Homemade Pamelia Creek Trail Map - Looking For Comments

[justpeachy]

Nice map! There are a lot of map nerds on this forum (myself included!) so anytime you want to share customized maps we'll be delighted!

[Koda]

I notice a whole slew of parallel lines. They seem to be at a slight angle, and some run almost 90° to each other.

I'm not seeing the parallel lines?

Attached an overly zoomed in marked up screenshot (OZIMUS?) to highlight the parallel lines and the blurry borders around the elevation numbers.


Another comment I have is I like the same color for all trails. It trains my eye to quickly find trails on a map, finding my exact trail is not a problem on a quality map. Multiple colors means I have to distinguish between roads, streams, railroads, powerlines etc. that may be similar color.

[kepPNW]

I notice a whole slew of parallel lines. They seem to be at a slight angle, and some run almost 90° to each other.

I'm not seeing the parallel lines?

Attached an overly zoomed in marked up screenshot (OZIMUS?) to highlight the parallel lines

Oh how bizarre! Yes, of course, now they stand out incredibly. No way to not see them, once you do.

Almost looks like a moire pattern? Maybe an artifact from resizing? I've never seen output from ArcGIS do that before. (But I have seen lots of other tragic rendering issues, so this wouldn't surprise me!)

and the blurry borders around the elevation numbers.

I believe that's intentional. Looks like he told it to mask out the area around the text to prevent the lines from running over it. Unless I'm still not seeing what you're seeing?

Another comment I have is I like the same color for all trails. It trains my eye to quickly find trails on a map, finding my exact trail is not a problem on a quality map. Multiple colors means I have to distinguish between roads, streams, railroads, powerlines etc. that may be similar color.

Yep, agreed. Unless the entire purpose of the map is to highlight just a single trail, which is sort of what he was after here. But just using a bolder line of the same color could accomplish the same thing.

[jeffstatt]

I'm finding your map degrees-of-magnitude easier to read than a green-trails map! This is one of those times I wonder if it's a color-blind thing? Maps are among the millions of things in the world that depend a lot of distinction of greens and reds (the main two problem colors for most colorblind people).

[jdemott]

Nice looking map, Chris. Unlike some of the others, I'm not a map expert (I wouldn't have a clue what to do with ArcGIS if it were on my computer) but I do use and enjoy maps. The thing I like the best about your map (viewed on Google+) is how legible and easily viewed it is, especially for someone with older eyes. I especially like how you have handled the contour lines and topographical shading. The lines at 50 foot intervals are very clearly labeled and are easy to follow; the intermediate lines are just dark enough to see but not so dark that they clutter the map. I can easily determine elevations anywhere on the map without struggling to follow a maze of contour lines, and the shading makes it easy to grasp the overall topography.

Your labeling is generally nice and clear, but in a few cases the labeling of trail names and numbers slows me down a little because I'm expecting the label to parallel the trail and the horizontal placement of the label off to the side takes a little longer to connect with the trail. For example, the label for Hunt's Cove Trail is midway between Hunt's Cove Trail and Hunt's Creek Trail. If you stick with the horizontal labeling, perhaps it would be clearer if the labels bracketed the trail route rather than being set to the side?

Like the others, I think I had the most trouble with the use of colored lines for the trails. I'd prefer to see something a little more traditional like dashed or dotted lines for all trails, with all trail segments labeled consistently on the map so one didn't have to refer to the legend to find the trail name. Roads could be solid lines to distinguish them from trails. I understand that you are using the colors to highlight the particular trip under discussion...for me, that would be much clearer if you highlighted the underlying trail segments with a transparent color (e.g., the transparent olive green highlighting of the forest boundaries). As others have noted, distinguishing various dark shades of color can be difficult which is problematic if you need to identify color to find some key information like trail names.

I'd like to see a few more items of information on the map (campsites, springs, landmarks, etc). For example, USGS notes several springs in the area, plus a number of small lakes west of Shale Lake (don't know if that is accurate).

Thanks for sharing this. I hope you continue to post more of your maps.