Discussion: What is World Class Terrain - Urban

In the other thread it is clear that urban terrain has to be considered separately. Those of such a mind, contribute here.

There is some suggestion (an assessment tool for urban events which I cannot now find) that the more legs the better. And in promoting events, organisers make the most of an area's complexity. Is this the key feature for urban terrain?

I think the first key feature is that the streets should not form a grid.

Lots of pretty flowers to look at.

The more it is like Venice, the better.

Swim-O?

The more it's like "You Are In a Maze of Twisty Little Passages" the better - real orienteers know that phrase like the back of their plugh...

Only nerdy ones of a certain age.

If I was less nerdy or less of a certain age, I might be offended by that remark...

But I truly was answering the question about Venice and Swim-O - the suggestion that being "like Venice" is accurate because of all built-up cities, Venice has an uber-count of large and small paved roadways/sidewalks, and they do seem to go in all sorts of directions - and then there's the water and bridges. (It's like they had to build and rebuild without being able to increase the footprint of the city...)

The right setting for world-class urban orienteering would be in downtown Detroit,
in the style of The Running Man with Schwarzenegger

East Oakland is available last time I checked.

Disney World

Twisty little passages all alike? or all different :-)

Perhaps a start is to agree on exemplary recent sprint courses and then work backwards from there to a definition.

Like this: http://sun-o.com/doma/show_map.php?user=sun-o.com&...

Working backwards in orienteering will get you to the start triangle.

Has anyone gotten around to mapping this yet?

Thats assuming you can find the triangle...

First clue IMO: If you need to put up temporary fences in random places or declare particular patches of grass to be imaginary gardens, it's probably not world class...

jj - preferably on a Sunday in May.

Random like this: https://twitter.com/tessahill/status/5260777072985...

Uhh, okay despite the obvious difficulty of that leg, it's CP 34-35(!) and looks to be a heck of a long way for one leg of a sprint event with that many controls! Surely the winning time is achieved on just that leg alone :-)

+1 slow-twitch

Just my personal opinion, but to me, graeme's example is not what orienteering should be; or at least not what I enjoy about it. More like a gimmick.

I'm inclined to second what upnorthguy is saying, to the extent that my feeling is that if I were to encounter that on my course, I'd just stop and walk off in disgust. But paradoxically, I have no explanation for why I find corn maze orienteering to be so excellent. Maybe because it gives up the pretense of being navigating through what happens to be there, and instead goes for a fully artificial playing field. Or maybe because it's easier to read than streets with temporary fences added.

The fences weren't temporary ...

really not temporary? was it difficult to get permission to hold a race in a prison camp? ;-)

Getting back to the original point, I see the most important part of good urban terrain as being terrain which maximises the number of decision points per minute - old Mediterranean towns are great for this because of the density of their lane/street networks, and their irregularity. (The last part of the WMOC 2008 final in Portugal was an excellent example).

I'm not a huge fan of artificial obstacles either, but if you need them to turn a poor sprint area into a reasonable one - say, in order to run a major championship somewhere with good forest terrain but poor urban terrain - then using them is probably the lesser of two negatives.

I've been looking at graeme's map now for at least 15 minutes and still haven't found a route that isn't blocked...

6-7-8

http://sprint.whyjustrun.ca/2013/maps/2.gif

Well even sitting here in the comfort of my home, with it blown up to 1:1000 scale or whatever, and without the clock running, I still can't picture the levels or figure out 6-7 (didn't bother with 7-8). Is that what orienteering should be - needing to figure out the 'trick', the "ah ha" moment like when solving a puzzle?

Agreed. Graeme's and Hammer's examples are in the "frustrating", "tricky" and "standing still" categories. To me "thinking on the run" is more like it. I've spent 5 minutes looking at those examples and still can't see a viable way to either.

Imma let you finish, but 6-7 was one of the best legs of all time! One of the best legs of all time!

I have a category? Well it's about time!

I think I'm with O-ing on this one. I can't even see a way to get into #7.

[edit] Never mind, I found it.

It's not a good leg if some people 'get it' straight away, and others take minutes to work it out (and O-ing & upnorthguy are not sprint novices by any stretch of the imagination). Looking at 6-7 from a practical orienteering point of view, it's one of the worst legs of all time. However, from a purely geek 'how about that leg?' point of view, you could say it would be ok if the underpasses were mapped more clearly to show that they don't necessarily stop at a wall that isn't passable at the upper level.

