is a new type of online map required?

8/13/2019 Is A New Type of Online Map Required?

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Is a new type of online map required?

Copyright of Dr Malcolm Sutherland 2013

A section of West Fife, in a map published in 1910 by Cambridge County Geographies, Scotland

Mid-20th

century road map (print, scans available online)

British maps used in mid-20th

century road atlas books were approaching the standard styles

and features seen on todays maps. This was around the time when the standard OS map

was evolving.

As seen in the two images over-page, main roads are red; minor roads were yellow; and

some town residential streets are shown in white. The conurbation is indicated, either in

black lines (showing tenements) or in grey hatchings. The railway is a thick black line, and

the railway station a black rectangle. An airport is indicated with a plane in a circle. The

background is a pale green (this refers to land less than 200ft above sea level) (other colours

are used for higher ground). In many ways the map is more functional rather than artistic.However, the font is a very old Times style, as if someone had carefully scribbled the names.


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Manor houses, race courses, granges, village inns and even a hospital are marked on the

mapperhaps a little too quaint by todays standards.

An excerpt from a mid 20th

century road atlas showing York and the surrounding countryside

(taken fromwww.oldemaps.co.uk,June 2013)

An excerpt from a mid 20th

century road atlas showing St Andrews and the surrounding countryside

(taken fromwww.oldemaps.co.uk,June 2013)
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Maps from a tourist guidebook to Scotland (Ernest Benn Ltd, 1947)

This old, A6-sized, blue hardback book contained maps of various scales and styles. Some of

the maps appear to have been drawn by hand, and the style is still heavily artistic compared

with many styles of maps used today.

1: map showing the East Neuk of Fife

This map appears bland, with white land and pale blue seas; large think black lines for the

railways; and very thin double lines for roads. This reflects the different priorities back then,

when few people had cars, and shipping lanes were much more important. There are also

faint dotted lines which probably denote the height above sea level, as well as some dotted

lines around the coastline for sand banks.

Map of the East Neuk of Fife (taken from Muirheads Scotland the Blue Guides; Ernest Benn Ltd, 1947)

2: map showing the environs of Glasgow(over-page)

This style is more familiar, and similar to that used for road atlases around the time, with

green parkland, red (main) roads, black rectangles for housing, thick black lines for railways,

and italicised black font for parks, districts, the river and significant buildings.


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Map of the Environs of Glasgow (taken from Muirheads Scotland the Blue Guides; Ernest Benn Ltd, 1947)

3: map of Stirling and the surrounding area

This smaller-scale map employs a rather odd style somewhere between those of the

colourful Glasgow map, and the bland East Neuk map. Roads are indicated in bold or thin

pale orange lines, and the towns using a simple hatching. The features (especially the river,

the sketchy thin orange lines of residential streets, and the rather misshaped castle) appear

to be hand-drawn.


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Map of Stirling and surroundings (taken from Muirheads Scotland the Blue Guides; Ernest Benn Ltd, 1947)

4: map showing St Andrews town centre

This street-level map appears fairly similar to the St Andrews street maps which were

available in stationery shops during the 1990s, except that buildings are shown in a palepink colour (with important buildings in darker beige), and the sizes and shapes of streets

and wynds are carefully recorded. Every local Fifer knows that Market Street widens and

then becomes very narrow towards Castle Street (also a very narrow street). Parkland

(including the cemetery near the cathedral) is shown in green. The rocks and cliffedge are

etched, but not in too much detail.

Map of the streets in St Andrews (taken from Muirheads Scotland the Blue Guides; Ernest Benn Ltd, 1947)

5: Street map of Dunfermline black and white)

The image over-page is a very basic, but fairly accurate, map of the streets in the centre ofDunfermline. Buildings are hatched; important buildings are solid black (with crosses

denoting churches). The park is filled with dashed lines and some smatterings of dots and

small circles. There is a rather confused mixture of fonts, with a 1930s Broadway font for

street names, and the Times font for other features. Some text is obscured within the

hatchings (where there are buildings).


