Review of IOF Mapping Specifications

Bryan Posted: 16 December 2008, 12:17 AM   Email from my brother Graham (I'll collate comments from maptalk into a report I'll email to Graham on Friday morning): Are you interested in making comment on the IOF mapping specifications? If so please read on. The IOF have started a process of a revision of ISOM 2000 and are seeking contributions from member countries - [see below for details] .This is the first stage and the IOF are asking us to consider the following: Is your Federation happy with the present specification? · What problems are there in the present ISOM 2000? Are there any errors or inconsistencies in the specifications? · How do we encourage better generalisation? · Which symbols could be changed or added? · Is the present set of colours adequate? · How do we best use the new printing techniques? · Is there anything your Federation feels will improve the new specification? The second stage will ask for suggestions as to the details of specifications both old & new Unfortunately they have put a time limit on the first stage which I had thought closed early next year. I have just found out that the first stage closes this Friday! Do you have anything you may wish to contribute and are you able to make commment urgently. My apologies for such short notice. One issue I can think of is the allowance of digital printing for major events [The IOF does not allow it for world ranking events] Michael Wood has already made comment and I include details of those comments below IOF statement. Regards Graham Teahan NZOF Technical Director Revision of ISOM 2000 The development of orienteering maps has reflected the needs of the sport and the technology available to produce them. In the early days at the end of the 19th Century state topographic maps were used often at very small scales 1:100000. These gradually became larger scaled and additional detail was overprinted. After the 2nd World War aerial photographs and colour printing were used to improve the accuracy and legibility of the maps. This lead in the 1950's to the production of orienteering maps by the orienteers. The present scale of 1:15000 was agreed in 1982 The sometimes idiosyncratic maps were the trigger for the first ISOM in 1969. The aim was to standardise the maps used for international events and they filtered down to themaps used by the individual Federations at local events. The next step forward was the introduction in 1972 of the concept of runability and the orienteering map we know was born. In the next 20 years some 100 individual symbols have been specified for orienteering maps. A further step forward was the introduction of digital cartography in the 1990's. Up until that time maps had been drawn with pen and ink or scribed onto film. These were then turned into printing plates; one for each colour; from which the maps were offset litho printed. Digital cartography has enabled greater precision in drawing and easier modification of maps but it also encouraged mappers to put too much detail on the maps. We are now into the next stage of orienteering mapping development. The capture of data from the ground using GPS and laser airborne scanning will enable mappers to spend more time judging the value of the objects for their maps. Alongside we have had changes in printing techniques. Digital four colour printing; laser printing and different types of paper including waterproof papers will all have an effect on our maps. The current ISOM is eight years old. In that time there have been rapid changes in the production of orienteering maps. There have also been changes in the types of events we now want to organise such as sprint and middle distance. The IOF Map Commission has started the process of a revision of ISOM 2000 to take into account these developments. It believes that the core purposes of the map to provide a thematic overview of an area have not changed. The appearance and legibility of the map is still the most important feature. To reach this objective generalisation is the keyword, which means that cartography has to deal all the time with the challenging aspects of selection, simplification and exaggeration of map objects... Unfortunately the art of generalisation has come out of focus in the last few years. This has to change! The developments in technologies for producing orienteering maps will make it necessary to focus much more on generalisation. It is still the perception of the human eye, which will decide on legibility of the map. This interaction has not changed. The IOF Map Commission sees this revision as a two stage process. Federations will be invited to make contributions and these will be evaluated by the MC to ensure that the final ISOM will be a specification that can be applied world wide. Michael Wood's comments: Heres an issue, not so much a new symbol but the fallout from the way the IOF has done things in the past. Symbol renumbering can cause at best messy symbol tables in OCAD, at worst objects changing from one thing to another. Or at least I think so, the following is a contribution Ive made on the Maptalk Forum to see whether Im barking up the wrong tree. But there may be various other suggestions out there. Michael Wood from maptalk.co.nz: The symbol table again. And recalling that the IOF has started calling for submissions on a revision of the ISOM. Selwyn has pointed out that (in addition to symbol renumbering between the 1990 and 2000 specifications) the symbol numbering in the sprint specifications is DIFFERENT AGAIN. There, the green circle is 418, the dot is 419 and the cross is 420. This is not a problem if you start a fresh map with a fresh symbol table. But often we don't, I have my special symbols designed to be hidden, and therefore a new map will take the symbols from a previous one. Further I would think that at least some sprint maps start life as a regular map converted over to the sprint speci. Calling here for opinions on what should be done about it. We could for example ask the IOF mapping committee not to arbitrarily change symbol numbering. Though I can't think of a good reason why they needed to renumber all the black symbols after 510 last time. (511-514 were shuffled, 515 disappeared, and everything after that came down by 1.) On the other hand there might be a good reason why the numbering might HAVE to be changed, and we might lobby OCAD for a technical solution which magically sorts out this stuff "behind the scenes".   