On the original point, 'world-class' urban orienteering terrain could be virtually anywhere provided the mapper and course setter are very experienced and thoughtful orienteers with a complete understanding of ISSOM and IOF Sprint parameters. And if some terrains require artificial obstacles to make them suitable for say, a WOC or World Cup sprint then I won't argue provided the obstacles are mapped correctly and marked/taped in the terrain if necessary/appropriate.

After all, aren't gardens (528.1) really 'artificial obstacles' yet they're on virtually every sprint map.

There are actually two completely different and valid routes from 6 to 7!

ISSOM 2007 Introduction: In urban areas, it is not unusual to find multilevel areas. ISSOM allows for the representation of simple underpasses and overpasses. More complex multilevel areas which cannot be mapped clearly are not suitable for IOF events.

And by implication, not 'world-class' terrain.

Urban version of bingo. You race hard and gain and loose seconds here and there and then comes the bingo leg and all of those seconds becomes obsolete.

Well Pink Socks, well done. However I still don't get it. I don't see any valid route to 7. Unless... the impassable wall I'm seeing just north of the line near enough to 6 and pretty much parallel is actually not impassable. As I blow the map up the line looks like it changes in thickness - is part of it passable?? Then there is the single line of dots NW of 6. A distinct vegetation boundary?? Or an underpass under the whole huge building - leading where exactly? Is that the trick.This has been quite useful - I consider myself a sprint-O specialist but I NEVER want to do a course like that.

Put it this way, if I were controller and that were a championship event (not nec international), I would require map samples to be posted explaining the unclear bits (for example those pointed out by O-ing, also, light pink OOB?!), or at least the method of depicting bits that aren't quite ISSOM.

That said, I think the mapper did about as good a job as possible, and I would be quite happy to race something like that... just perhaps not at championship level.

Edit: Except the northern route into 7 (assuming it is valid) is missing a dotted line, as O-ing pointed out.

ndobbs the light pink OOB is the mapper's attempt to tell you that the underpass is out of bounds, but not the paved level above it. If I were mapping it, I would be inclined not to show that underpass (or that part of it) and to tape off the entrances for the duration of the event. I'd probably put large 'Underpass Out of Bounds' signs at each entrance for good measure.

Another confusing thing about the map is the differing treatment of contour lines, which should be the main 'key' for the experienced orienteer in areas such as this. In some places the contours are shown through the buildings, in others they're not. On the South-East side of the stadium (I assume that's what it is) 3 contour lines disappear into a wall, but on the North-East side there are only two contours emerging from the wall. Controls 4 and 5 appear to be at the same level, but my guess is that they are actually even lower than 6, which on the (scant) evidence should be at least two and probably 3 contours lower than 7.

^^^This is why no-one likes orienteering!

I think the contour lines are depicting the level beneath the stadium and the overpasses. The stadium is the 'upper' level and not affected by the contours.

Is there an underground carpark with multi-levels? Are the roads out of bounds because they're dangerous or because it creates route choice?

Now I feel bad posting it because Vancouver is way out in front in urban orientering. Great set of maps and weekly urban races all year long.

So here is another take on World Class urban terrain. Why does it have to have as many decisions per km as possible? Yeah we like the challenge but that is the technical challenge? If urban races pulled back on the technical it would increase the number of World class runners that could win. Should the style of the sport be such that the best in terrain middle or long also be able to win urban races? Many of us would say yes. But I'd argue that by increasing the running speed challenge you have the potential to increase the depth of world class runners and then have more 'World class terrain'. Sprint races (like the ones posted) seem to be getting more like puzzles and less about the pure running speed. I'm not arguing for super dumbed down terrain or courses but for a nice balance between the technical and physical challenges of our sport. If it is all about technical then many corn mazes win. I ran my first corn maze last month and made a 10 minute mistake (couldn't relocate). I had gone 30+ years making an error that large. :-)

The Vancouver map doesn't seem to have much in the way of route choice, other than 3-4 and the aforementioned 6-7-8. It's almost like the map was lulling the runner into a false sense of 'this is pretty easy' before hitting you up with the WTF legs.

Blair wrote: ... maximises the number of decision points per minute - old Mediterranean towns are great for this...

My understanding of these towns is that for 1000 years Mediterranean towns were targets for pirate attacks, both from land and sea. It wasn't just Venice. So the town locals purposely designed their street layouts like a maze: multiple levels, unexpected twists and turns, secret passages, narrow alleys, etc.

The point was to entrap the pirates; once they were inside the town, they couldn't find their way back out. And could be slaughtered by the villagers as they frantically ran back and forth, looking for their comrades, and escape from the arrows raining down from above.

Most of the towns in the Greek Cyclades Islands are quite maze-like, whether down by the sea, or up in the "choras" - the walled villages high in the mountains. These would be great locales for an urban O event, followed by a swim, lunch at a Taverna, and a ferry ride to the next day's event on a neighboring isle. Greek O-Week!

