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I made some first steps in creating some badly missing African river maps – see Image:CongoLualaba_watershed_plain.png and Image:CongoLualaba_watershed_topo.png and while working on that i had a few thoughts i would like to share and get some feedback for:
Proposed image for the battle of Châlons. Althoguh it look like a map it cannot deserve the proper title as it holds no true scale. Due to the rarity of informaiton and lack of actual knowledge on the location of the battle I took artistic leave to build the terrain based on Jordanes' dercription.
Thoughts are welcomed.--
Dryzen
19:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Although I did create a map of what could be called the Chalons campaign, I can't contribute much knowledge concerning the actual battle itself. However, I thought I'd add some thoughts concerning the map:
Despite these nit-picks and suggestions, you've made a great map. I hope to see more. MapMaster 20:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
To enumerate the changes:
Dont worry about the nit-picks, I like constructive critism, its good for the map. :o)-- Dryzen 15:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Can anyone help and create some maps of the troop movement in the Roman-Spartan War? If you need some help on how it should look like and what happened, etc. post it on the article's talk page. Thank you very much. Wandalstouring 20:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Could you take a peek at the map on the right, and let me know how it can be improved? It's the old townships of Manchester, taken from a 1905 history of Lancashire. There's an online version of the original here, and in context here. Obviously, it needs a title (across the bottom) and a scale (in the space at the lower left?) and the source (in the space at the lower right?) I've used the colours suggested above. My minor breakthrough came when I put the labels at half intensity - pure black just stood out too much. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mr Stephen ( talk • contribs) 23:41, 21 January 2007 (UTC).
I've been thinking about making maps that show the Monongahela River basin and its main tributaries. It is a relatively small river system, but a fairly confusing one in terms of the names of the streams. I thought I might be able to make a map or a set of maps about it. At first I thought I might be able to make a single map of the river system, perhaps with letter or numbers next to streams and a key naming them. That is still a possibility, but I've ended up making a few test maps of individual streams in the system. I thought I could post a few here and ask for feedback. There are some tricky aspects to making maps of the Monongahela basin while keeping the maps clear and clean and image sizes around 300-400 pixels wide. First, it seems that you need to show the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, and the city of Pittsburgh, since the Monongahela is so strongly associated with them, no? Second, the streams mostly flow north in meandering ways, and close together, making it hard to label along the stream lines. So for these maps I've tried bolding specific streams, giving them a glow, and naming them both at the bottom and somewhere near the stream itself.
Here is an example of the style I've been working on, for the Cheat River: Image:Monon-CheatRiver.png
Also, there is one stream in the system, Black Fork that is very short. I'm curious if the map I made for it is alright, or how it might be better: Image:Monon-BlackFork.png
Since this basin is a small area, I'm thinking some kind of locator inset map might be needed, showing where in the US this is, don't you think? On the other hand, it is hard to avoid clutter on maps when they are only 400 pixels wide. Finally, my instinct is to make the maps 300 pixels wide rather than closer to 400 as they are here. Does it make sense to reduce them to 300 pixels myself, or let the wiki reduce them automatically? Are they acceptable at 300 pixels, or would it be better to tweak the text. And is it even worth the trouble? Here's a couple 300 pixel reduced maps: Image:Monon-BlackFork300.png and Image:Monon-CheatRiver300.png
Thoughts? Thanks! Pfly 21:08, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
A question. Theorethically, it should be possible to store latitudes and longitudes in a custom XML file or a proper GML file, couple it with one ore more XSL file and generate an SVG map. This would be advantageous because it would decouple the geospatial data and its visual style in the same way today's HTML rely on CSS sytlesheets for their visual appearance. Has anybody looked into this? manu3d 23:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi! I was wondering if anyone here have or know of a good high resolution map of Sweden. Please answer at my talk page. Thanks! -- Krm500 23:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I thought some of our airport articles would be greatly enhanced by route maps, so I took a crack at making one and would like comments on it. Kmusser 01:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I have new examples for to look at. I revised the Dulles map, changing the colors a bit, adding a Europe inset, and removing the points that are in the insets so that each destination is only marked once. I tried out making the insets circular, which I think looks cool, but for some reason my mapping program then doesn't display lat/long lines correctly, I'm thinking of just doing away with the lines, it certainly makes the map easier to make. Also added the examples Golbez asked for - the Ovda destination data was rather dubious, but it does show you what that type of airport would look like. Kmusser 23:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Made some minor edits, changed the projection for the Europe inset on version 2 and fixed the Montenegro boundary. I don't think I'll run into any projection problems if I don't use the funky projection for insets, there would be if I tried to show something literally going around the globe, but there are no such flights - the Dulles-Singapore route is almost as long as they come. I'm going to try a version of the Dulles map with labels just to see what it looks like as well. Kmusser 15:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I realize this is late to the conversation, but what if you produced the blank maps and then locator dots were overlayed (such as on {{ National_parks_of_the_United_States}}). It might be easier to update for other users in the future. You could use different colored/sized locator dot images and wouldn't need to display the airport ID's -- hovering could popup a label that shows the airport ID + city name. -- MattWright ( talk) 15:31, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
It's a great idea, but I wonder how sustainable it will be, particularly if done for lots of airports. Don't routes change over time? If the maps are presented as showing routes as of a particular date I think it would be fine, but it would be a huge task to try to keep the maps constantly up to date. Perhaps they could be updated periodically in a batch, say every year or half-year. -- ChrisO 17:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
A while back user Stevertigo made a new template for tagging map requests; Template:Mapit. I like that it has a different picture than the photo request (specifically, a map and not that dumb question mark), though I think it needs to have the categories we use built in.
