Discussion: Mapping

I want to make a map of a nearby park, but have no idea where to start. I don't have any aerial photos of the park and Google Earth is only good for zooming in on the US, it seems, and not England. The entire park is basically one long and gradual hill (with a few sections along the sides that have some contour detail). Even if I could measure the dimensions of the park (it is basically rectangular), I would be measuring them along the slope, and therefore the map would not be accurate distance-wise. So, how do I make a map of this hill?

Advice and mapping techniques most appreciated!

www.getmapping.com offers high-resolution aerial photos of pretty much the whole of England - and you can preview an area of the photo. Alternatively the Ordnance Survey Getamap website shows nicely detailed maps at 1:25000, with 5m or 10m contours depending on the part of the country - printable for "personal use." Finally, 1:10000 maps can often be found on online planning applications' websites for local councils, although you have to be pretty keen to trawl through them.

That only sounds like one park in Oxford, and if you're after maps then think I might be able to help you there. If the challenge in mapping the park yourself then you can safely ignore me! Ollie's suggestion of get-a-map is a good one, think 1:25000 is the most detail you'll get for the UK unless you get access to the OS datasets.

Yeah, I'm sure the both of you know which park I want to map! And I knew that you probably had O-maps of it already, Ian. But I want to make my own map of it, then look at the one you have and compare. Also, I think it would be cool to make and use my own map, even such a simple one as this. I can just make it a very detailed, very special O-map =)

Thanks for the links, by the way! The getmapping.com photos look great, but unfortunately cost money. Even so, the previews can be useful. And both the previews from this and the highest zoom on Getamap give me the general outlines of the park, which is already much progress!

For our little park maps, we use an online aerial photo archive like Terraserver. In the UK, it looks like Multimap.com might be one good source for you. Here is
Wytham Hill in Oxford. To save the image, you will need to save the whole web page, then go into the web page files folder to get at the image file (my test had a really long name starting with X). You can then load the aerial photo as a template in OCAD for doing some rough mapping. Note that you will need to go into the field to determine the direction of magnetic north and then rotate your template accordingly. Have fun!

Easier than save-as is print-screen (something like prt sc, or prnt scr on most keyboards). That does a "Copy" of the screen, which you can then paste into Paint. Alt-Print-Screen (I think) just captures the current application window if you prefer.