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General BattleTech => Cartography Central => Topic started by: Blacknova on January 23, 2012, 05:08:40 PM

Title: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Blacknova on January 23, 2012, 05:08:40 PM: In the first of my new mapping installments, we revist 3025, using VoltAmpere and Bad_Syntax data, which is more accurate than the data I was using before.

Any comments or corrections for the map, please post below.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Blacknova on January 23, 2012, 05:14:25 PM: As promised in the create your own map threads, here are the Shapefiles used for creating the 3025 map. For those using ArcGIS, I can also provide the colour and symbol files for use in your symbol library.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: SSJGohan3972 on January 23, 2012, 05:22:34 PM: I noticed you're including original and changed names or worlds/systems. Blantleff in the Circinus Federation used to be part of the Lothian League (under the name Dersidatz if I remember correctly) I'll see if I can dig up the reference when I get home. Its weird to see the slightly altered borders due to the correct system positions (especially the CC/FWL border, that's one that has stayed pretty constant from 3025-3085 and now with the correct position of a few worlds (most notably Goodna it seems) the border looks a little wavy. Not bad just wierd, its actually more realistic looking imo. As always your maps are awesome and I will enjoy tinkerning around with the files to make my own (I'd love to do that!!) when I get home.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Blacknova on January 23, 2012, 05:35:16 PM: When creating the borders I made a conscious choice to try an keep to the mid-point between systems held by different powers, which makes a slightly different look to some of the "traditional" borders.

The addition of the dual names for some systems was provided by Volt and Bad_Syntax, I thought it was a nice touch and kept it, as editing it out for each era would be a right, bloody pain.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Knightmare on January 27, 2012, 06:10:05 PM: Quick question. ~~Are these PDFs searchable?~~

That would be a negative Ghostrider.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Blacknova on January 27, 2012, 06:24:21 PM: I have no idea. I created them in ArcGIS, exported to TIFF, as exporting to PDF creates rubbish and then convert to PDF in acrobat.

after trying a seach in acrobat, no results, so no. I would have to OCR each map. I'll give it a try and see what happens.

Failed...OCR at 300dpi is not the best and picked up zero worlds. I would need to export at 600DPI from ArcGIS to TIFF, but that gives a 800MB file, with little real improvement for the file and an 8MB map once it is converted.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Knightmare on January 28, 2012, 06:48:07 PM: Yeah, that sucks.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Volt on January 28, 2012, 07:04:48 PM: BN,

On what other formats aside from TIFF can you export your maps?
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Blacknova on January 28, 2012, 07:15:28 PM: EMF
EPS
AI
PDF
SVG
BMP
JPG
PNG
TIF
GIF
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Volt on January 29, 2012, 08:37:54 AM: hmm you think you could toss me a .ai and .pdf export of a section of a map? I'll see how we can do a searchable file without bloating the file size.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Blacknova on January 29, 2012, 04:21:40 PM: For some reason the direct to pdf export always leaves out layers. I will try an AI export, whatever that is.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Volt on January 29, 2012, 07:45:54 PM: i think it's adobe illustrator. and If I'm right, I might be able do do an AI > PDF export tht retains the text layers and keeps the image as vectors. I don't know about filesize though, but I have some ideas on how to get around that.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Blacknova on January 29, 2012, 08:28:00 PM: I'll try an export to AI and direct conversion to PDf from there. I also have inkscape so I can try and have a play there as well.

As it stands, exports to TIF are currently 200+MB.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Knightmare on January 29, 2012, 08:59:49 PM: It's an Illustrator File.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Ice Hellion on January 31, 2012, 01:46:43 PM: If you go from AI to PDF, you should be able to search in the files.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Blacknova on January 31, 2012, 04:25:43 PM: I just tried exporting to AI and it have me an empty page. I'll have to look up the help file to make sure all the settings are correct.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Blacknova on January 31, 2012, 04:50:34 PM: DONE IT!

All I have to do is print to PDF from ArcGIS, not actually export to PDF. So simple.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Blacknova on January 31, 2012, 05:46:16 PM: Now updated with searchable planet names and smaller file size.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Volt on January 31, 2012, 06:14:35 PM: haha perfect! i get first download on all the files hahaha great maps btw! you think you can include the Kerensky Cluster worlds from Klondike era onwards?
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Blacknova on January 31, 2012, 06:24:32 PM: I Plan to do the Clan maps at the end.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Kwic on January 31, 2012, 06:24:47 PM: bah, now I have to download them all AGAIN!
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Blacknova on January 31, 2012, 06:32:55 PM: A small price to pay for seachable maps...
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Knightmare on February 01, 2012, 10:39:58 AM: Agreed. Glad I started ~~whining~~ asking for them.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Hessian on February 01, 2012, 01:48:35 PM: Very Impressive Work Blacknova!
Especially the possibility to search the maps.

Ciao
Hessian
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Noven on January 31, 2013, 02:23:54 PM: I really enjoy the maps you have done. Can you export them into SVG by chance?
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Blacknova on January 31, 2013, 05:10:12 PM: Thanks.

I can export to SVG. What map/s were you after.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Noven on January 31, 2013, 08:26:20 PM: The whole inner sphere =)
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Blacknova on January 31, 2013, 09:37:07 PM: :)

Which era/s is the more accurate question?
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Noven on February 02, 2013, 01:46:44 PM: Quote from: Blacknova on January 31, 2013, 09:37:07 PM
:)

Which era/s is the more accurate question?

The 3025 map.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Blacknova on February 02, 2013, 04:55:50 PM: Attached as requested
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Noven on February 04, 2013, 10:06:22 AM: thank you very much.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Noven on February 04, 2013, 10:07:30 AM: I tried to open the file and it appears to be broken.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Blacknova on February 04, 2013, 03:49:26 PM: Seemed very small when I created it. I'll try again.
Title: Re: 3025 Inner Sphere Map
Post by: Noven on February 04, 2013, 10:44:50 PM: Alright, whenever you get around to fixing it will be fine =) I just prefer SVG as it scales quite well.