Speaking of categories, would it be acceptable to make some more, specifically for places that span continents: perhaps "Middle East" for Bedouin or Arctic for Arctic bridge? Thank you. OverMyHead 18:27, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
What about this as a picture?
OverMyHead
16:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Here's a few links to look at: Territorial evolution of the United States, Image:Canada provinces evolution.gif, Image:CSA states evolution.gif.
That said, here's two samples from my latest project:
thumb|it's big thumb|it's small
On the others, note that I start showing all of the land, but Mexico started large and got smaller. It would seem kind of insulting to have half of a map of present-day Mexico filled up with the United States. So, how should I go about animating this? Crop them all to the same size? Jump in height like I do? Forego animation altogether? Or, keep Texas and the USA there the entire time? Which I think is simply not an option. Thoughts? -- Golbez 19:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I know it's sparse, and some of the images need work, but it's quarter to 7am and I haven't been to sleep yet and somehow I decided, hey, I'll shlomp it up. So please check out User:Golbez/sandbox for what will in a few hours be Territorial evolution of Mexico. -- Golbez 10:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I would like someone to translate the following map from German to English so we can put it on the History of Antarctica page: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Karte_antarktis2_exp.png Should I request it here or at the Wikipedia:Translation pages? Thanks Andeggs 09:09, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Just pointing out the huge topographic maps series by the US army at the PCL collection.. they are all public domain, and very detailed, although they are a little old (1950s). There are already a few on commons -- Astrokey 44 01:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I recently created two maps of the south-eastern Mediterranean region ( Image:Southeast mediterranean annotated geography.jpg and Image:Israel and occupied territories map.png). They were created specifically to provide an overview of the region as a whole, showing the whole area at an equivalent resolution and a very high level of detail.
I'd be grateful if editors could take a look at Image talk:Israel and occupied territories map.png and Image talk:Southeast mediterranean annotated geography.jpg. I would appreciate an independent view of whether my stated rationale for classification makes sense. -- ChrisO 22:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I found these three excellent maps in the French wiki (available also in Commons):
Could you help me with their translation? I want to replace the current maps of the article, most of which are old ones, and I am not absolutely sure that their copyright status is solid. I think that by translating them, we can enrich both Wikipedia and Wikicommons with three excellent maps. Thanks in advance!-- Yannismarou 19:34, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
You may wish to see WP:AN/I#Blatant abuse of speedy deletion by Jayjg, concerning Image:Israel and occupied territories map.png. Outside input would be welcomed on the issue. -- ChrisO 08:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
I would like to reproduce or create a map of a few streets in Wiesbaden, Germany in connection with an article I'm working on, Jeremiah Duggan, in order to show Duggan's movements in the period just before his death. The map I want to base it on is here, which says it's the copyright of Microsoft. The arrows and explanatory boxes were drawn by Duggan's family, and they have no problem with it being used, but I'm assuming they can't release it because it's based on someone else's copyright.
What do I have to do to the map, in terms of adding enough of my own creative work, to be allowed to use this map in the article without having to claim fair use? SlimVirgin (talk) 22:34, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Would it be allowed to use cropped screenshots of Google Maps with, say, a opaque shape overlay as an image/map (like these: 1 2), assuming that I credit/cite Google for the map? I was interested in creating maps to show the various neighborhoods of the Bronx, eg. University Heights. Here is Google's terms of use page, but I'm not sure that it makes it clear if you can use their content with proper references. Thoughts? -- Alheim
There is a truly terrible map at Virginia Tech Massacre, where someone took a map of Blacksburg from a source other than Wikipedia and placed a white box over the word "Blacksburg", typing over it with "Virginia Tech". It looks terrible. Further, it may be copyright violation. I'm busy with the Lamu map...if someone could help out, I would appreciate it. Here's the map:
CommKing 14:12, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
I think that there should be a European map showing the regions of each country: i.e. counties of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland; provinces of France, Spain and Portugal and the states of Italy and Germany etc, but applied to as many european countries as possible. (I would make it myself but I do not have the means). The practical implications for such a map are numerous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SKC ( talk • contribs)
Hi, I've spent a lot of time looking, but haven't been able to find info on how it is that maps like the two shown right, are generated. I realise that they are somehow based on the template Image:BlankMap-World.png, but could someone tell me what the exact method is?
The reason that I ask is that I have been working on a program to generate these statistics-driven maps. The idea is that you provide this program with a list of country names, country specific data (say literacy rates from the CIA world factbook), and then a colour range, and have it generate an attractive svg, or png map. It still has a lot of work left to go, but you can see some sample output here.
