Discussion: ISSOM mapping at WOC 2005

This question is mostly directed at those of you who were at WOC 2005 and were on the sprint terrain…

On those sprint maps they used the ISSOM urban path symbol (the light paved filling and dashed black border). Do you guys recall what the actual paths looked like in the terrain? I heard them described as being narrow and hard to pick out if you ran across at high speed. This leads me to believe that they were not paved or gravel covered or very wide, but instead may have been normal forest paths. I also saw that a few places they did use the small dashed-line path symbol as well.

Yeah, they were normal forest paths. I think "Orienteering Today" had an article where the mapper showed the versions of that map with forest paths mapped with the normal black dashed-line symbol and the ISSOM one to some top orienteers, and they almost unanimously preferred the black dashed lines. The article made an argument for having mixed terrain mapped with mixed symbols: the foresty part with normal symbols, and the sprinty part with ISSOM.

Thanks.

It seems like I've been misunderstanding this symbol for a while. Somehow I thought that the drawing of this symbol was supposed to be somewhat derviative - that is, its resemblance to a road was intentional and therefore it was meant to be suggestive of a small "road." With some lattitude, I thought this might apply to sidewalks or formal gravel-like paths that would likely be found in a city setting (which is what I thought inspired this whole ISSOM thing anyway.) I also thought that this symbol was also to offer enhanced legibility, espeically in the busy (an non forest-like) map picture of an urban area.

It just seems strange to me to use such a symbol for a regular dirt trail in the forest, because you are applying a symbol which seems to be so similiar to an accepted symbol (the road) with a certain meaning under ISOM and completely redefining it.

Anyway, do I understand correctly that you would use this symbol for all trails on a ISSOM map? (Doing so implies you can't distinguish between grades of trails) If not, how is that determination made? Or am I completely off base? I've never been on one of these maps so I am just trying to understand how it works.

The trails which look like small roads in the sprint symbol set merely replace the larger black dashed trails in the 1:10-15,000 standard. I take them to mean that they are slightly larger trails, at least larger than the only 2 other path symbols in the standard (small path, and indistinct path). If the cement coloured trail has a solid black line around it then it is paved. However, if the cement colour is lined by dashed black lines then it is not paved. To add another dimension of confusion there are now urban and non urban trails (slightly different cement colour!).
see: http://lazarus.elte.hu/mc/
and look at the pdf file which explains how to use each symbol.
I was also at the mapping conference before woc where one mapper argued for these symbols not being of much use in a forest setting, since as you say they were designed more for urban settings... then kind of transfered back.

I think one of the motivations was that anything thick and black should mean uncrossable. Thus new symbols were needed...

There are problems for mappers who find themselves with paths between lines of crags...

I'm off-and-on making a sprint map of my semi-urban campus - I've given up on the above-mentioned symbol. If a path is small and unpaved it is dashed-black, if large and unpaved (quite rare) I map it as open land.

Part of the reason I gave up on the symbol is that it one cannot represent shapes. When stuff is paved one uses the step/edge of paved area to draw the outline and then fills in with cement :)
I can't see what else to do with large unpaved paths of varying width etc.

But I'm new to this game...

By the way, the different colours for urban/non-urban parts is well-visible on the Italian Sprint maps - in the urban area the paving was (near?) white.

The definition of paths is well described on page 15 of the ISSOM. As you can see there, it is indeed possible to draw a large unpaved path of varying width using the correct symbols. All you need to do is create a separate dashed line symbol for the bounding line. Draw the shape of the path and then fill it with the appropriate brown fill, a.k.a. "cement" :)

Personally, being a mapping fundamentalist, I would never draw a large path as open land.

Interesting about the ISSOM is that the mapper has the freedom to pick the brown fill percentage of paved areas, as described on page 18. The only rule is that if there is urban and non-urban terrain on the same map, the brown fill in the non-urban areas have to be 20% higher fill percentage than in the urban areas. So, yes, paved areas in urban areas can be mapped with white. The reason is that on city maps, pavement can be the entirely dominating "background" and for best readability (and to save ink), the dominating color should be white. Just like forest is represented with white on "normal" maps, obviously.

If there is any forest on the city map, though, I would recommend using at least 10% as the urban brown fill percentage.

I think Bill Gookin refers to this concept as "terra franca"—so that the Anza-Borrego desert map uses white for the open.

ISDOM - International Specification for Desert Orienteering Maps.

10% is good also to slightly reduce the contrast - this can improve legibility.

I looked again at the Cervara (Italian) Sprint map - they used Czech rather than ISSOM standards for the paving: with cars = dark, pedestrian = light. There is an unpaved almost invisible path towards the right of the map (and outside of the competition area).

On the first draft (1:4000) of the map I'm making I drew "everything" to scale... having printed a copy it would seem like most of the stairs will have to get quite a bit wider (or omitted). This will introduce quite a few distortions, or omissions. Is there a "standard" way of dealing with this?

