[OSM-talk] Cartography meetup

[Steve Chilton]

Coincidentally, Richard Fairhurst and I (who are both trained and
practising cartographers) have had an email discussion in last couple of
days about the need for a cartography group/presence/influence (whatever
you want to call it) in the project. I brainstormed a bunch of thoughts
which I have sent to Richard and we were going to go from there. I would
be very happy to contribute to the meeting (in Oxford or wherever, time
permitting) as suggested. I think you have to consider the cartographic
output (both in map and data subsets) all the while as OSM progresses. I
am happy to bring those thoughts to the discsussion table (data
redundancy at different zooms, anchor points for node symbols and type
placement, etc, etc). I may be talking ahead of myself (as we hadn't
actually agreed this yet) but I proposed that we (R and I) put an
abstract up for a presentation or workshop for the State of the Map CFP
when it was appropriate. There are a whole bunch of things that can be
done to help data imputters both record data accurately and help
renderers produce cartographically sound and aesthetically pleasing
output. Could cover a decent amount in a day, follow it up with wiki
documentation, and highlight upfront in the wiki (for instance map
features page should be accessible and highlighted from wiki front
page).

Cheers
STEVE

Steve Chilton, Learning Support Fellow
Learning and Technical Support Unit Manager
School of Health and Social Sciences
Middlesex University
phone/fax: 020 8411 5355
email: steve8 at mdx.ac.uk

Chair of the Society of Cartographers:
http://www.soc.org.uk/
Mind the (Map) Gap:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5413010.stm


-----Original Message-----
From: SteveC [mailto:steve at asklater.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2007 12:49 AM
To: Richard Fairhurst; Steve Chilton; Artem Pavlenko;
talk at openstreetmap.org; 80n
Subject: Cartography meetup


I think it would be neat for the people who defined the map styles, the 
people who run the tile render machinery, and some Real Cartographers to

sit down and improve the cartography of our maps.

Lots has been done, but I think there's some room for improvement.

I would suggest that we meet (in Oxford?) for a day. I think if we 
structure a day around each zoom level and what to show and how to show 
it we could achieve some kick-ass cartography.

What you think? Is anyone up for hosting it?

have fun,

SteveC steve at asklater.com http://www.asklater.com/steve/