Orienteering is a running sport where competitors navigate a course using a specially-prepared map. The maps are produced to international standards specified by the International Orienteering Federation (IOF), which are available on their website. The standards specify the colours, symbols, line types, area fill patterns, sizes, etc. for the maps. 90%+ of the maps are produced using a software package called OCAD with the remainder pruduced using Adobe Illustrator with the MapStudio add-in. Both OCAD and Illustrator are expensive software packages; OCAD 10 is currently €374 for a single standard license. I t is my aim to create the equivalent of the MapStudio add-in for Inkscape to provide a cheaper alternative for producing the maps.

I believe that Inkscape has the capability to provide a very good platform for producing the maps and have been able to produce most of the required symbol set but some of the methods the Ive used are a bit work-around and are not the elegant solution that I would want to share with others.

Point Symbols - these are symbols for items such as pits, depressions, boulders, cairn, tower, etc. I have produced all of the required symbols but would like to include them in a toolbox or menu. Is this possible?

Line Symbols - used for paths, walls, fences, ditches, etc. I have produced the necessary line types by directly editing the preferences.xml file but I'm not happy with this. Some of the line types are a string of round dots, different lines having different dot diameters, colours and pitches and I have produced these by specifying line types with an extremely short dash length and then selecting the Round cap end for the lines. This produces an acceptable line of dots but the representation of the line in the dashes menu is an empty box and with five or six similar lines with differing width to pitch ratios, I end up with five or six empty symbols! Hovering over the box for each line type in the menu does not bring up the name that I have allocated to the line type so it is hard to differentiate between the different lines without memorising their position in the menu. Not elegant. Some of the more complex line types, for example those for cliffs, are two-dimensional in that they consist of a line with 0.5mm long x 0.12mm wide dashes on a 0.6mm pitch down one side of the line. I've managed to recreate this symbol using both the Ruler and the Path along Path options in the Path Effect Editor, but neither is that easy for regular use. Another symbol is that for a fence which is similar to the cliff symbol except that the 0.5mm long by 0.14mm wide dashes are at 60° to the main line. I would like a unified and elegant solution to presenting these different line types to the user. As the definitions for the lines are currently in the preferences.xml file, it is difficult to share this with another user as many of the other settings in the file are user-specific, including file paths, etc. Very inelegant to request a potential user to edit their preferences.xml file as many will not be that clued up on the inner workings.

Area Fill Patterns - I've now coded most of the area fill patterns necessary into patterns.svg and do not see any problems with the remainder now that I have sorted out how Inkscape and the Inkscape PDF writer render patterns differently. Very frustrating at first when patterns that looked perfect in Inkscape were messed up in a PDF output file.

Colours - I've produced a special GIMP palette with the standard orienteering map colours but this appears only capable of being used to fill areas, not colour lines. In order to have the necessary colours for lines, I have produced single-colour patterns in patterns.svg and use these for lines in the Fill and Stroke dialog rather than have to type in the RGB hex code each time.

Although I have managed to use Inkscape to create the orientering map symbol set by various means, this is not the integrated solution that I'm seeking and not one that I would share with others. Any suggestions on alternative, more elegant, approaches to producing the various symbols would be most welcome.

Jon

Well I've been hoping someone else would answer this, because I probably can't give you a very satisfying reply. But I guess I'll give it a try, and maybe others will chime in.

It sounds like you're looking to make, or have made, an extension that can be used for making these maps? And I don't know much about even using a lot of the currently available extensions, much less making one. But it does seem to me like it could be done. Although I'm not sure I've seen such a complex extension as what it sounds like you would need. Maybe there is a better approach that someone could offer?

Colours - I've produced a special GIMP palette with the standard orienteering map colours but this appears only capable of being used to fill areas, not colour lines.

To color the lines (strokes) you just need to right click on the palette color, then choose Set Stroke.

Line Symbols - used for paths, walls, fences, ditches, etc. .... Very inelegant to request a potential user to edit their preferences.xml file as many will not be that clued up on the inner workings.

Would you be able to use Markers for this? Or even just Dashes? (both in the Fill and Stroke dialog) Since you need such a specific graphic, I'm thinking Markers would be better, because you can turn any object into a Marker, and thereby produce a very dedicated one for each item on the map. Much better than fooling with the preferences file, I think. And I don't know that this can be done, but I'm thinking if you made or had made an extension for this use, you could include only those markers that are needed on the maps.

And for that matter, your question:

Point Symbols - these are symbols for items such as pits, depressions, boulders, cairn, tower, etc. I have produced all of the required symbols but would like to include them in a toolbox or menu. Is this possible?

I think you would be able to do something like that in an extension, but again, with my lack of experience, I can't say for sure.

Your comment about SVG to PDF:

Very frustrating at first when patterns that looked perfect in Inkscape were messed up in a PDF output file.

Please see this topic for an excellent discussion of options for converting to PDF. In this topic, the member eventually found a very simple solution to their problem, but the topic offers a few other suggestions to avoid the issues you're having.

Yeah, back when I was MUCH younger and healthier, I was a runner (competitive cross-country and track in high school, but just for fun and health afterwards), and I think I would have loved this orienteering, had it existed back then...or maybe it did but I was never exposed to it. Anyway, it sounds fun!

Thanks for your reply brynn, it has answered some of my questions and provided other avenues to consider for solving the others.