I imagine the same applies to many of the old town centres in the Arab world - certainly the medina in Marrakech (which I went to last year) would be an amazing place for an urban event, and there are probably many more like it.

7 is at the ground level as is 6. The walkway around the stadium is on the upper level. road was off limits because it was a major thoroughfare that was not closed. The course was part of the Vancouver sprint training camp as one of 10 courses weekend of sprinting on first class sprint maps. Not an international or national race.

https://www.google.com/maps/@49.2780205,-123.10374...

Agree with the sentiments that this is too complex for high level important race, but for what it was used it was great.

more importantly about the Vancouver map. isn't that arena on the right side of the google image and on the map where this happened?

Wow, that leg requires StreetView to figure it out: https://www.google.com/maps/@49.2785496,-123.10908...

The event program for the Vancouver Sprint Camp had a map sample of the arena explaining the non-standard faded purple hatch and where and how you could run.

We were fully aware that this was not a suitable championship course or terrain, but it was a training camp and with the explanation given ahead of the race participants really enjoyed it!

(wakes up)

Sorry, I wasn't really advocating 6-7 as the greatest of all time. It was late, I had just heard the famous Kanye interruption referenced on a podcast, and I thought I'd be funny.

It was, however, the most memorable leg I've ever done at VSC, and I've run 1000+ legs there by now.

As Nikolay said, it was a training race. I don't remember anyone who's brain turned to goo. I don't even remember anyone talking about the unfairness of the leg immediately after the run. It was fun. One thing that just amazes me about VSC is how much they can maximize their terrain. They map everything. Small chunks of complicated downtown stuff? O-tervals. Super tiny park? Intense relay. Multi-level stadium area? Mind-bending route choices.

I don't remember a map sample for the stadium [edit: there was], but on other occasions, they have provided map samples beforehand: (area around 11-12 here, area around 8-9-10 here).

Also, I'm not seeing where the missing dotted line would go? Is the dotted line necessary, since the bridge symbol is interpreted to be crossable underneath? I thought dotted lines are only shown when going through/under uncrossable features.

@slow-twitch: really not temporary?
Definitely not temporary (think about it).

From the same planner... try 2-3, 12-13, 17-18

http://www.soa.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#41&course=1

and then check out the results, not forgetting to scroll down to the world champions ;)

@PS Woah, that was drawn as a bridge! At least that explains the different thickness.

Is the lesson that you should check things out with google before you race?

Not really, when you are on location it may be easier to figure things out, than by just looking at the map. Overhead imagery helps sometimes but for these urban races it is often confusing as well.

This highlights one of my concerns about sprints (which is also a concern about Trail-O): namely, that the activity has a tendency to devolve into something that is further from the essence of orienteering (we can hash out what that means elsewhere.) This is the same problem that Micro-O had, IMHO.

You are emphasizing the game like components of the activity, building them up, vs. the sporting ones. Don't get me wrong, you can train for sprints, get good at them (even ones which are ridiculous), and the best athletes should win, but it strikes me as akin to training for a test (SATs, etc.) rather than seeking to develop or measure true academic or professional capability.

{Your collective indignation at the Vancouver Olympic Stadium course}:{Sprint format}
= {Late 1990s/early 2000s/(present, among geriatrics) indignation at Sprints in general}:{"Classic" orienteering}.

It's an Olympic stadium. Once you are there, you know. You have to visualize in three dimensions, not just two, but other than the fact that the problem is unorthodox, there is no unfairness to it. It's just a different, no less fair, format of the same sport. Once you train a bit for it, it's fair. Or if you have to think in 3d regularly, like some of us, then it's fair right away. Seeing the structure at all times helps to visualize the map much more easily than you can sitting at your screen; at least to me, it does.

Back 15 years ago, there was a lot of sniping at the ridiculousness of racing around buildings. Then acceptance. Then respect. I'm not saying there aren't contentious and yet unsettled aspects, such as the sometimes artificial out-of-bounds issues, but it's generally been agreed that ISSOM-compliant Sprints are a worthwhile addition to what seemed like a settled way of doing things. Turns out, the new way also tests the physical racing ability and the mental rotation problem, just not in the same proportion and not exactly in the same way as orienteering through forest does.

There is no reason that 3d racing can't be first grudgingly accepted, then respected, since at least for a subset of terrains it is possible to set up a fair competition. Just because you personally are unused to it doesn't mean it's wrong.

