Discussion: Offset printing of maps

is anyone in north america offset printing maps? I'm trying to find the best price. (to my knowledge there hasn't been an offset-printed map used at a major Canadian event for ages - possibly over 10 years)

Weren't the APOC 2002 maps offset printed on that rubbery paper?

The APOC 2002 Canada maps were laser printed on teslin paper.
Possibly the WMOC 2005 maps were offset printed, but I can't think of any other event.

Historically the best prices in Canada were at Paris Graphic in Paris, Ontario but we haven't used them since 1999 or so.

http://www.parisgraphic.com/

DVOA is currently using offset printing for a brochure for a permanant O-course. We've used offset printing for years, but lately have been experimenting with high quality laser printing for some maps. It's cheaper and the quality is almost as good. Most people can't tell the difference.

SSwede - is DVOA printing individual courses using offset printing, or are they printing large batches of the blank map and then overprinting the courses using some other technology?

The last time I ordered offset-printed maps, I used the print shop that DVOA uses (and a high-ranking company official is a member of the club). That was a few years ago, sometime since 2004, but I'm not sure when. It was for blank Pawtuckaway maps -- I didn't investigate the cost of printing courses. The cost for printing was higher thanI had been paying (my old offset shop closed).

When DVOA offset prints maps it's blank maps without courses. We then overprint courses using inkjet printers.

The 3 maps for COC in 2004 (Whitehorse) were offset printed. Can't recall the price. Done locally at a printing firm called Arctic Star.

Running on an offset printed map is always a delight.

The reason I ask about offset printing is the the IOF has just published a new version of their "Guidelines for World Ranking Events". In this latest version has been inserted the following paragraph, in bold type which means "text in bold has mandatory status"...

Maps should be printed using offset printing methods. If non-offset printing is to be used, the printing will have to be approved by the map commission before the event (samples must be provided).

Any comments?

Just a comment on the wording. Regardless of what one feels about off set printing, it seems unhelpful for IOF to use the word "should", if what you say about "text in bold has mandatory status"....how does mandatory jive with should ?

Well, it's mandatory that it should. So it definitely should be offset-printed, instead of possibly-should or maybe-should. The opposite of mandatory-should is definitely-not-should which, of course, is very different from "shouldn't". :)

Or maybe the bolding just means that the maps have to be printed, as opposed to Omaginary events where the setter assures you that there's controls out there. Somewhere.

As far as I can tell so far, the only event in North America in the last 10 years to use offset-printed maps was the World Masters Orienteering Championships in Edmonton in 2005, plus (some of?) the DVOA events.

I don't think anyone would argue that offset printed maps are super. But the economics of orienteering in North America just don't allow for such luxury. Even if we could afford offset printed maps, I don't think that is the highest thing on the priority list.

Am I quite concerned for the future of WRE in North America. But am I over-reacting to this "rule clarification"?

Do what they say: supply samples of laser printed maps to the map commission. Its only an issue if they decline. The adequacy of the laser prints will depend on the laser quality and the complexity of the cartography.

(Add a note about how many maps you are going to need. It might be wrong to assume that there's no appreciation of the problems in small countries. Might.)

Off-set quality is going down. I suspect the depth of bolding in this rule will fade with time.

The economics are identical in Australia. From recent experience, I predict that if you ask the map commission for any variation, they will decline. But it turns out, if you never ask them, they will never notice (unless they read attackpoint...)

There have been events in Colorado and Wyoming using offset printed maps in the past 10 years. The last time I did an offset print run for maps out there was 2004, I think, but the maps have been used more recently than that.

All DVOA events (including local ones) use offset maps with some exceptions for very low-key ones. The economics can be compelling if you are smart about the process.

Ditto for SVO, a 30-member club. We're still solvent.

Let's have some details - how does DVOA do it economically? I assume they have a collection of pre-printed offset maps? And I think they probably have (relatively) big turnouts? But what are the economics and the advantages & drawbacks of the DVOA approach?

If cost is an issue, a simple solution is to sell advertising space on the front of the map. 4 logos at $250 is $1000. That is pretty easy $. Yukon is still in North America last time I checked.

I am not the expert on the subject, but I think it hinges on a) large quantities, and b) sometimes combining smaller maps onto larger sheets and cutting at the printer.

With respect to larger quantities, I think we are talking 1000 or 2000 copies at a time.

That may seem daunting, but think of it this way--you have an A meet and you burn through 300 copies out of the gate. Then, especially if you are a smaller club, you hold a lot of events on that new snazzy map. Maybe you do like (2,3) * 100 people per year. I think that you could burn through a smaller print run (assuming a large A meet at the start) in 3 or 5 years.

