What is an extreme route-choice exactly?
My guess is way to the right or way to the left.
is that map posted the one from NAOC 2016 ?
I think that's the older version of it.
I think the initial shocking route choice in the Swedish WOC would have been even harder to judge in 1:10K, at least in the women's class where it turned out to be very fast to run all the way around to the right.
http://www.tulospalvelu.fi/gps/20160825WOCLongW/Gemperle was faster to #2 than Tove A, otoh I honestly believe that this was bad course planning: It should normally not be _faster_ to run a dead easy road route since there should be at least some form of price for finding and executing the best forest route.
On the gripping hand Gemperle did run impressively fast, the four other runners who took this route were all well behind her and behind the faster direct route runners.
This may be more significant robplow.
test period
I think the organizers and clubs already did this test period in recent years. For IOF would be best to make a statement also about the maps from the past WRE events. In general the battle is over and now it is only an official "test period" to make a smoothe transition to allow 1:10 as a map choice also at the mayor IOF events in the future. Maybe this is also one of the requirements IOF need to do to find new organizers for future WOC's.
Simmo,
sure - if you think that warrants a discussion on AP start your own thread. This thread is about the scale issue.
kofols,
I imagine that what the test period is for, at least in practice if not in intent, is to test the process whereby the adviser approves the scale difference and the wording and details of what ends up going in the rules/guidelines. Because, of course, as you say, just about every single organizer and club have done the 1:10000 for long test for years now.
@kofols: and don't forget the magical target, Olympics.
1:10000 is already four rings, while 1:15000 only has three...
A logical decision, good and natural, but which comes very late. At least in the future, athletes will no longer be forced to run with the magnifying glass, just because 1: 15 was considered sacrosanct by some people. I thank all those who have fought for this normality.
Rules are important, and at the end common sense needs to prevail: there are areas, mapped properly, that with all the generalization and simplification can not be read at competition speed when printed in 1:15000. Most of the time those have heavy combinations of brown and black details. Feather simplification, in such cases, leads to degradation of map quality.
Plus, in many cases for smaller events (in US and Canada) in makes no sense to print offset, quality laser printers @1200 dpi or more produce close to perfect output in 1:10000, while 1:15000 looks marginal.
I hope, IOF makes that adjustment for good.
A couple of the best map printers here in Norway have decided to base most of their future printing on a Xerox Doculaser model with 2400 dpi.
In all the samples I have checked, this was pretty much indistinguishable from offset for nearly all orienteers, even in 1:15 000, but there are still some issues with exact Pantone matching and with overprint (brown contours over yellow can lead to the lines seeming to become thicker).
The new CMYK recommendation should solve the Pantone reachability problem.
What's a good 1200dpi laser printer?
well, looks like 1:15k is going the way to of the dodo. That's too bad, because you really see "the big picture" in Longs much better (ran a 1:15k course today, it was so refreshing) Almost feels as if the map has been pre-simplified. Seems like orienteering is going increasing to "micro-O"
@igor_: I use Xerox Versant V80 @1200 dpi, will look into Doculaser model
Where did you run a 1:15 course, ShadowCaster?