Making Maps

Work has been going really good lately and I still am feeling super productive. I finished digitizing a bunch of records last week for this project and then I got the task of updating all the maps in the trail guide book. It sounded easy enough at first, but it ended up being a rather complicated process.

The maps in the old guidebook are all basic, hard to read maps all made with windows paint, or something similar and the park wanted nice topographic maps with the trails overlaid on top. So I took the large wall hanging map of the park and scanned it into my computer in several sections. Then, using an open source graphic manipulation program similar to photoshop, I pieced all the sections back together. Once the map was whole again, I went through and edited out all the creases, smudges and other marks that were on the map so that it looked new again.

(original scanned map of my town)

Then, after cutting it down into the appropriate sections, I added the new trails. It was fun work and I got the chance to learn how photoshop works, because I have never used it before. I didn't do anything that advanced, but for my first attempt, I was really happy with it. Now I have to go back and do the whole thing over again for the English version of the book. I would show you the whole map, but its way to big to post here on my blog, so you get a little sample section. This is one of the maps that will be put in the new guidebook. pretty sweet huh

(finished map with trails)

Work aside, the weather here has been very nice lately. It has been a very mild winter so far and today is especially warm. Its getting me excited for spring and getting out of Malko Turnovo. My calender is already starting to fill up with project stuff, and pretty soon I need to start planning my next trip. I just got to figure out where I want to go next....