Discussion: Inset maps for areas that don't quite fit

You know how in some atlases and printed maps, a certain geographical area doesn't quite fit on the page, so they cut part of it off and put it elsewhere (either on the same page, or a subsequent page)?

Are there any examples of this with orienteering maps?

I've got an area I'm looking at that would *almost* fit using a standard scale and paper size. But if I cut off a small protrusion and move it elsewhere on the page, it'll all work out with room to spare.

I'm wondering if this is a good solution, or a stupid one.

I have seen this done but not for aaaages. No idea if the rules allow it or not, but if you did go for it, then the most important proviso would be there was enough overlap between the main map and the inset that legs leading into and out of the inset would appear in full on both maps - the first and last control on the inset would always be on the main map too.

We've done it twice now, but for different reasons: clarity. In the Bush/Park map that was 1:5000 we had a run through (spectator) control within an established maze. Maze insert just to the side with as 1LC enough overlap. Next week we have the first 2 and last 2 controls within a school, though not highly complicated, but mapped at 1:1000 originally within a 1:4000 Park map. So again an insert is being used. People appreciate this clarity. But I guess it depends of the level of competition. May not fit all the rules but works for our club level events.

Our club did it for the Northern Nights Champs this year (see http://www.aire.routegadget.co.uk/rg2/#90 - although I am not sure the course overprint is on the 1:4000 section).

It uses a 1:7500 ISOM map with 1:4000 ISSOM insert.

I enjoyed it and liked the change in scale as an extra test. A couple of people moaned - mainly those who don't like Urban races (and are missing out).

Not sure what the official rules are on this, but I liked it!

To be a little more clear, I'm thinking about something like this: The Idaho panhandle doesn't fit on the paper, so they cut the northern end and put it in an inset map in the upper right corner. Same scale, just moved elsewhere.

(This isn't for an important map, I was just curious if other orienteering maps had done this.)

I think having a second map (or printing double sided) is another reasonable solution that you might consider (or may have already).

If just for minor/club level I'd go for it - for variety and cost measures.

I've seen it done a couple of times, and if I were to dig through my map collection, I'm sure I could find a few examples.

Olympic Village
We used it for the race at Olympic Village for Vancouver Sprint Camp 2011. Definitely not standard and often not appropriate but a good fun solution when called for.

Ethan ran a WRE in Italy last year that used an enlarged portion of the map along with the normal size. Here is a link.
http://hok.worldofo.com/kart/show_map.php?user=jan...

I know it's a bit different than what you ask but similar in a way too.

Seems like there are lots of examples of zoomed insets: Ethan's in Italy, Olympic Village (which I ran!), the examples that Carolyn and Richard describe. Also, the 2005 US Champs at Dutchman Flat in Oregon had a zoomed inset of the detailed lava field stuff.

Pink Socks, knowing your views on design and marketing whouldnt you just print it on a larger page and fill with sponsors logos?

I'm half joking but half not. I find meet directors can be awfully skimpy on that kind of thing.

If I recall correctly many, many years ago there was a Quantico "A" meet at Great Fall, MD that a inset enlargement for the middle of the course. The section had a "moon walk" effect. I think Dave Linthicum may have be involved with the event.

The reason no one's posted to say "this is a terrible idea" is because those people are all purists and their heads have already exploded because you asked the question in the first place.

Jeff, depends on the size and scope of the event.

In this instance, it's an area that I want to map for fun and maybe have a "homebrew" style event there sometime. I'd like to print at 1:10000, since it's a standard scale with better legibility. However, it won't quite fit on a standard 11x17" page. Larger paper requires more printing logistics, and for this sort of thing, simple is better.

Obviously, I could just print at 1:15000 or 1:12500. Or just not use that part of the area for courses. Or print on two pages. But then I wondered if there was an option to do what they do for Idaho in the atlas. I'd never seen that done for orienteering before, so I figured I'd ask.

If it were for a big sanctioned event and the courses used up all the terrain available, then yeah, I'd splurge for bigger paper.

I'm curious about the advertising success on orienteering maps. With events posting maps/courses online and on RouteGadget, I wonder where you get more impressions: the X amount of people at the event, or the Y amount of people who look at the maps online, where size of paper is irrelevant. On the NAOC 2010 Long map, there are 23 logos on the map!

I recall with the UC Berkeley map, I couldn't have fit in on legal-size paper, but when I rotated the map with true-north up (instead of magnetic), it fit perfectly. I was quite happy with that compromise.

There's a very large O map in Oslo, called Kobberhaugen, which covers the entire area from Tryvann near Holmenkollen to the Kikut cabin: This area is so big that it exceeds the 50x70 cm maximum of the selected offset printer.

The solution was to take the very narrow top km slice and move it down and left on top of an otherwise empty area.

WHen I did a long training run in this area a few years ago I used Photoshop to merge that top part back in, in order to make the GPS track fit properly:

http://tmsw.no/qr/show_map.php?user=terjem&map...

There's a very large O map in Oslo, called Kobberhaugen, which covers the entire area from Tryvann near Holmenkollen to the Kikut cabin: This area is so big that it exceeds the 50x70 cm maximum of the selected offset printer.

The solution was to take the very narrow top km slice and move it down and left on top of an otherwise empty area.

WHen I did a long training run in this area a few years ago I used Photoshop to merge that top part back in, in order to make the GPS track fit properly:

http://tmsw.no/qr/show_map.php?user=terjem&map...

On our rogaine type events, even at 1:30,000 scale maps usually use more than 1 sheet of 11x17. For smaller attendance events such as our annual Regaine and Snowgaine, we usually print a couple of sheets with a little overlap, use a papercutter and some Scotch tape and transform them into a single page. For a bigger event (more than 100 or so maps), we likely will go to a larger paper size. 50-100 maps is an inconvenient middle ground, where taping them together gets to be a non-negligible effort for organizer, and a few hundred dollars set-up charge for the offset printing on big paper gets to be a non-negligible contribution to costs. For those events we often will do the multiple sheets of paper and let the competitors do their own taping if they want to. But at a rogaine, there is some planning time after getting the map that isn't there for a normal orienteering event.