[Carto] Map specifications

[Laurent Jégou]

Hello all, i may be a little out of focus or range, but i'd like to
emphasize a point. My work as a cartographer is mostly spent on drawing
software like Illustrator (or Inkscape), and i could not forget to speak
here about question of the the final media for the map being designed.

The media dictates the style of the elements composing the map, and that
question raises two practical problems :

- the type of the media : screen / paper (so RGB of CYMK ?)

- the size of the media : physical size and resolution (screen, printer,
diffusion media).

My point is that the final media occasions significant variations of the
styling of the elements. So many ugly maps are automatically produced by GIS
software not taking into account that the media will be CYMK and 300 dpi
(colors not distinguishable, line too thin or aliased, etc.)

With html pages the problem is incompletely treated by css variants and
proportional units (em). But if we want quality PDF output, thats important.
The debate on "what's can be called a map" is (re-)emerging here in France,
with the temptation to kick out of the definition the "simple" maps produced
by GIS or analytical softwares.

Regards and thanks for the display of motivation :-)

Laurent

-- 
Laurent Jégou
Cartographe et enseignant
UTM - Dépt. Géographie
31058 TOULOUSE Cedex 9 - 05.61.50.43.89
http://www.univ-tlse2.fr/geoprdc
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