-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: SVG topo map of US
Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2009 07:06:27 -0700
From: Virginia R. Hetrick, Ph.D. <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
To: Maps, Air Photo & Geospatial Systems Forum <[log in to unmask]>
References: <[log in to unmask]>
Hi, Jon, loving his summer at the reference desk up there in WAY sunny
Oregon, and other interested map folks:
The reasons for SVG are manyfold but reduce, at least in my mind, to the
following five items:
a. SVG is an Internet standard, defined by the W3C. Except for IE and
browsers based on the same engine, it's native to all the recent
browsers I've tried it on. The current count is 11 different browsers
covering virtually every environment from my Google phone running Chrome
in Android Linux to FreeBSD and other "pure" Unix systems using FF or
similiar, OS/X (Safari and Opera), Windows and Vista (with other
browsers such as Safari and Opera as well as Firefox ), etc., so I don't
need to worry about plugins. (<RANT>Privately, I think MS needs a
talking to; they need to get onboard with the notion that standards are
written for a reason and that open source isn't a bad thing. Certainly
other major companies have this figured out, IBM amongst them. </RANT>)
b. While many systems can read .pdf files, .pdfs remain a proprietary
file format, not an ISO, W3C, IEEE, or similar standard in the computer
industry. Consequently, a plugin or similar mechanism from an
officially blessed (and not free) source is required to read such files
and, in nearly all cases that come to mind, do not come free.
c. As we expect this material to be used, most of what I call "stressed
use" will happen on mobile browsers under less than optimal situations.
Somebody is on the road, needs to know where to go next, and wants to
feed information from his/her mobile device to either another app on the
mobile device or to another device, either of which can supply GPS
service for the user.
d. Whatever file format I use also needs to provide one of the major
graphic devices as a major design element to accent categories in the
primary website as well as in the .mobi equivalent.
e. An SVG delivered from the .mobi portion of the website and scaled by
the user with the mobile device's native zoom/pan capabilities means I
don't need to worry about the scaling or build that into my application.
The two maps you made are pretty cool. It took me lots longer to make
an earlier base map on which to lay the Klondike migration routes for
the Gold Rush to prototype a Klondike NHP T-shirt! Thanks for the
demonstration of the layout.
In the matter of the topographic map, you're certainly right about the
100m contours. I was thinking more like 250m contours. I just want them
to have an idea that they're going to be going uphill (or down) before
they start out. Some of these folks don't think a whole lot about those
kinds of issues and many of them are retired with the concomitant health
issues that come along when people reach that age.
I've been thinking about using a pseudo-shaded relief map, similar to
the Google satellite base map, instead of the topo map that was my
original idea. The important issue is that the user should have a
notion of whether or not where they're going is going to involve
significant altitude changes. This particular crowd can follow road
maps pretty well but they don't understand major cartographic nuances,
particularly the part about secondary and gravel roads in remote areas
(a line on a map that's not blue is okay to drive on is the theory) as
well as the notion that, if there's a big blank space on the map,
there's probably something in the way, either a desert, a canyon, or a
buncha moutains.
You asked what I use to edit the SVG maps. If I'm editing in a graphic
form, it will be Corel. I've been a Corel Draw! user since beta 0.81
and a beta tester for them since then as well. I got involved with them
because they were the first product that would support both vector and
image graphic objects which most companies didn't get back in the
1980s. And, it's all in one relatively inexpensive package and has been
from the getgo. Illustrator, which came out several years after the
Corel suite, and PS would work just as well together, though for a
greater price.
However, since SVG is text, pretty much syntactically like HTML though
with different tags, I have edited a number of those in my favorite text
editor, tedious, but it works. If you look at the
48-states-with-AK-and-HI-in-the-bottom-left-corner US outline map in the
Wikipedia Commons, I basically stripped off all the text, changed the
colors to a common color, then colored the states by regions, and added
my own text, all in about 20 minutes using the text editor. But, the
speed is probably because I've done similar things a time or two
before. ;~)
I look at the blue space on the ArcMap as the opportunity for a GIGANTIC
cartouche.... ;~) Not really! Actually, we may put the text
information that we've been popping up in a separate window over the
blue "space" as a textbox (black or darker blue letters, fersure!).
Thanks again for the help and ideas. Whenever I get this site
completed, with any luck by the end of the month, I'll let the list know.
v
--
\ / Virginia R. Hetrick, here in sunny California
0 Email: [log in to unmask]
Oo "There is always hope."
My fave: http://www.washington.edu/cambots/camera1_l.gif
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-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: SVG topo map of US ponies on Assateague Island
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:51:45 -0700
From: Jon Jablonski <[log in to unmask]>
Organization: University of Oregon
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
References:
<[log in to unmask]>
it's such an interested question that I couldn't help but take a stab at
it. I made a quick map using the basic ESRI data.
what sort of topographic detail were you hoping for? I didn't even try
to include elevation lines and I still got a 1.4meg file. I'm thinking
at even with 100m lines, a topo would be huge.
also: why svg? what will you use to edit it, Illustrator? (I don't
happen to have it installed. The SVG that ArcMap produced wouldn't
display in IE or IrfinView. But it does open in Firefox. My pdf
version works a bit better:
http://libweb.uoregon.edu/ec/airphotopickup/USconic.svg
http://libweb.uoregon.edu/ec/airphotopickup/USconic.pdf
And while one doesn't typically see a map like this that includes HI and
AK--I kind of like it with the conic project. It makes for a nice
layout (but lots of empty blue).
-jon 'i love summers at the reference desk' jablonski
University of Oregon.
Angie Cope wrote, On 8/2/2009 2:44 PM:
> ----- Forwarded Message -----
> From: "Mike Flannigan" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: "Air Photo & Geospatial Systems Forum Maps" <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, August 2, 2009 8:50:48 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
> Subject: Re: SVG topo map of US ponies on Assateague Island
>
>
> Vector based maps would be very nice, but how
> about the simpler request of just a georeferenced
> TIFF of the whole USA, or even whole continents
> throughout the world. Does anybody know where
> I can get those? I'd also like to get a single
> georeferenced TIFF of each of the 50 states in the
> US.
>
> I'm surprised I have not run across these on the
> web myself.
>
>
> Mike Flannigan
>
>
> >Hi, map folks -
> >
> >We're working on a project for which we really need to make a series of
> >SVG topographic maps of the individual states as well as finding one of
> >the entire US. Can one of you suggest a site where we could find
> >projected (preferably conic) file for an SVG-formatted topographic map
> >of the entire US including Alaska and Hawaii, please?
> >
> >I've looked at the USGS shape files which I could adapt, but I haven't
> >found a conic projection of topgraphic map that preserves the
> >topographic information so the shape files (even unprojected) won't
> work
> >for this purpose. The one in the National Atlas is a rectangular
> >projection (or possibly unprojected) even though the topographic
> quality
> >is absolutely suitable for what we're doing.
> >
> >Thanks for any ideas you may have.
>
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