Excellent contributions, very happy that they are addressing some of the gnarly questions facing us. A feeling that more complex terrain is a better test of the total orienteering experience. A tendency that follows to try and map "everything", followed by demands for a larger scale to maintain legibility. The introduction of what might be called "tricks" by over-zealous planners. Words of wisdom about the beauty of generalisation (thank you Jagge) which must occur at all scales except 1:1.

"Then I jogged over to the start of the race outside BC Place. And if there were any time to work on not leaving the control before having a plan, it was this one. The chaos started from 3 to 4, which actually was not chaotic at all. I had a plan well sorted before arriving at 3, though I had a sub-optimal exit direction, primarily because I had planned backwards and hadn't gotten to the last 50 meters.

Then 7 came along. I think I learned that its probably not unresonable to keep planning ahead if you're sorted for the controls ahead. Before getting to 4 I had planned 5 and 6, but reconsidered going all the way to 7. That could have been a mistake, because then I stopped doing any pre-planning until I got most of my way to 6, and came to a complete stop going to 7 to find a route. Eventually I did find a route after a solid 30 seconds of a non-movement, and my route was definitely not the best one. That probably cost me a solid minute or so, but everyone made mistakes, and Future Sprint Star took this race by well over a minute over me.

That was a rude awakening.
From - http://www.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_4196/p...
Wil obviously should have spent more time reading the program which had all the details to help. Which isn't there any more or at least I couldn't find it.

And for anyone who still can't work out how to do that leg (like me) I found Shadowcasters GPS - http://www.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_1896/p... Looks like the pink OOB is actually passable in places??

How not to do it- Anvils GPS "Ran into trouble at #7 where I mentally 'jumped' from one parallel underpass to the other - ended up on a busy road and had to backtrack, winsplits says I lost 1:40. at http://www.attackpoint.org/viewlog.jsp/user_2681/p...

O-ing that's because you're on the level above the OOB, as I explained above.

Pink OOB were busy roads, so not crossable. Shadowcaster's route is essentially the route I took.

As much as this doesn't make sense on paper, it makes a lot of sense when you're there. Running 3-4 really got you into what you'd encounter later. It still wasn't easy. I spent most of my time from 3 to 6 trying to figure out how to get to 7.

I'm glad that I've run on a lot of complicated GVOC maps, because it's definitely made me a better sprint mapper.

Personally, I agree with those who say that this type of "trick" navigation is not what the sport should be. It's basically the sprint version of a bingo control, yes. Being aware of this, we did it anyway in this training event to let participants experience this unusual downtown setting. That's all there is to it. We could have done a completely non-controversial and "fair" course, guiding the runners around the tricks with many close controls, but then we wouldn't have this wonderful discussion 2 years later... and how sad would that be.

O-ing, you are an annoying person. The program was emailed to all participants and posted online. It's still online. I won't post a link for you. I'm waiting for you to find it and post something sarcastic about it.

I think its a vocation.

So no jumping off the bridge on that leg then?

I once attended the O-ing school of mountain bike orienteering. Then I became the master and he moved interstate.

Was that because he misjudged the scale?

He rode right off the map into Sydney.

Really? Dryandra, after all these years - it still hurts so much?

:-)

No, it hurt so much at the time... those long almost-not-hills that after lots of km turned into monsters as I hauled up them at something like 12kph, dicing with Evo who was doing about 12.4kph!!

@TundraDesert There is no reason that 3d racing can't be accepted
Actually there is. The same reason why urban wasn't accepted - the map specs are sufficient to make the competition fair enough to be enjoyable.
Once ISSOM came in, 2D urban races became very popular. 3d racing is awaiting its map standard.

I meant can't be accepted in principle. I agree, ISSOM is less than adequate for more than (2 + epsilon)d, although in the particular case under consideration I thought it was (barely) OK.

I agree with Graeme, ISSOM is an adaptation of a mapping standard that was developed for (a certain type of) forest. Even ISOM doesn't work for some kinds of natural terrain, and ISSOM is barely adequate for some urban areas. For other urban areas it totally falls short, and we do not currently have any appropriate way to map those areas for racing. For now, those areas should be avoided. It's a problem when planners instead gravitate toward them because they think they can create problems that will be difficult for the competitors to figure out. It's supposed to be a competition between the racers, not between the planners and the racers. (I'm not pointing a finger at any particular courses as offenders in this regard. )

I accept the Sprint format, but it doesn't have the same feel for me.

When traveling through nature, you have built-in rules. Water travels downhill, the sun carves an arc, animals make trails, and rock formations follow patterns. Finding a path from one control to another makes sense, even if you don't notice items on the map.