Assuming a system like this isn't already being used, what would people like to see in one? what should the default image format be? image size? built in default colour palettes?
-- Aaaarg 05:07, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
An update:
I've done a lot of work on this project, and finally have something to show. The project has been done as an Apollo application, however, Adobe's apollo runtime is still in alpha. You can still see what I've done here though:
http://gunn.co.nz/map/ (440KB, requires flashplayer 9)
The full apollo application allows users to save the generated map as an SVG, or as a PNG of up to 2880x1312 pixels.
To use:
That's it! Now you can now change the colours around, edit the data, and play with the balance slider to improve the image.
I am going to be out of town for the next few days and I plan to work on this as soon as I get back. In the mean time it would be great if people could try it out and give me some feedback.
Also, I wonder if someone would be able to advise me on licensing the images produced. I am considering something like the CC Attribution-ShareAlike licence, however it occurs to me that that might prevent people from using GFDL licensed wikipedia data to generate the maps. Would that be the case?
-- Aaaarg 07:47, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Okay, since I updated last, Apollo has been taken out of alpha, and renamed as Adobe AIR - you can download it
here.
Once you have Adobe AIR installed, you can download the app
here.
I have tested on both OS X and windows, so hopefully it should install smoothly. This version allows users to save the generated maps in SVG and PNG form.
Suggestions? What features are missing? A key/legend generator? Try it and tell me what you think!
Also, how should I go about getting this application known on wikipedia?.
--
Aaaarg
07:24, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Error #2044: Unhandled IOErrorEvent:. text=Error #2038: File I/O Error. at flash.filesystem::File$/flash.filesystem:File::getFile()[C:\Documents and Settings\acrorel\Local Settings\Temp\aslibc-28157\File.as:1540] at flash.filesystem::File$/get desktopDirectory()[C:\Documents and Settings\acrorel\Local Settings\Temp\aslibc-28157\File.as:705] at GunnMap/::savePNG() at GunnMap/___GunnMap_Button1_click()
I think the best way to get it known would be to include maps made with the program in the articles, and link to it in the image description. There are pages on Template:Lists of countries without maps which could use them. Also you need to make clear you would allow them to be licenced as GFDL/CC/public domain (if this is what you want). -- Astrokey 44 08:36, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi! I have just uploaded a newer version of the program, it's available at
http://gunn.co.nz/map/GunnMap.air. It has some significant improvements - a much more attractive colour mixing method, and the ability to add a key (look for the "Show Key/Legend" checkbox) and then manually edit it.
There will likely be a few bugs left, and the interface needs some improvement, however, I think that the quality of the maps it produces are good enough now to start adding them to wikipedia.
My plan now is to do as
Astrokey
44 suggested, and add maps to the pages on
Template:Lists of countries without any. I'm going to add them in PNG form, because the key/legend does not get added to the SVGs yet. I've decided to standardise on 1600x728 pixels. I'm planning on licensing the images under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license, and also making a custom template, to be use in conjunction with the standard wikipedia CC one. Does this all sound sensible? Thanks. --
Aaaarg
08:19, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I've just updated the online version as well - http://gunn.co.nz/map, it now has all the functionality of the offline version, except for being able to actually save the files. I have also uploaded a screenshot of the online application in action here: http://gunn.co.nz/map/screenshot.png -- Aaaarg 10:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Just a quick update. I have added some options to give more control over the key. I have also modified it so that the SVGs that get produced will display in more viewers, and display in the right proportions on wikipedia.
I'd like some comments and suggestions for this map of protected areas in Tanzania
. Are there any major reserves missing and does anybody have a map of the Mnazi-Bay Ruvumba marine park (marked by a circle up to now)? Regards Bamse 09:53, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Good day. I need help on creating an SVG map. I'm using Inkscape and I am trying to use Google Maps or Windows Live Maps where I want to create a road map map of New York City. I'd like to receive assistance on this. Thanks. – Imdanumber1 ( talk • contribs • email) 19:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I made this map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Blacksburg.png
and it is pretty bad and it was suggested that I come here to request a better one! It is used on all the pages with the Virginia Tech Shootings template. I hear you guys are good at this stuff. That one was only made to be an accurate placeholder map until a better one came along. Thanks!!-- Daveblack 20:02, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Virginiatechmap.svg
... Now it has to go on all the pages, right? —
Michael J
01:24, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Is anybody aware that a similar map-standardisation project is going on at the commons? See the project page and the project talk page. Perhaps it will be of some use. -- Dave the Rave (DTR) talk 14:18, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I have a description of a region that is defined by a list of coordinates corresponding to the vertices of the region. I want to overlay this boundary onto a map. What tools are available for me to do this? Sancho 19:17, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia currently uses this category name: Category:History maps by country.
The equivalent Wikimedia commons category uses this name:
I suggest using the commons name on both wikipedia and the commons. Because the commons also has this category:
It would be too confusing to use a wikipedia version with this name:
So I suggest changing the wikipedia name from Category:History maps by country to Category:Maps showing the history of countries. That category is empty now.
