vector graphics version

Now that Version 1 of everything is out and solid, I’ve been reimplementing the Greater Northshore Connector Bike Map in a vector graphics app, and also implementing a few small improvements along the way, which mostly come from seeing it in giant map form on a wall.

I’ve improved the background map image via jpg artifact removal, I’ve fixed some text that came out of KCGIS looking weird. I’ve changed from “fuzzy line” to “pattern line” for challenging trails because “fuzzy line” doesn’t read well (if at all) on paper or at certain magnifications. I’ve regularised the distance between the two thin lines that show bike lanes on both sides of streets or paths.

But the real point of this is to reimplement it in something a lot easier to maintain. Version 1 was made entirely in macOS Preview, which is kind of insane but at the same time totally worked! However, eventually, unless you want to have the document open literally forever, that gets you down to a single-plane bitmap and changes become bloody difficult mate and I’m not having that.

So the new version has all the trail lines but none of the icons or text yet. I’ve gone over it a couple of times for accuracy but I’m not the best proofer in the world – if you’re up for giving it a look yourself, here it is at high resolution. And of course here’s the current released bitmap original Version 1, for comparison.

An example of the many advantages of going to a vector-graphics package (Inkscape in this case) is that I can go ahead and move to putting in text and icons and it won’t affect my ability to make corrections in any way. So I don’t have to sit around bouncing in place waiting for corrections this time. And that’s much better.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.