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Maps and Courses, the Mac Way

I’ve just sent off my first “proper” orienteering map to the printers.

The process was slightly convoluted:

  • Survey done by annotating OS base map and taking photographs. Averaged 3ha per hour.
  • Cartography done in Adobe Illustrator CS3 on Mac OS X. Used my photos, annotations, Google aerial photos and MS Birds Eye (oblique) photos. Averaged about 0.5ha per hour.
  • Rough GIF file of the map created.
  • Course planning done in Purple Pen Beta 2 (running on Windows XP).
  • Leg running-distance calculations done using Quantum GIS 0.10 and some shapefiles of the buildings/streets. This step could be made easier if I georeferenced my GIF raster and used that instead.
  • Exported the courses from Purple Pen as OCAD files.
  • Moved the map file so that OCAD couldn’t find it, so just shows the courses.
  • Bespoke edits, such as numbering changes, in OCAD 9.6 Demo (not saved, but can export)
  • Exported the courses from OCAD in EPS (Encapsulated Postscript) format.
  • Back on the Mac, placed the courses as a layer on top of the map.
  • Saved the whole thing – created a PDF of it as back-up.
  • Sent for printing.

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