I thought I would ask here before going to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion. -- Timeshifter 10:14, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I am looking for a set of maps of the political subdivisions of Delaware County, Pennsylvania-- specifically, I am looking for a set of maps that are of the style shown to the right, but that have a particular political subdivision (township, boro or city) highlighted. The special challenge in this county is that there are enclaves and exclaves all over the place: see the lower right. Also, the source maps in the links to the right use dotted lines to denote census areas as distinct from political subdivisions, and I wouldn't want these to appear on the map at all.
I don't know how to make my own maps. Can anyone help? Spikebrennan 21:52, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
(1) On your map, the triangular area south of Ridley Park (southeastern part of the map, happens to contain a shield for US Route 13 on the External Reference Map) is actually part of Ridley Township. Ridley Township should kind of snake around Ridley Park on the north, west and south.
(2) On your map, just north of Ridley Park, you have the small municipality of Rutledge separated from Morton and Springfield by what appears to be a very small, long thin area that is separated from Ridley Township and all of the other adjacent areas. That area is actually part of Ridley Township, as the External Reference Map shows: Rutledge should be surrounded by Ridley Township except for the northern corner of Rutledge, which is adjacent to Morton.
(3) On the reference map, Colwyn and part of Darby Township are two separate municipalities that are adjacent to each other. They abut Delaware County's eastern border, north of Tinicum (in Delaware County's southeast corner). On your map, you do not have a line dividing them.
(4) You still have dotted lines around some but not all of the county's external boundary. I would suggest making this a solid line all around.
(5) Some things that are not yet implicated on your map but that you should be aware of if you produce a set of individual maps for the various municipalities:
With all of these complexities, I would guess that you are beginning to see why these maps would be helpful in the articles for the various municipalities. The work that you've done thus far is marvelous. Spikebrennan 13:34, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Does anyone know where I can get free or low cost shape files describing the political boundaries of every country on Earth at ~1 km scale? Preferably the boundaries should be not more than a few years old and easily exportable to lat/long pairs for the application I have in mind. Dragons flight 02:46, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
< STyx 16:54, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Sadalmelik suggested that I bring this question here to WikiProject Maps.
I recently made an OMC map of Togo for the Geography of Togo article and noticed, while consulting other maps, including those already in the article, that there seems to be a disagreement over the alignment of the border between Togo and Ghana. The question is about the land inside an oxbow found at 9°38′N 0°18′E (see map).
OMC shows this as part of Togo, as do the relief map in the article and the CIA map in the main Togo article, but GoogleEarth says that it's part of Ghana, with the border cutting across the neck of that bit of territory. This is also what the satellite image shows. GoogleEarth also says that there is a village there called Butoe. Is it Ghanaian or Togolese?
Would anyone happen to know whether this represents an ongoing territorial dispute between Togo and Ghana, or perhaps a recent border change agreement? Or is it simply a mistake made by a mapmaker somewhere? I would appreciate any light that anyone could shed on this question, as I would like to adjust the OMC map accordingly. Also, if one of those political situations that I mentioned actually is the case, I think the Togo and Ghana articles should mention it.
Thanks. Kelisi 23:37, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I am currently considering reworking the Colorado county maps so that they will be colored similar to Image:Map_of_USA_CO.svg (keeping the SVG format). There seem to be a couple of projections in use, and I am wondering which one would be preferred for this application. Current U.S. County locator maps use a azimuthal equidistant projection (such as Image:Map_of_Colorado_counties,_blank.svg which was based on a similar projection from nationalatlas.gov), whereas locator maps being designed for use with automatic placement of pins based on lat/long coords use a mercator projection (such as Image:Colorado_Locator_Map.PNG based on a similar projection from census.gov). Do map editors have a suggestion as to which would be most appropriate in this circumstance? I am also going to post this to {{ Infobox U.S. County}}. -- MattWright ( talk) 04:38, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Hello, I'm the former leader of the several succesful Graphic Labs (fr ; de ; en ; es), I come here to encourage you strongly to improve your project into a Forum shaped "Map Lab", like the french map-maker team did. It appeared in our french wiki that a Graphic Forum is really more friendly, and so, encourage both graphists to join the project and commons users to ask some maps creation.
Really, please, move on to such Graphic Forum page.
If you do so, please don't forget to make a redirect from Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Maps toward your new "Map Lab".
Yug (talk) 18:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC) hoping sincerly this move, for the good of Wikipedia.
Now that Miss Colorado has won Miss Teen USA, could somebody please update Image:Missteenusawinnersmap.jpg and Image:Missteenusatop5map.JPG? Corvus cornix 23:13, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Upon noticing that the Dutch Wikipedia has added a page on Drexel-Alvernon, Arizona, I decided to see what it was like. This page, nl:Drexel-Alvernon (Arizona), has an interesting map of the Tucson area: Image:Blank map.svg, with wikilinked dots on it for the relative position of communities. The image is widely used in the Dutch WP, but not at all in English. Would this be useful? Nyttend 03:32, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
I think this is still a proposal (i.e. suffers from a lack of implementation), but may be worth linking to this page: ...?