Bryan Posted: 18 December 2008, 5:54 AM   No one interested in commenting? Graham has already asked for and received comments from some mappers but I thought this public forum was a good place for others to comment. Are there any symbols or anything about Orienteering maps that anyone thinks is strange and would like changed please comment. eg - There is a call for more generalisation from some mappers and the IOF map commission is focusing on this based on their comments above (but I would think that more detail is required on some 1:5000, 1:10000 maps). - The ISOM 2000 is stuck on 1:15000 scale as the standard when today I think 1:10000 is the better scale for a standard with maps ranging from 1:4000 (Sprint) through to 1:50000 (Rogaine) - IOF still won't accept digital/laser printing for its top events; the maps have to be offset printed. - All ISOM specifications should be combined into one publication I'm going to email my brother my comments tommorrow morning. I'd like to see other comments too.   Paul I Posted: 18 December 2008, 7:53 AM   Yeah Bryan, I've indicated my thoughts to Graham but it seems very elusive to get thoughts on mapping expectations out of the general O-public. I agree with you that the current ISOM 2000 is aimed directly at 1:15000 maps, with the sizing of all symbols and greater generalisation made to fit this format. It seems that the IOF want it to remain this way which I find difficult to understand when all around the globe 1:10000 maps are used for virtually all middle distance events and most long distance events as well. I feel quite strongly that there is a limit to generalisation on complex terrain before the map becomes hard to use, both from the runners and course setters point of view. Generalisation levels are directly linked to symbol sizing and widths with the purpose of giving a clear and readable map. Because we use digital printing which is a bit more fuzzy and less forgiving, this puts even more pressure on the level of generalisation in complex terrain. So does that mean there should be different specifications for digital printing? Is the IOF sweeping this under the carpet and just hoping digital technology will improve quickly? How would you athletes out there feel if our maps moved further away from reality with a more generalised approach? Does anyone else think it would be very useful to have two dot knoll sizes? My reasoning is that the current symbol size represents a large area on the ground often causing problems for the mapper. In complex terrain the map then needs distorting so much to fit the symbol the map then becomes wrong. Like large/small boulder I believe two knoll sizes could help greatly in terrain/map representation and clearity greatly. This could even help solve some very hard generalisation problems and printing issues alike.   The Map Guy Posted: 18 December 2008, 8:15 AM   Not sure why the IOF has still got hangups with CMYK printing. It is true that in the past there were problems with accurate registration so if one or more layers wasn't right the result was a mess (e.g. poor registration of colour photos in newspapers). With modern printing presses and computer generated images there is no reason why excellent results can't be obtained. The only thing is that spot colours do not equate to CMYK colours (but no worse than what we have with laser printing now). I remember in the off-set printing days printers produced a wide variance in colours even though they were allegedly using the same PMS colours. There is a different set of PMS colour numbers for CMYK printing. I have off-set printed well over a dozen maps in the last few years using only CMYK process. Whilst they do not have contours they have lines and text which are composed of a mixture of the 4 base colours (cyan, magenta,yellow and black). I have never experienced any mis-registration. Everything is sharp and easy to read. I have also added photographs, and gradient screened logos onto the maps and they look really good. These last two things are hard to do using spot colours. If the registration isn't spot on the map will be rejected - I put that in my printing instructions. C'mon IOF - move with the times.   Svend Posted: 18 December 2008, 12:29 PM   Apart from agreeing with the above mappers comments regarding scales and printing I have an issue with symbol 527 Settlement. It is in fact two different symbols but only one symbol number. In OCAD it is 527 and 527.1.In the sprint specification it has a different number and a different definition. The text to the second symbol "an alternative symbol may be used" is not exact and precise enough and open to interpretation. The phrase " may be used" has got no place in a specification and should be replaced with "must be used" and the symbol to be used should be named. The trend both in NZ and in Europe is towards maps at the 10000 scale and 7500 and I think it should be permitted to use dimensions and symbols enlarged to 125-140% instead of 150%, and for 7500 maps 150% instead of 200%.   The Map Guy Posted: 18 December 2008, 3:33 PM   There are no satisfactory symbols to use for geothermal features. How do you represent 1. a large pond/small lake which has water which would cook you if you went into it (purple hatching over blue will only work if the pond is big enough) 2. ground which is too hot or to acidic to support vegetation growth, yet is perfectly OK to stand on. The result is patches of bare earth (which may or may not be steaming) in a paddock of grass   The Map Guy Posted: 18 December 2008, 3:36 PM   Oh I forgot to mention geothermal well-heads. Potentially dangerous because of hydrogen sulphide gas. Same problem exists for oil well-heads on maps that I have run on in Alberta, Canada