Discussion: The Sprint Discipline and its Mapping Specification

The thread about OUSA sprint sanctioning has broadened to question the mapping specifications. This is a topic worthy of debate in itself, and there might be interesting points of view from many parts of the world. In fact I think that the mapper for the world championship sprint might be the guy who was behind some well-argued criticism of ISSOM some years ago.

Anyway, here are some aspects that I would like to see teased out. The sprint grew out of the Park World Tour, the ISSOM grew out of the need to represent urban terrain, does it work for rural terrain? Is a rural sprint even the same discipline as an urban sprint (physical and skill requirements)? A lot of the differences relate to barriers and small gaps, are the symbols the best they can be at depicting those? The thick black line is used for barriers, is that always distinguishable from thin black lines used for other things? If the symbols (which are roughly 150% of the 15,000 symbols) are right for orienteers in the prime of life, should they be further increased for older orienteers say to 225%? They are for the long distance.

Etc. This thread will either take on a life of its own and spread well beyond the stated subject, or drop like a stone. The questions will however remain, and once the ISOM review is over, presumably it will be time for IOF to review ISSOM.

I think that we, as orienteering community are quite good and fast with these changes, thanks to map makers and orienteers.

I am not up to date about which problems should solve new ISOM? Do MC have long list of wishes&problems? Any news about 1st draft ISOM 20XX?

About ISSOM. You probably have in mind Rob Plowright - http://lazarus.elte.hu/mc/11icom/rp.ppt

Yes I had a few things to say about ISSOM at the mapping conference in 2005 and that is link to my presentation.

But Gruver is thinking of the Czech Ales Hinja who made the WOC sprint maps in Trondheim. HI think he was also behind a Czech submission about ISSOM that had some fairly radical ideas (use of red, varying brown shades to indicate amount of traffic, etc). I guess it is online somewhere.

We should call this the Sprint Discipline and its Discontents. I'm off to read my Freud...

Thank you Rob, I wasn't aware of your presentation. In it you touched on one of my concerns, "the rural issue". Leaving aside for the moment whether a rural sprint is the same thing as an urban sprint, I too have trouble reading the tracks (except for the tiny one which is a dashed line). And I think that the double-sided symbol implies a definite edge to the track which is usually not there on the ground. I would be happier with the dashed lines. But I do understand that this creates a problem with thick black lines used as barriers.

It would be good to hear Ales' current views. I can't remember where I saw his comments, they may have been in the discontinued O-Sport magazine. Come in, Ales...

Kofols: I too am interested in the ISOM revision, but that would be best talked about in another thread.

Strongly agree w/gruver.

The paper on new colours in Sprint maps can be found on the IOF Map Commission site. Look under Ongoing Projects then look under Map specification for sprint-O, comments of the Czech national federation. I agree it would be good to find out what Ales Hejna's current views are. He has a website the English section of which hasn't been updated for a few years. His blog (same address) looks current but is all in Czech.

He posts frequently on Facebook in English. Search for "Olles Maps".

Its my reason for staying on Facebook.

Thanks Simmo. I think I had read these some time ago, and I think they have had a big influence on my thinking. What strikes me on re-reading is how many of the issues brought up in 2004 were NOT addressed in the ISSOM.

Thanks Bash for the link to Ales' Facebook page, wall, or whatever you call it. Defintely not impassable. Very readable. But it seems that the sprint specification is not top of his mind at the moment. I see he's on the IOF Map Commission, perhaps we can hope for his views when they have finished with ISOM 201X.

I eased up a little on the ISSOM norm. If applied right it can legible also in rural (forested) areas. However I agree that the look in rural areas is not best. It usually looks sparse, a lot of empty space.
To make tracks visible in nonurban areas one need to fill the double-sided symbol with darker screen of brown and make the dashed black side lines thicker (0,14 mm).

Olles Maps on FB:
http://www.facebook.com/ollesmaps
It gets exported also to Twitter:
http://twitter.com/ollesmaps
Both have RSS feed.

Good to hear from you Ales.

In mapping for a rural sprint I persuaded the controller to let me use symbol 506 (from the ordinary specifications) as well as 507. (The next biggest black dashed line).

506.1 (from the sprint specifications) with 0.35 brown and 2X0.14 black edges equals 0.63mm wide is overkill for a (wide) footpath compared to 0.18 for a "small" footpath. It becomes especially ridiculous when you want to show a path changing width.

I agree with your comment about "sparse". The club subsequently got me to convert the map to the ordinary specifications (to use for middle distance) and it looks much better.