Regards, Ojw 19:13, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
![]() | This page is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
I made some first steps in creating some badly missing African river maps – see Image:CongoLualaba_watershed_plain.png and Image:CongoLualaba_watershed_topo.png and while working on that i had a few thoughts i would like to share and get some feedback for:
Proposed image for the battle of Châlons. Althoguh it look like a map it cannot deserve the proper title as it holds no true scale. Due to the rarity of informaiton and lack of actual knowledge on the location of the battle I took artistic leave to build the terrain based on Jordanes' dercription.
Thoughts are welcomed.--
Dryzen
19:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Although I did create a map of what could be called the Chalons campaign, I can't contribute much knowledge concerning the actual battle itself. However, I thought I'd add some thoughts concerning the map:
Despite these nit-picks and suggestions, you've made a great map. I hope to see more. MapMaster 20:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
To enumerate the changes:
Dont worry about the nit-picks, I like constructive critism, its good for the map. :o)-- Dryzen 15:53, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Can anyone help and create some maps of the troop movement in the Roman-Spartan War? If you need some help on how it should look like and what happened, etc. post it on the article's talk page. Thank you very much. Wandalstouring 20:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Could you take a peek at the map on the right, and let me know how it can be improved? It's the old townships of Manchester, taken from a 1905 history of Lancashire. There's an online version of the original here, and in context here. Obviously, it needs a title (across the bottom) and a scale (in the space at the lower left?) and the source (in the space at the lower right?) I've used the colours suggested above. My minor breakthrough came when I put the labels at half intensity - pure black just stood out too much. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Mr Stephen ( talk • contribs) 23:41, 21 January 2007 (UTC).
I've been thinking about making maps that show the Monongahela River basin and its main tributaries. It is a relatively small river system, but a fairly confusing one in terms of the names of the streams. I thought I might be able to make a map or a set of maps about it. At first I thought I might be able to make a single map of the river system, perhaps with letter or numbers next to streams and a key naming them. That is still a possibility, but I've ended up making a few test maps of individual streams in the system. I thought I could post a few here and ask for feedback. There are some tricky aspects to making maps of the Monongahela basin while keeping the maps clear and clean and image sizes around 300-400 pixels wide. First, it seems that you need to show the Allegheny and Ohio rivers, and the city of Pittsburgh, since the Monongahela is so strongly associated with them, no? Second, the streams mostly flow north in meandering ways, and close together, making it hard to label along the stream lines. So for these maps I've tried bolding specific streams, giving them a glow, and naming them both at the bottom and somewhere near the stream itself.
Here is an example of the style I've been working on, for the Cheat River: Image:Monon-CheatRiver.png
Also, there is one stream in the system, Black Fork that is very short. I'm curious if the map I made for it is alright, or how it might be better: Image:Monon-BlackFork.png
Since this basin is a small area, I'm thinking some kind of locator inset map might be needed, showing where in the US this is, don't you think? On the other hand, it is hard to avoid clutter on maps when they are only 400 pixels wide. Finally, my instinct is to make the maps 300 pixels wide rather than closer to 400 as they are here. Does it make sense to reduce them to 300 pixels myself, or let the wiki reduce them automatically? Are they acceptable at 300 pixels, or would it be better to tweak the text. And is it even worth the trouble? Here's a couple 300 pixel reduced maps: Image:Monon-BlackFork300.png and Image:Monon-CheatRiver300.png
Thoughts? Thanks! Pfly 21:08, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
A question. Theorethically, it should be possible to store latitudes and longitudes in a custom XML file or a proper GML file, couple it with one ore more XSL file and generate an SVG map. This would be advantageous because it would decouple the geospatial data and its visual style in the same way today's HTML rely on CSS sytlesheets for their visual appearance. Has anybody looked into this? manu3d 23:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Hi! I was wondering if anyone here have or know of a good high resolution map of Sweden. Please answer at my talk page. Thanks! -- Krm500 23:22, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
I thought some of our airport articles would be greatly enhanced by route maps, so I took a crack at making one and would like comments on it. Kmusser 01:13, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
I have new examples for to look at. I revised the Dulles map, changing the colors a bit, adding a Europe inset, and removing the points that are in the insets so that each destination is only marked once. I tried out making the insets circular, which I think looks cool, but for some reason my mapping program then doesn't display lat/long lines correctly, I'm thinking of just doing away with the lines, it certainly makes the map easier to make. Also added the examples Golbez asked for - the Ovda destination data was rather dubious, but it does show you what that type of airport would look like. Kmusser 23:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
Made some minor edits, changed the projection for the Europe inset on version 2 and fixed the Montenegro boundary. I don't think I'll run into any projection problems if I don't use the funky projection for insets, there would be if I tried to show something literally going around the globe, but there are no such flights - the Dulles-Singapore route is almost as long as they come. I'm going to try a version of the Dulles map with labels just to see what it looks like as well. Kmusser 15:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
I realize this is late to the conversation, but what if you produced the blank maps and then locator dots were overlayed (such as on {{ National_parks_of_the_United_States}}). It might be easier to update for other users in the future. You could use different colored/sized locator dot images and wouldn't need to display the airport ID's -- hovering could popup a label that shows the airport ID + city name. -- MattWright ( talk) 15:31, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
It's a great idea, but I wonder how sustainable it will be, particularly if done for lots of airports. Don't routes change over time? If the maps are presented as showing routes as of a particular date I think it would be fine, but it would be a huge task to try to keep the maps constantly up to date. Perhaps they could be updated periodically in a batch, say every year or half-year. -- ChrisO 17:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
A while back user Stevertigo made a new template for tagging map requests; Template:Mapit. I like that it has a different picture than the photo request (specifically, a map and not that dumb question mark), though I think it needs to have the categories we use built in.