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Map of the streets in Dunfermline (taken from Muirheads Scotland the Blue Guides; Ernest Benn Ltd, 1947)

A 1950s street map of St Andrews(taken from a tourist guide book)

A much better and prettier street map was produced for tourists visiting St Andrews during

the 1950s, within the St Andrews Standard Guidepamphlet (undated, probably produced by

the St Andrews town hall). A section of this map is shown in great detail over-page. The

text is spread apart. Every street is carefully marked out, according to its shape and length.

The cathedral and castle are marked out in bold capital letters. Paths are shown with

dotted lines. The railway is a thick black line. Important buildings are hatched; other

buildings are outlined.

A late 20th

century map showing places of interest(the University of St Andrews, post-1970)

In more recent years, tourists have been provided with maps with drawings of buildings and

monuments superimposed on them. The map is evidently hand-drawn, and more focussed

on artistic style rather than accuracyalmost a harking back to pre-19th

century maps.

Tourist map of St Andrews (date unknown, image sourced from the University of St Andrews, June 2013)


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Section from a street map of St Andrews, taken from the St Andrews Standard Guidepamphlet (1950s)


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OS Maps (also seen on Streetmap)

Ordinance Survey maps were designed and used by the British military in the interwar years.

OS maps have been bought and sold in the shops for over 70 years. Although certain

features have been changed over the decades, the general layout and appearance of the OS

map has remained fairly constant. Perhaps their most radical feature was the use of km

instead of milesa feature which still frustrates drivers!

2cm per km maps

The 1:50000 (i.e. 1cm representing a distance of 50000cm (500m)) scale maps are generally

the most popular, and they are usually the first to appear in a Streetmap result. Key

features include:

There is no background colour; instead, contours are used to show the altitude.

Motorways are blue; dual carriageways and trunk A roads are green; other A roadsare red; B roads orange; other main roads are yellow (and thin countryroads also

yellow); and residential streets are white.

Railways are still black, but stations are a pink circle.

The sea is a very pale blue.

Each square kilometre is marked.

No street names are visible, but the conurbation is shown in a pale beige shape.

Woodlands are shown in green.

Cliffs, rocky coastlines and sandy beaches are shown, as well as major tourist

destinations and some historical buildings.

A sample of an OS map (1:50000 scale) showing Anstruther (taken from www.streetmap.co.uk)


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4cm per km maps

The 1:25000 maps provide a slightly closer look, with more attention to detail, including the

shapes of individual buildings, gardens, parks and walls. However, the streets are not

named. Telephone symbols denote payphones (although this is becoming obsolete). The

1:25000 maps are generally more useful for surveyors and engineers, as well as tourists and

mountaineers who need to stay on the right paths. An example (showing the Anstruther

area) is shown over-page.

In general, the OS map is accurate and functional, although the font is a plain Arial black,

and the blue and red symbols are simplistic in appearance (e.g. the flags denoting the golf

course, or the tiny plus sign denoting a church).

A sample of an OS map (1:25000 scale) showing Anstruther (taken from www.streetmap.co.uk)


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Online and computer-based maps

GIS maps

GIS mapping tools were adopted by local councils and engineering companies with great

enthusiasm during the late 1990s and early 2000s. The key feature of a GIS map is that you

can alter the scalefrom a map of the UK, right down to a few houses and a lane on the

computer screen. This could be done with the click and movement of a mouse, and by

changing some settings. Gone went the days when an engineer or civil servant had amass a

poster of the UK, a road atlas, two OS maps (both scales), street maps and reams of

geotechnical survey printouts. GIS mapping was one of the great computing revolutions in

the 1990s.

With a GIS mapping system, not only can a user surf around a map he or she can editand even draw the GIS map. Maps can be created from scratch. Colour coding, lines,

features and buildings and text can be controlled by the client. GIS mapping tools mainly

benefit businesspeople, engineers and local government organisations; they are highly

technical maps, and tourist destinations are usually not featured on such maps.

The image below shows the energy efficiency of some houses in Salford, Manchester: red

and pink denotes houses with good insulation; pale and dark blue shapes are houses with

poor insulation. (Note: the very dark blue shape on the left is a different building.) Streets

are pale grey, and parkland is pale green.