For large path/open land, If it is unpaved I (at present) think it is worse to mark it as paved (albeit with dashed outline) than open. This is a problem mainly for paths through open land which I would like to put on the map, but for which the small path symbol becomes too small as the paths change in size (and gain shape!). But it'll work itself out......

The whole point is that in the ISSOM, brown fill with dashed outline is defined as unpaved. You are NOT marking it as paved just because you use the brown fill.

And I think it's wrong what the Czech do, and the Swedes for that matter too, or anyone who make up their own rules and symbols for orienteering maps. The mapping standard is the foundation of our sport. It IS the sport. It creates a common international language, which sets the rules and make fair competition possible, where ever you are in the world. If everyone started saying "bah, I don't like this aspect of the standard, so I'm going to make my own symbols/rules", then our sport would soon be impossible.

To answer the question about drawing everything to exact scale, you certainly don't have to do that. An orienteering map is not supposed to be an exact scaled representation of reality. If that was the case, a six feet boulder would be a dot smaller than five thousands of an inch at 1:15 000...

An orienteering map is a schematic and greatly simplified version of reality that is supposed to represent features that have importance for navigation while running through the terrain. The map should make sense to an orienteer and be possible to read while running.

On a city maps, stairs could certainly have importance for navigation, so it would be nice if you could show them. Just draw them wider!

yes...... but brown fill with no outline IS paved according to ISSOM.
My point (unclear as it was) stated differently: according to ISSOM, grit (unpaved) sports pitches are mapped as yellow/open. A grit path of "normal" size is mapped with the dashed-outline symbol. Say you have a grit path which gets wider and wider until it hits the sports ground. Where does brown stop and yellow begin?

Oh, and I'm back in favour of using this symbol where it works nicely... but when my path gets wide and muddy with a little grass and with a river on one side and forest on the other it does become yellow...

I was getting confused by this discussion, so I had to check out the ISSOM. I must admit, the statement "...brown fill with no outline is paved" is indeed *literally* correct. However, the ISSOM definition of "paved area" is a bit wacko, because it includes "hard gravel" and "gravel", which in this corner of the English speaking world is logical garbage, that needs cleaning up.

Therefore, if "grit" and gravel mean the same thing (they do to me), it is still correct, by the ISSOM, to map a "grit" path, or area, using a brown% with no border line. This strikes me as the common sense, intuitive solution, regardless of what the ISSOM or ISOM actually say.

If I see yellow on the map, I (and most orienteers?) expect something "sunshine" related. :-) This includes grass, or a sandy beach, or an illuminated path, if I am in Scandinavia in the winter. Brown, grey, gray, or black gravel do not strike me as sunshine related. But I understand that in British Isles, the climate prevents some folk from getting well acquainted with the sunshine concept. :-)

pi wrote:
And I think it's wrong what the Czech do, and the Swedes for that matter too, or anyone who make up their own rules and symbols for orienteering maps. {deleted} If everyone started saying "bah, I don't like this aspect of the standard, so I'm going to make my own symbols/rules", then our sport would soon be impossible.

I've been digesting this for a few days, and I'm conflicted. Yeah, I hate it when someone invents a new symbol when the old symbols would work just as well. On the other hand, I think the ISOM and ISSOM should be debated and changed as necessary. I run occasionally on maps with two-color green, and I always think, "I'm really glad someone came up with three-color green." I've heard that some people don't like the green bar undergrowth symbols, but we've got a lot of it here in Cincinnati, and I think it helps. Especially on sprint maps, I think there is still a need for people to try new things (outside of major competitions, of course).

First a quick comment to map paths without using any bounding lines; they will be much more difficult to see on the map. The brown doesn't contrast well on its own. Again, it's perfectly fine to map paths of varying widths with a bounding line. I try to always use the bounding line because my goal is to make a very clear and easy to read map, but I do agree with EricW that it is sometimes difficult to know how to map things like gravel sports field.

The mapping standard should absolutely be debated, and it is. And the IOF mapping commission does listen and come out with new updated standards once in a while. The ISOM was updated in 2000 and the ISSOM had several trial versions, before this "final" version came out in April 2005. I'm sure that it will be updated again in 5 or 10 years or something like that.

After WOC 2004, the IOF mapping commission asked for feedback from all national federations and their top athletes in order to finalize the ISSOM. I read the Czech report and it was very interesteing with many rather controversial suggestions (of which none really made it into the standard, so maybe they're pissed...)

Anyway, I think it is a mappers responsibility to know the current standards and use them in a strict way, no matter what your personal feelings about it is. At the same time, the standard should obviously be discussed and feedback should be forwarded to the mapping commission through the national federations, so that the standard can continue to evolve.