Speaking of categories, would it be acceptable to make some more, specifically for places that span continents: perhaps "Middle East" for Bedouin or Arctic for Arctic bridge? Thank you. OverMyHead 18:27, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
What about this as a picture?
OverMyHead
16:37, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Here's a few links to look at: Territorial evolution of the United States, Image:Canada provinces evolution.gif, Image:CSA states evolution.gif.
That said, here's two samples from my latest project:
thumb|it's big thumb|it's small
On the others, note that I start showing all of the land, but Mexico started large and got smaller. It would seem kind of insulting to have half of a map of present-day Mexico filled up with the United States. So, how should I go about animating this? Crop them all to the same size? Jump in height like I do? Forego animation altogether? Or, keep Texas and the USA there the entire time? Which I think is simply not an option. Thoughts? -- Golbez 19:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I know it's sparse, and some of the images need work, but it's quarter to 7am and I haven't been to sleep yet and somehow I decided, hey, I'll shlomp it up. So please check out User:Golbez/sandbox for what will in a few hours be Territorial evolution of Mexico. -- Golbez 10:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I would like someone to translate the following map from German to English so we can put it on the History of Antarctica page: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:Karte_antarktis2_exp.png Should I request it here or at the Wikipedia:Translation pages? Thanks Andeggs 09:09, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
Just pointing out the huge topographic maps series by the US army at the PCL collection.. they are all public domain, and very detailed, although they are a little old (1950s). There are already a few on commons -- Astrokey 44 01:46, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
I recently created two maps of the south-eastern Mediterranean region ( Image:Southeast mediterranean annotated geography.jpg and Image:Israel and occupied territories map.png). They were created specifically to provide an overview of the region as a whole, showing the whole area at an equivalent resolution and a very high level of detail.
I'd be grateful if editors could take a look at Image talk:Israel and occupied territories map.png and Image talk:Southeast mediterranean annotated geography.jpg. I would appreciate an independent view of whether my stated rationale for classification makes sense. -- ChrisO 22:04, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
I found these three excellent maps in the French wiki (available also in Commons):
Could you help me with their translation? I want to replace the current maps of the article, most of which are old ones, and I am not absolutely sure that their copyright status is solid. I think that by translating them, we can enrich both Wikipedia and Wikicommons with three excellent maps. Thanks in advance!-- Yannismarou 19:34, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
You may wish to see WP:AN/I#Blatant abuse of speedy deletion by Jayjg, concerning Image:Israel and occupied territories map.png. Outside input would be welcomed on the issue. -- ChrisO 08:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
I would like to reproduce or create a map of a few streets in Wiesbaden, Germany in connection with an article I'm working on, Jeremiah Duggan, in order to show Duggan's movements in the period just before his death. The map I want to base it on is here, which says it's the copyright of Microsoft. The arrows and explanatory boxes were drawn by Duggan's family, and they have no problem with it being used, but I'm assuming they can't release it because it's based on someone else's copyright.
What do I have to do to the map, in terms of adding enough of my own creative work, to be allowed to use this map in the article without having to claim fair use? SlimVirgin (talk) 22:34, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
Would it be allowed to use cropped screenshots of Google Maps with, say, a opaque shape overlay as an image/map (like these: 1 2), assuming that I credit/cite Google for the map? I was interested in creating maps to show the various neighborhoods of the Bronx, eg. University Heights. Here is Google's terms of use page, but I'm not sure that it makes it clear if you can use their content with proper references. Thoughts? -- Alheim
There is a truly terrible map at Virginia Tech Massacre, where someone took a map of Blacksburg from a source other than Wikipedia and placed a white box over the word "Blacksburg", typing over it with "Virginia Tech". It looks terrible. Further, it may be copyright violation. I'm busy with the Lamu map...if someone could help out, I would appreciate it. Here's the map:
CommKing 14:12, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
I think that there should be a European map showing the regions of each country: i.e. counties of England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland; provinces of France, Spain and Portugal and the states of Italy and Germany etc, but applied to as many european countries as possible. (I would make it myself but I do not have the means). The practical implications for such a map are numerous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SKC ( talk • contribs)
Hi, I've spent a lot of time looking, but haven't been able to find info on how it is that maps like the two shown right, are generated. I realise that they are somehow based on the template Image:BlankMap-World.png, but could someone tell me what the exact method is?
The reason that I ask is that I have been working on a program to generate these statistics-driven maps. The idea is that you provide this program with a list of country names, country specific data (say literacy rates from the CIA world factbook), and then a colour range, and have it generate an attractive svg, or png map. It still has a lot of work left to go, but you can see some sample output here.
