9 replies to this topic

[Hans van der Maarel]

I'm working on another set of globe gores in Adobe Illustrator / MAPublisher. In this case the client is giving me a lot of cartographic freedom, and I really want to make this a special one.

One of the issues I'm trying to tackle is this:
When a river forms the border between two regions, the river line and border line overlap. This makes it hard to visualize them in such a way they're both easily visible.

I've come up with two ways to fix this:

 Screen_shot_2012_01_06_at_09.29.23.png   184.96K   54 downloads

On the left side I've created an offset border to one side of the river, using the following steps:

• Object -> Path -> Offset Path, making sure the offset distance is such that the "extra" bit is about the same width as an original border
• Object -> Expand
• Remove the short ends so you get just the 2 parallel lines
• Remove the offset line on one side
• Remove the original line

A bit time consuming, but a very elegant result imho.

On the right side I've tried something else:

• Change my border style to have 2 strokes, the bottom one being wider but transparent.
• Make sure the river is on top of the border there and wide enough to cover the red line of the border

Easier to do, it seems, but I'm not liking the end result that much. Maybe if I tweak the color and width a bit more.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Especially suggestions on how to make this easier are very welcome

Oh, and I'm only now seeing that Frankfort is a state capital and should be underlined... And I'm zoomed way in so the raster backdrop is pixellated.

Edited by Hans van der Maarel, 06 January 2012 - 03:38 AM.

[jrat]

When I look at the thumbnail in your post I could not tell (before I read your post) that there was anything different about the line on the left. My other concern about the line on the left is that it conveys that the river is in Ohio exclusively. If that is the case then well conveyed. Looking at the thumbnail again, the example on the right is easier to notice that something is different about the river. I agree that is not pleasing when looking at the zoomed in example. What if you were to put the boundary above the river and use a smaller line weight?

[Hans van der Maarel]

What if you were to put the boundary above the river and use a smaller line weight?

I'm afraid it might get 'lost' in the river then, and the whole thing will look strange.

I could of course try for National Geographic-like inner 'ribbons'.

[MapDesigner]

Hi,

Usually in this kind of situations(not to be too much time consuming) I use a dashed line under the river on the segment where they overlap.
Normally (if time allows it) I use two sets of border lines, one continuous stroke where is no overlap, and a set of strokes converted to objects (Corel has this command, Illustrator probably has something similar) with dash line as style, so they appear on each part of the river like in the sample attached, I think though that the one in the middle looks best, once you manage to find the proper dash line style, probably with longer segments of gaps.
Hope it was of some help

Attached Files

•  Graphic1.png   89.57K   44 downloads

[Hans van der Maarel]

Usually in this kind of situations(not to be too much time consuming) I use a dashed line under the river on the segment where they overlap.
Normally (if time allows it) I use two sets of border lines, one continuous stroke where is no overlap, and a set of strokes converted to objects (Corel has this command, Illustrator probably has something similar) with dash line as style, so they appear on each part of the river like in the sample attached, I think though that the one in the middle looks best, once you manage to find the proper dash line style, probably with longer segments of gaps.
Hope it was of some help

I actually like the example on the left better.

But I'm already using dashed lines for disputed borders, so I'm not too keen on adding more dashed lines.

Here's another attempt with the NG 'ribbons' (is there a proper word for that style?) Thing is that they show up at the coastlines too and I'm not too happy with that. Still, I think I'll pitch this to the client.

 Screen_shot_2012_01_06_at_15.27.26.png   555.37K   72 downloads

[MapDesigner]

Usually in this kind of situations(not to be too much time consuming) I use a dashed line under the river on the segment where they overlap.
Normally (if time allows it) I use two sets of border lines, one continuous stroke where is no overlap, and a set of strokes converted to objects (Corel has this command, Illustrator probably has something similar) with dash line as style, so they appear on each part of the river like in the sample attached, I think though that the one in the middle looks best, once you manage to find the proper dash line style, probably with longer segments of gaps.
Hope it was of some help

I actually like the example on the left better.

