' Photoshop CS4 and Illustrator CS4. Still great fun though.

Again thanks for taking the time to reply to my post. I'm sure others will find the information interesting and useful.

Kindest regards
B:o)

[DrJill]

I note your comment about the use of 'symbol stamps' and the example you have included.

Presumably you have built-up a library of Illustrator symbol stamps?

Sadly there doesn't appear to be any mapping software that I can run on my 1.42 GHz PowerPC G4 Mac which runs Tiger (OS X 10.4.11) so I'm limited to running 'very slowly' Photoshop CS4 and Illustrator CS4. Still great fun though.

Our company has new map illustration software for Mac OS X (first released in August) called Ortelius. There is a default library of symbols and styles, and a very robust style component library for creating your own. We've recently added some new style components, including one called "tagged strokes" that lets us create this effect of tapering hachures. The stamps aren't yet part of our default symbol set, though I'm creating these symbols and styles to be released soon. I've been having great fun putting together different combinations to see what works best, thus a particular interest in the topic. Alas, Ortelius runs on 10.5+ so you won't be able to test out on Tiger.

[bob_media]

Alas, Ortelius runs on 10.5+ so you won't be able to test out on Tiger.

Oh well:...(