Assuming a system like this isn't already being used, what would people like to see in one? what should the default image format be? image size? built in default colour palettes?
-- Aaaarg 05:07, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
An update:
I've done a lot of work on this project, and finally have something to show. The project has been done as an Apollo application, however, Adobe's apollo runtime is still in alpha. You can still see what I've done here though:
http://gunn.co.nz/map/ (440KB, requires flashplayer 9)
The full apollo application allows users to save the generated map as an SVG, or as a PNG of up to 2880x1312 pixels.
To use:
That's it! Now you can now change the colours around, edit the data, and play with the balance slider to improve the image.
I am going to be out of town for the next few days and I plan to work on this as soon as I get back. In the mean time it would be great if people could try it out and give me some feedback.
Also, I wonder if someone would be able to advise me on licensing the images produced. I am considering something like the CC Attribution-ShareAlike licence, however it occurs to me that that might prevent people from using GFDL licensed wikipedia data to generate the maps. Would that be the case?
-- Aaaarg 07:47, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Okay, since I updated last, Apollo has been taken out of alpha, and renamed as Adobe AIR - you can download it
here.
Once you have Adobe AIR installed, you can download the app
here.
I have tested on both OS X and windows, so hopefully it should install smoothly. This version allows users to save the generated maps in SVG and PNG form.
Suggestions? What features are missing? A key/legend generator? Try it and tell me what you think!
Also, how should I go about getting this application known on wikipedia?.
--
Aaaarg
07:24, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Error #2044: Unhandled IOErrorEvent:. text=Error #2038: File I/O Error. at flash.filesystem::File$/flash.filesystem:File::getFile()[C:\Documents and Settings\acrorel\Local Settings\Temp\aslibc-28157\File.as:1540] at flash.filesystem::File$/get desktopDirectory()[C:\Documents and Settings\acrorel\Local Settings\Temp\aslibc-28157\File.as:705] at GunnMap/::savePNG() at GunnMap/___GunnMap_Button1_click()
I think the best way to get it known would be to include maps made with the program in the articles, and link to it in the image description. There are pages on Template:Lists of countries without maps which could use them. Also you need to make clear you would allow them to be licenced as GFDL/CC/public domain (if this is what you want). -- Astrokey 44 08:36, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
Hi! I have just uploaded a newer version of the program, it's available at
http://gunn.co.nz/map/GunnMap.air. It has some significant improvements - a much more attractive colour mixing method, and the ability to add a key (look for the "Show Key/Legend" checkbox) and then manually edit it.
There will likely be a few bugs left, and the interface needs some improvement, however, I think that the quality of the maps it produces are good enough now to start adding them to wikipedia.
My plan now is to do as
Astrokey
44 suggested, and add maps to the pages on
Template:Lists of countries without any. I'm going to add them in PNG form, because the key/legend does not get added to the SVGs yet. I've decided to standardise on 1600x728 pixels. I'm planning on licensing the images under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license, and also making a custom template, to be use in conjunction with the standard wikipedia CC one. Does this all sound sensible? Thanks. --
Aaaarg
08:19, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I've just updated the online version as well - http://gunn.co.nz/map, it now has all the functionality of the offline version, except for being able to actually save the files. I have also uploaded a screenshot of the online application in action here: http://gunn.co.nz/map/screenshot.png -- Aaaarg 10:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Just a quick update. I have added some options to give more control over the key. I have also modified it so that the SVGs that get produced will display in more viewers, and display in the right proportions on wikipedia.
I'd like some comments and suggestions for this map of protected areas in Tanzania
. Are there any major reserves missing and does anybody have a map of the Mnazi-Bay Ruvumba marine park (marked by a circle up to now)? Regards Bamse 09:53, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
Good day. I need help on creating an SVG map. I'm using Inkscape and I am trying to use Google Maps or Windows Live Maps where I want to create a road map map of New York City. I'd like to receive assistance on this. Thanks. – Imdanumber1 ( talk • contribs • email) 19:31, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
I made this map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Blacksburg.png
and it is pretty bad and it was suggested that I come here to request a better one! It is used on all the pages with the Virginia Tech Shootings template. I hear you guys are good at this stuff. That one was only made to be an accurate placeholder map until a better one came along. Thanks!!-- Daveblack 20:02, 4 June 2007 (UTC)
Virginiatechmap.svg
... Now it has to go on all the pages, right? —
Michael J
01:24, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
Is anybody aware that a similar map-standardisation project is going on at the commons? See the project page and the project talk page. Perhaps it will be of some use. -- Dave the Rave (DTR) talk 14:18, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
I have a description of a region that is defined by a list of coordinates corresponding to the vertices of the region. I want to overlay this boundary onto a map. What tools are available for me to do this? Sancho 19:17, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia currently uses this category name: Category:History maps by country.
The equivalent Wikimedia commons category uses this name:
I suggest using the commons name on both wikipedia and the commons. Because the commons also has this category:
It would be too confusing to use a wikipedia version with this name:
So I suggest changing the wikipedia name from Category:History maps by country to Category:Maps showing the history of countries. That category is empty now.