But I'm already using dashed lines for disputed borders, so I'm not too keen on adding more dashed lines.

Here's another attempt with the NG 'ribbons' (is there a proper word for that style?) Thing is that they show up at the coastlines too and I'm not too happy with that. Still, I think I'll pitch this to the client.

 Screen_shot_2012_01_06_at_15.27.26.png   555.37K   72 downloads

Did you tried to drop the red stroke for good, and just leave the transparent wider one? That way would not be confusing at all, that once a red line appears in the middle, once the blue which is actually the river...I think that given the circumstances it looks quite good even on the coastline, yet they could be removed, can't the feather tool, or Blend (too much working with too many software, one cannot remind the exact name of the tools with the same functionality, yet different names...) fix that, or just simply cut them out?
Oh, and from the sample, a dot just North from Charleston, West from Ohio label might slipped in a different layer, or the river is on top of it

[David Medeiros]

Usually in this kind of situations(not to be too much time consuming) I use a dashed line under the river on the segment where they overlap.
Normally (if time allows it) I use two sets of border lines, one continuous stroke where is no overlap, and a set of strokes converted to objects (Corel has this command, Illustrator probably has something similar) with dash line as style, so they appear on each part of the river like in the sample attached, I think though that the one in the middle looks best, once you manage to find the proper dash line style, probably with longer segments of gaps.
Hope it was of some help

I actually like the example on the left better.

But I'm already using dashed lines for disputed borders, so I'm not too keen on adding more dashed lines.

Here's another attempt with the NG 'ribbons' (is there a proper word for that style?) Thing is that they show up at the coastlines too and I'm not too happy with that. Still, I think I'll pitch this to the client.

 Screen_shot_2012_01_06_at_15.27.26.png   555.37K   72 downloads

I like the cased or ribbon style, but I think you could probably get away with a thinner outer line. Using a dashed line for the border so it can overlap rivers is also fairly typical but can look busy on large scale maps (better suited to city & county boundaries).

[jrat]

Usually in this kind of situations(not to be too much time consuming) I use a dashed line under the river on the segment where they overlap.
Normally (if time allows it) I use two sets of border lines, one continuous stroke where is no overlap, and a set of strokes converted to objects (Corel has this command, Illustrator probably has something similar) with dash line as style, so they appear on each part of the river like in the sample attached, I think though that the one in the middle looks best, once you manage to find the proper dash line style, probably with longer segments of gaps.
Hope it was of some help

I actually like the example on the left better.

But I'm already using dashed lines for disputed borders, so I'm not too keen on adding more dashed lines.

Here's another attempt with the NG 'ribbons' (is there a proper word for that style?) Thing is that they show up at the coastlines too and I'm not too happy with that. Still, I think I'll pitch this to the client.

 Screen_shot_2012_01_06_at_15.27.26.png   555.37K   72 downloads

I agree it doesn't look nice along the coast lines. OTT I like the last example you posted.

[Dennis McClendon]

Shifting the border to one side of the river can be inadvertently misleading without extensive research. For instance, the boundary between Ohio and Kentucky is the north bank of the Ohio, not the centerline. Arbitrarily putting the border on the south bank is not ambiguous, it's actively misleading.

As for disputed borders, using a dotted line might free up dashes and also help to communicate the uncertain nature of the boundary. We're used to seeing dashed lines used for established borders.

My usual solution is to make the border a very thin white line that can be seen in the middle of the river. My theory is that the eye can follow a very thin white line more easily than a very thin dark dashed line. Sometimes this forces me to make the river a little thicker than I normally would in that area:

[Jacques Gélinas]

First I think that Dennis' comment on the fact that you have to know if the border is either the center of the water course or on one specific side is important.

I have attach the method I used for my wall map.
If the boundary would of been on one specific side, then the 'transparent' boundary would be only be shown on the proper side.


In my case the boundary is the stream itself.

Attached Files

•  Stream_and_Border_Representation.JPG   50.47K   39 downloads