Colours

brynn wrote:To color the lines (strokes) you just need to right click on the palette color, then choose Set Stroke.

Worked a treat, thankyou.

Line Symbols

Would you be able to use Markers for this? Or even just Dashes? (both in the Fill and Stroke dialog) Since you need such a specific graphic, I'm thinking Markers would be better, because you can turn any object into a Marker, and thereby produce a very dedicated one for each item on the map. Much better than fooling with the preferences file, I think. And I don't know that this can be done, but I'm thinking if you made or had made an extension for this use, you could include only those markers that are needed on the maps.

I've considered markers, but haven't resolved how to get them correctly pitched along the line. I'd not appreciated and considered using Extensions, but this seems to be the best avenue to provide what I'm looking for. Now I need to learn Python!

Point Symbols
Again, an Extension looks like the best option.

SVG to PDF conversion
The problem hasn't been generating a PDF, but in the different way that Inkscape and the PDF writer render the patterns. Inkscape lays each new tile of the pattern over the previous non-destructively, so that items in adjacent tiles that overlap are seen. When a PDF is produced, though, the tiles are "stamped", essentially overwriting the whole of the tile area and deleting all overlapping parts of previously placed tiles. Once this is understood, the pattern can be compendated to accommodate the different rendering behaviour. An easy way of seeing the difference is to edit the fill pattern "packed circles" in patterns.svg to give each of the four circles defined in the code a different colour - black, blue, red and green - and look at how the pattern is reproduced in Inkscape and a generated PDF. In inkscape, the pattern will appear as alternate rows of two different coloured circles whilst in a PDF, each circle will be in two colours with a straight join at the edge of the tile, all four colours being visible.

Yeah, back when I was MUCH younger and healthier, I was a runner (competitive cross-country and track in high school, but just for fun and health afterwards), and I think I would have loved this orienteering, had it existed back then...or maybe it did but I was never exposed to it. Anyway, it sounds fun!

Have a go, it's not just for the young. I'm >50 and have only been competing for a couple of years. There are competitors in their 80's but their courses are shorter. Good navigation can compensate for slower running speeds.

Inkscape doesn't really have much in the way of sharing features. I've got the odd template file - standard Inkscape documents - with symbols/drawings that I just copy and paste.

JonE wrote:Colours

Shift-Click on the palette sets the stroke colour.

Colours
Line Symbols - used for paths, walls, fences, ditches, etc.

They look like "Patterns along a path" to me. In my experiment, I drew a Cliff symbol and a Fence symbol, in each case one section of the repeated pattern. You'd have to do the same for each.

1. Ctrl-Shift-7 to open the Path Effect Editor
2. Select a (say) Cliff Symbol, and press Ctrl-C to copy it to the clipboard
3. Select the line tool.
4. In the line menu bar, select "Shape", "From Clipboard"
5. Draw your Line. This gives you a single copy big Cliff shape.
6. In the Path Effect Editor Window, set "Pattern Copies" To "Repeated". You've now got a Cliff.

You can now draw more Cliffs with just steps 5 and 6 (It's a big shame the "Pattern Copies" doesn't stick from line to line). To change to a fence, you do step 2 with the appropriate symbol, and draw away.

JonE wrote:I've considered markers, but haven't resolved how to get them correctly pitched along the line. I'd not appreciated and considered using Extensions, but this seems to be the best avenue to provide what I'm looking for. Now I need to learn Python!

A marker appears at each node, so using the Extension->Modify Path->Add Nodes and set the spacing you desire.

Another option is the scatter extension (which I have used for map cliff symbols before) as it does not deform the pattern as it stamps it along the path.


Regarding Symbols. If each symbol is a group in a "template" svg file, you can File->import into a new svg drawing. Move it outside the drawing boundary, ungroup it once, and you will be able to access the symbols and stamping them as needed (drag and hit space to stamp, keeping the mouse down)

-Rob A>

Slow Dog, ffaat, thanks for your responses. They have been helpful in clarifying the way in which I intend to move forward. The Scatter extension looks v. good, not the least because, as mentioned, it does not distort. I've tried using the Pattern along Path function for the 524 High Fence symbol, but the distortion was unacceptable. I'm going to study the Scatter code and see if it's possible to hard-code the different patterns into it, selecting the required line type using a menu in the dialog box.

Just to say that I have now completed the first phase of my project. I have produced extensions for Inkscape that enable the full symbol set of ISOM:2000, ISSOM:2007 and ISMTBOM:2010 to be created and have uploaded these to SourceForge. The O-scape extensions are now available at: https://sourceforge.net/projects/o-scape/files/.

JonE wrote:The O-scape extensions are now available at: https://sourceforge.net/projects/o-scape/files/.

Your Readme file "O-scape Extensions Read-me" in PDF format is unreadable - at least on Mac OS X 10.5.8. Could you provide it in plain text format too? Or at least in a format that does not require MS Office installed (I assume the file works fine on Windows platforms or on systems which do have MS Office installed, since it was created by Microsoft® Office Word 2007).

Thanks for the feedback; I've now uploaded a TXT file - much smaller.

One of my next tasks is to produce a comprehensive manual for the extensions. What would be the best format in which to produce it to allow cross-platform compatability whilst enabling the inclusion of images such as dialog boxes, etc.?