I thought I would ask here before going to Wikipedia:Categories for discussion. -- Timeshifter 10:14, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I am looking for a set of maps of the political subdivisions of Delaware County, Pennsylvania-- specifically, I am looking for a set of maps that are of the style shown to the right, but that have a particular political subdivision (township, boro or city) highlighted. The special challenge in this county is that there are enclaves and exclaves all over the place: see the lower right. Also, the source maps in the links to the right use dotted lines to denote census areas as distinct from political subdivisions, and I wouldn't want these to appear on the map at all.
I don't know how to make my own maps. Can anyone help? Spikebrennan 21:52, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
(1) On your map, the triangular area south of Ridley Park (southeastern part of the map, happens to contain a shield for US Route 13 on the External Reference Map) is actually part of Ridley Township. Ridley Township should kind of snake around Ridley Park on the north, west and south.
(2) On your map, just north of Ridley Park, you have the small municipality of Rutledge separated from Morton and Springfield by what appears to be a very small, long thin area that is separated from Ridley Township and all of the other adjacent areas. That area is actually part of Ridley Township, as the External Reference Map shows: Rutledge should be surrounded by Ridley Township except for the northern corner of Rutledge, which is adjacent to Morton.
(3) On the reference map, Colwyn and part of Darby Township are two separate municipalities that are adjacent to each other. They abut Delaware County's eastern border, north of Tinicum (in Delaware County's southeast corner). On your map, you do not have a line dividing them.
(4) You still have dotted lines around some but not all of the county's external boundary. I would suggest making this a solid line all around.
(5) Some things that are not yet implicated on your map but that you should be aware of if you produce a set of individual maps for the various municipalities:
With all of these complexities, I would guess that you are beginning to see why these maps would be helpful in the articles for the various municipalities. The work that you've done thus far is marvelous. Spikebrennan 13:34, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Does anyone know where I can get free or low cost shape files describing the political boundaries of every country on Earth at ~1 km scale? Preferably the boundaries should be not more than a few years old and easily exportable to lat/long pairs for the application I have in mind. Dragons flight 02:46, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
< STyx 16:54, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Sadalmelik suggested that I bring this question here to WikiProject Maps.
I recently made an OMC map of Togo for the Geography of Togo article and noticed, while consulting other maps, including those already in the article, that there seems to be a disagreement over the alignment of the border between Togo and Ghana. The question is about the land inside an oxbow found at 9°38′N 0°18′E (see map).
OMC shows this as part of Togo, as do the relief map in the article and the CIA map in the main Togo article, but GoogleEarth says that it's part of Ghana, with the border cutting across the neck of that bit of territory. This is also what the satellite image shows. GoogleEarth also says that there is a village there called Butoe. Is it Ghanaian or Togolese?
Would anyone happen to know whether this represents an ongoing territorial dispute between Togo and Ghana, or perhaps a recent border change agreement? Or is it simply a mistake made by a mapmaker somewhere? I would appreciate any light that anyone could shed on this question, as I would like to adjust the OMC map accordingly. Also, if one of those political situations that I mentioned actually is the case, I think the Togo and Ghana articles should mention it.
Thanks. Kelisi 23:37, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I am currently considering reworking the Colorado county maps so that they will be colored similar to Image:Map_of_USA_CO.svg (keeping the SVG format). There seem to be a couple of projections in use, and I am wondering which one would be preferred for this application. Current U.S. County locator maps use a azimuthal equidistant projection (such as Image:Map_of_Colorado_counties,_blank.svg which was based on a similar projection from nationalatlas.gov), whereas locator maps being designed for use with automatic placement of pins based on lat/long coords use a mercator projection (such as Image:Colorado_Locator_Map.PNG based on a similar projection from census.gov). Do map editors have a suggestion as to which would be most appropriate in this circumstance? I am also going to post this to {{ Infobox U.S. County}}. -- MattWright ( talk) 04:38, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Hello, I'm the former leader of the several succesful Graphic Labs (fr ; de ; en ; es), I come here to encourage you strongly to improve your project into a Forum shaped "Map Lab", like the french map-maker team did. It appeared in our french wiki that a Graphic Forum is really more friendly, and so, encourage both graphists to join the project and commons users to ask some maps creation.
Really, please, move on to such Graphic Forum page.
If you do so, please don't forget to make a redirect from Wikipedia:Graphic Lab/Maps toward your new "Map Lab".
Yug (talk) 18:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC) hoping sincerly this move, for the good of Wikipedia.
Now that Miss Colorado has won Miss Teen USA, could somebody please update Image:Missteenusawinnersmap.jpg and Image:Missteenusatop5map.JPG? Corvus cornix 23:13, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Upon noticing that the Dutch Wikipedia has added a page on Drexel-Alvernon, Arizona, I decided to see what it was like. This page, nl:Drexel-Alvernon (Arizona), has an interesting map of the Tucson area: Image:Blank map.svg, with wikilinked dots on it for the relative position of communities. The image is widely used in the Dutch WP, but not at all in English. Would this be useful? Nyttend 03:32, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
I think this is still a proposal (i.e. suffers from a lack of implementation), but may be worth linking to this page: ...?
Regards, Ojw 19:13, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
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