Someone more knowledgeable could chime in with better parameters, but the way I understand it, that sort of investment produces very attractive average costs. And then you also have another monetizable product: offset printed maps can be sold much more persuasively than a color laser copy.

My attitude is if you have a great area, it deserves a great print job. And if you have lots of not so great areas but an active club, offset printing can make a lot of sense for those, too.

I just checked - yep, Yukon is still in North America ;-) But regarding sponsorship, if I can generate $1000 of sponsorship I think using that money for offset printing is low on my priority list of event expenses. Which is the basic issue in my mind - the compromises that need to be made at major events that attract only 150-200 people, for me includes using "good enough but far from perfect" laser or ink-jet printed maps.

I'm not sure about SVO, but DVOA preprints courses on all local event maps. As Sandy indicated, they have mastered the technique of overprinting on offset-printed maps with an inkjet.

Without such mastery, however, I would think there could be a lot of waste associated with achieving acceptable alignment of courses on maps. This is one reason why laser or inkjet printing of maps on a per-event basis is such an attractive alternative.

When HVO uses preprinted course maps (as we usually do for NJ events), they are almost always laser printed.

And I should have added... "and I guess these compromise decisions are nothing in which I'd be comfortable involving the IOF and the IOF Mapping Commission since they can't be expected to understand or even consider the issues beyond print quality"

In principle I'm not opposed to a quality control process. The map is at the core of our sport. I know how much I appreciate great maps and clear and beautiful prints. I know how disappointed I feel when I run on non-standard maps and/or poor print quality (poor resolution, bad color calibration etc).

And I still have good eyes. Those who are not so lucky suffer even worse when symbols have been shrunk or print is blurry. If it's really bad, the event may determine the winner based on eye-sight and not on orienteering. I'm not too excited about that development in our sport. If some sort of quality program can help educate organizers and reduce these issues, I think it's a good thing.

I know that some European countries already have introduced national certification of printers for orienteering maps. The printers that have been approved are indeed normal consumer level machines. Before we go bananas over this new formal WRE rule, maybe we should at least give the IOF the benefit of the doubt, submit some good quality sample print from printers we use today (that we deem to be very good) and see how they respond?

Could someone from the clubs that still use offset print maps answer these questions for me? My problem with purchasing a 5 year supply of offset printed maps is the inability to add map corrections. Forests thin out or thicken, Thickets get larger, trails appear or disappear, etc. Doesn't this lead to using maps that are not up to date.? Is the small difference in map quality worth the use of an increasingly inaccurate map?

That is a different issue, and while I don't want to stray too far off the reservation, I might ask rhetorically whether a map updated every year is better than one updated every five years. The engineers out there might chime in, but a more frequent measurement of a moving process by a flawed tool is not necessarily better than a less frequent measurement by a precise one.

Put differently, moving your decimal point doesn't improve the precision of a measurement if you aren't improving your measurement technique.

So, back to the subject--one model is to pay $s every 5 years and have your map professionally fieldchecked. Another model is to have amateurs go out when a tree falls or there is some logging. Maybe every year. I submit by the end of five years the cumulative effect of these incremental modifications on the quality of a map may not be a whole lot different than the aging a well-done map put on ice would experience.

pi wrote If some sort of quality program can help educate organizers and reduce these issues, I think it's a good thing.

This touches on a crucial point - education and encouragement is lacking from the IOF and the IOF Map Commission. They are taking the easy way out by providing policing in its place. The more appealing approach from my point of view is for them to collect and disseminate information about how to produce quality prints. Currently I can find no such information on the IOF website.

Another issue is that the IOF have been training, qualifying, and approving IOF Event Advisors who already have the role of event quality control. So what is the point of the addition of the Map Commission into the mix?

j-man wrote: I submit by the end of five years the cumulative effect of these incremental modifications on the quality of a map may not be a whole lot different than the aging a well-done map put on ice would experience.

I agree that at the end of five years the map quality is likely awful in both approaches. But I have clear examples of maps that are much better in the interim using the amateur-update-as-necessary approach. For example 1: new buildings added to the Barebones 2009 maps, close to the start/finish location - without updates to the map (done very amateurishly by me) the area would have been completely unusable. Example 2: runners at elite training camp completely wasting their time in Whistler where major trails had been re-routed, so a beautiful long route choice training leg becomes useless as runners come into the wrongly mapped zone - things would have been much worse if it was anything less than elite orienteers involved.