A GIS map with colour-coded housing indicating their energy efficiency (copyright of Salford City Council, 2010)


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Popular online maps

Online maps covering the whole of the UK are now easily available on the internet, and are

used by government officials, businesspeople and tourists alike. They incorporate a search

engine, and users can enter place names, street names and post codes. The maps can be

viewed on a desktop computer, laptops, tablets and even on some mobiles. It is still

possible to view and print off maps from these websites. The two principal websites are

Streetmap and Googlemaps:

Streetmap.co.uk

Maps on this website can be viewed on a wide range of scales, from large regions of the UK,

down to street level. These include OS maps (see pages 11 and 12). Street-level maps are

of a different design, appearing more technical and simplistic...and sometimes confusing.

For example, someone might think that there are two dual carriageways feeding into

Anstruther (see image below). Some of the lanes are crushed together. Thirdly, someonemight ask: where is the local high school, or the town kirk, or the harbour? Street-level

maps on Streetmap.co.uk are utilitarian: their purpose is simply to point out the location

of streets and post codes, e.g. to visiting business delegates and van/lorry drivers.

Sample of a street-level map showing the central Anstruther area (copyright of www.streetmap.co.uk, 2013)

Googlemaps

One advantage of Googlemaps is their incorporation into other websites. It is fairly

common for businesses to attach a Googlemaps image onto their contact details web page,

which shows the exact location, and which can be clicked by the user who is directed ontoGooglemaps to the correct map and location.


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Another feature of Googlemaps is that the user can zoom in and out, rather than clicking on

a map to a set scale. In general, the Googlemaps map appears bland and functional, and

not all streets may be named at a certain scale. As with Streetmap.co.uk, the map shown

below contains a smidgeon of green (parkland), but no tourist features or schools are

shown.

Screen-capture image of a street-level map showing Anstruther (copyright of Google, 2013)

Aerial photographic maps

Google Earth was launched during the mid-part of last decade, and became an iconic

curiosity of the internet. This is a compilation of aerial photographs of every street, building

and field (and even some people!), taken by satellites. The contrast between a colour aerial

photograph and the likes of Googlemaps could not be starker. An example of an aerial

photograph of Anstruther is shown over-page.

However, a photograph does not provide information in text form. There are no names of

streets, districts and buildings. Secondly, key boundaries, significant monuments and steep

hills or cliffs are not easily visible. Thirdly, if the photograph was taken in bright sunlight,the shadows of some tall buildings may obscure adjacent streets and features.

Moving into 3D: a map showing the sizes and shapes of buildings

Architectural students at The University of Edinburgh have recently been using a program

OpenStreetMapsTM

for drawing and showing 3D maps containing buildings (see lower

image over-page). An application such as this could be replacing GIS mapping systems in the

future. This could even be used for online maps for the general public.


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An aerial photograph of Anstruther, see on GoogleEarth (copyright of Google, 2013)

A 3D map showing buildings, created using OpenStreetMapsTM

(copyright of David Bain, 2013)


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Survival of hand-drawn, illustrative maps for tourists

Despite all these technological leaps and bounds, there is still a corner of the market for

artistic, hand-drawn maps, which are chiefly aimed at tourists. For example, the Hazelbank

Hotel website hosts a hand-drawn, coloured, projected 3D map showing key attractions and

the main streets in the town centre of St Andrews. There is less emphasis on accuracy, and

more focus on attractiveness and tourist information. It should be borne in mind that

producing such a map is labour-intensive, and requires a skilled artist.

A hand-drawn, artistic map of St Andrews town centre (copyright of Hazelbank Hotel, 2013)


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A simple 3D map / illustration

The image below is a map of sorts. This is more of a technical drawing than a map, but it is

computer-generated, drawn in 3D, and can be used by the tourist to navigate around

Edinburgh Castle.

A computer-aided 3D drawing of Edinburgh Castle and its key features (copyright of PlanetWare.com, 2013)

TO BE CONTINUED...

is a new type of online map required?

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