Sprint - not so much. One has to have really good eyesight to notice minute dots, dashes, and colors. Speed and thinking still count, but the "best" events seem to key on having some subtle aspect of the map that the competitor needs to notice.

It's a valid branch of orienteering.

3D - just as valid if mapped consistently and clearly. (but also perhaps not my favorite - and that's ok)

Our ability to handle unusual aspects of terrain does change with time, so that for example apparently random granite fields or sand dunes become regarded as fair tests of navigation. In the urban landscape what would once have been regarded as "tricks" might become OK.

But I do remember many years ago being very involved in what we called car trialling. Usually the course was defined by sets of instructions and speeds (legal) to be maintained. Points off for early or late at un-announced checkpoints. And then came the slightly mis-quoted direction sign, which you were supposed to ignore, and those who didn't notice missed out a checkpoint altogether. My club of smart-arsed students developed these clever instruction types to such an extent that they became "tricks". Sometimes they were so smart that results were determined in the protest room. And now, around here, the sport has almost faded away.

Ha, ha... I too used to do those events, in Northern California in the 1960's. Except we called them "TIme, Speed, Distance Sports Car Rallyes." This was before electronic calculators. So some guys used pencil and paper to calculate exact distances. Others used a mechanical Curta calculator that looked like a pepper mill, and allowed you to calculate distances to 0.001 accuracy....with enough hand cranking!

And just as you observed, the sport died out when it became more about defending yourself in the protest room, rather than finding your way through unfamiliar countryside, while enjoying driving a well-tuned sportscar on narrow roads late at night, accurately and error-free...sound familiar?

A sprint at Sydney Uni (great map) last January featured a control in a multi-storey building with several levels of 'run-through'. Apparently the clue to working out which level the control was on was inside a portion of the map less than 1mm x 1mm. Hence my 6-minute error. Getting too tricky will only put people off. And if we want runners to try urban orienteering then we need to stop making sprint O like solving a Rubik's Cube.

Hopefully they don't try that again at next year's NOL, which I'm going to!

tRicky - if you have not run Sydney Uni you are in for a treat. There'll be proper vetting of the NOL runs. There's a web page for the weekend http://www.onsw.asn.au/sydneysprintweekend and bring your sequins for mardi gras on the Sat night !

Yeah don't worry I'm looking forward to it and we've booked flights. I tried to enter yesterday (I like to get in early) but I couldn't enter all events at once as the flyer promised me.

Trying to get billeting at the moment so not sure if our 'host' orienteers will take us to the Mardi Gras but we'll try and get there!

gruver I used to do those things too, but on a Vespa scooter in the UK, and most of them were at night. The most common instructions were called Tulip (after a famous Dutch car rally) which were diagrams with a ball and arrow. I don't remember any protests, it was pretty much your own fault if you missed a turn or hit a checkpoint early or late.

Simmo there's a place called Ashburton. By adding some tape to the bottom of the "T" on a road sign, some course planners made it into an "I". (A capital I with serifs.) The instructions quoted the sign "ASHBURTON". "Alert" crews were supposed to ignore the "ASHBURION" and be rewarded with a checkpoint. That sort of thing. Tremendously funny if you got it, but it destroyed the sport.

There's this place called New Zealand that everyone ignores too. Tremendously funny if you go there, but their accents destroyed the English language.

Are there multiple Kiwi accents, or subtle variations?

Funny, I did have it as singular to start with but went back and edited it just to see if you'd comment.

There's a difference between Kiwi and Aussie accents? Who knew?

Well, there's a difference between American and Canadian accents, and we're not separated by an ocean.

There's a difference between American and American accents.

technically, it's just a sea

Yes, a sea of Americans. A flood if you will.

To non-antipodeans, South Africans sound the same as Aussies and Kiwis too - until a familiarity with the vowel sounds allows the hierarchy to form.

Aren't we just "podeans"? Or maybe "sympodeans"?

There is a difference between these accents Hey. It was hard to resist.

What do you mean, bru?

Hmm, I would argue that there is a legal route between 6 and 7 on the Vancouver map that goes just slightly right of the line crossing the road under the bridge (where there are no violet stripes at all). But I haven't read the meet notes and I might be disqualified anyway...

My version of never been used world class sprint terrain: http://occidentering.blogspot.se/2010/12/orienteri...

The complete map is much bigger and a qualifier + final would be no problem on this area. Traffic is not a problem. Unfortunately, for several reasons, it's not very likely that there will ever be any world class events on the map. A lot has changed since 2010...

An oldy, but a good chuckle about a Kiwi beached whale...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cPs2SzShNc

Kiwis are no the only users of that odd tick and they are not restricted to below or is that above the equator.