The IOF phrase is vague on a number of counts. Does "Offset Printing Technology" include digital offset (same printing process, just a different means of creating the plates)? Do they mean offset in 7-color or offset using the 4 standard process colors? I would much rather have a 7-color digital offset map than a process color map using 4 conventional plates.

FWIW, SLOC still uses offset (digital 7-color) for all our large format maps and most of our smaller maps as well. Last run we did was 2000 sheets (4 maps per 36x40" sheet) for something like a buck a sheet, but I don't have the exact amount handy. Once you get past 1000 sheets, additional sheets are practically free.

The Map Commission did start a project that I thought looked promising, at least in the beginning. The PrintTech project is attempting to learn more about non-offset printing. http://lazarus.elte.hu/mc/print-tech/index.html

They even produced an officially approved offset printed test sheet and sent it out to the national federations. I used this sheet myself to tune GVOC printers. I though this project could lead to an online database of color table files for ocad for various officially approved printers. I.e. if a club was looking into purchasing a new printer, they would look on this website, get an IOF approved printer and download the tuning file.

Unfortunately the project seems to be dead as far as I can see...

I do agree with AZ that the new rule seems to be not so well thought out before being published. The document doesn't even include instruction on where to send the samples or a timeline for submission and response...

(FWIW, the offset test print sheet is still available and within the US can be obtained from Greg Lennon. All USOF clubs have this available to them.)

AZ: I don't agree that the map quality would be awful in both approaches. Anecdotes don't make an argument, but I will provide some of my own:

-> DVOA's Hickory Run map, offset printed in 20101988, is arguably still usable.
-> The WOC 1993 maps... still usable.

I was going to mention the same thing myself. A lot depends on the terrain. In some places, some level of updating is needed perhaps every year. In a forest like Harriman, it's different. 16+ years after they were made, the WOC93 maps are still fine, and they have had only a few minor updates recently. The 1979 edition of Silvermine isn't that bad, either. Florissant Fossil Beds in Colorado would probably have very little that one would want to change, and it also dates back to the early 1990s.

I seem to recall seeing a recent version (updated?) of Silvermine that I would *not* want to run on, and would be perfectly happy running on the original 1979 version instead.

Most US maps of mature wild lands don't change all that much, all that fast, and certainly not compared with, for example, the maps typical of most northern European "working" forests.

What did we do before about the year 2000 (pre-digital age)? Run on perfectly adequate 10 year old offset printed maps. That's not to say we shouldn't use technology now that we've got it, but assuming that for a WRE event you have selected a really great area to start with, and employed a good mapper, then I for one would be with j-man in preferring to run on the original offset map 5 years later, than on a digital one with trivial updates - most put in by a bad course setter trying to 'create' a control site.

Simmo. Before I head out to work on a map update, I would like to suggest your perspective must come from living with very stable maps. When you have 25 maps on the outskirts of a major regional city, trail bike riders, mountain bike riders, other informal vehicle use, control burning by management authorities and uncontrolled bushfires mean maps have a very short life. Our club gave up on offset printing quite some time ago. We have piles of older offset versions that few course setters want to use because the map corrections needed for novice and moderate courses in particular has become unmanageable. It's nothing to do with a search for new control sites. The few times we have used offset recently, the quality deterioration is obvious, while the quality of well managed digital printing is improving. It's informative to get the magnifying glass out and have a close look at the print definition of digital and offset maps ten years ago and today. The competitive pressure on offset printers from digital is driving a regression to a common denominator.

The problem with simply easing off and saying, "You can use laser or inkjet" is that most organizers will take that to mean "You can use Costco's laser without changing any of the colors", or "You can use your $40 inkjet at max-speed on toilet-quality paper".

I think the Map Commission is a lot wiser than it seems. I think they realize people won't bother to ask them and just use what they have and what they think yields acceptable quality. But the directive, as written, should at least make the organizers pause and think about what constitutes acceptable quality (answer: something that is as good as offset).

There is another significant difference between frequent modifications done by poorly skilled mappers (non mappers) and infrequent modifications done by qualified mappers. At the end of the 5+ year period period, one of these maps will be usable as a base map for the next round, the other will be a geometric mess.

J-man makes the main arguments more eloquently than I would have, but I think there's a typo in here :-)

"-> DVOA's Hickory Run map, offset printed in 2010, is arguably still usable."

maybe 1988? which by the way made a very reasonable base for the 2008 edition.

J-man's quantity numbers are pretty good, if anything, I think we (DVOA) tend on the high side of the range. I think 2000 -3000 runs have been done lately, down from 5000 runs that I have been involved with earlier. With more maps, we use less of any individual map.

The other eonomic key that could use amplification is the benefit of running many maps together on the print run. I think we've had a number of runs in the 4-7+? map range. True, you'll end up with some extra copies of lesser used maps.
I think JJ and Mikell also exploited this principle for a number of Rocky Mountain events.

The most maps run together was before the 2008 Lehigh-HRun A meet (7-8? maps @2500?). The cost per copy was between 20 to 25 cents. I know I was very tickled that we beat $.25 mark, because that was the cost/copy of the aformentioned Silver Mine map in 1979, with I believe 5000 copies. I trust my long term memory more than my short term. If you want more solid numbers or other info, contact Fred Kruesi. He is the real DVOA printing person.

IL, Bendigo is probably a unique case in that you have areas suitable for a WRE close to an urban area. On the other hand, if you were going to hold a WRE you could also choose Kooyoora or a dozen or more other great areas 30-100kms from Bendigo where there is less likelihood of rapid change.

But I also agree that digital has improved while in some areas outside large cities, finding a good offset printer is difficult.

It is the IOF's ranking system, and they are entitled to protect it. But, as others on this thread have said, no harm in applying for the exemption. Make sure your samples are good - reading this http://lazarus.elte.hu/mc/print-tech/index.html , this http://gis-ultra.umb.no/~ikfht/o/kartutv/printing/... and this http://www.pdcarto.com/orienteering/spot2cmyktutor... first would help (although they're now a little out of date.

Simmo. I think we probably had one of the best Australian off set printers (from an orienteering perspective) in Bendigo. They understood what we need, having done a World Champs and a World Masters as well as many national event maps. They really enjoyed our small custom as we were one of the few customers that actually appreciated high quality printing. When Alex Tarr pulled out the eye piece and went over the map and muttered about how nice the quality was, it was an affirmation they received from few other customers. Therein was the problem for quality. The commercial pressure from the digital print houses meant when the time came to invest in new printing presses, the old analog film era was dead. The new digital plate technology narrowed the quality margin between their offset and the competetion, but presumably gave them commercial benefits for the average customer who doesn't have an eye piece. In the meantime, a active orienteer started his own print shop. he understood the technical needs of the sport and was prepared to go to the effort to get a good digital result. Warby Spurs was the result. We are now in the position of finding it hard to choose offset. .

>In the meantime, a active orienteer started his own print shop. he understood the technical needs of the sport and was prepared to go to the effort to get a good digital result.

Well I guess this is the ultimate compromise right. For regions/countries to have somebody that knows the quality needs of orienteering set up shop that could charge more than your corner print shop. That person would strive to get IOF quality assurance and thereby remove the volunteer time committment at the club level to 'get it right'. Maps from multiple clubs are sent over email and then are shipped with a courier back to the club.

Maybe we're particularly blessed in St. Louis (though I've never heard this town noted for it's exceptional printers), but I don't think finding a quality offset printer is really that hard. Yes, there are HUGE differences in quality, but finding the folks that do it right isn't that difficult. Just ask for a sample of their work. Examine it UNDER A MAGNIFIER. 10x is usually sufficient. What you're looking for is registration. If the plates don't line up exactly, it will look like shit. Be present when they do the pre-press run. Look at the results UNDER A MAGINIFIER. If the registration isn't perfect, make them fix it before they print a thousand of them. A good printer will EXPECT you to do this. They will encourage you to take your time and make sure it's right. If they seem at all pissy that you're inspecting their work, walk out the door and don't pay them a dime.

The difference between digital and traditional offset is really a non-issue with maps made from OCAD. All OCAD maps come from a digital source. Going straight from the vectorized source to the plate actually does the best job of faithfully creating the curves. If the registration is absolutely spot on, process colors are OK for 1:10, but if you're printing 1:15, you really should do 7 separations. That will also help ensure that the colors are right. It's very hard to get IOF's yellow (PMS 136) right with process colors.

Seven colors? Are we counting gray and purple here?

Yes, I was counting those two. Obviously, if you're overprinting courses, there's no need for purple. And gray is a luxury that I get for free because the printer I use for large format stuff has a press with 6 plates, so it's the same price whether you use them all or not. 5 is certainly adequate, and much better than the 4 process colors.

Isn't gray printed as screened black acceptable?

Definitely acceptable if done well. Also completely unneeded in some kinds of terrain, unlike the main five colors (with some rare exceptions in the case of desert maps).

As EricW stated, Fred is our printing resource, however we've run into problems using the current offset printer for our brochure. This is the first time we're using them and they can't seem to produce the quality we're looking for. The former printer went out of business. Now we're looking around for other offset printers while also considering using digital printing for maps of 1:10 or less.