Help People Navigate Your Land Better
The maps we make for events, going back years, have attracted much praise, attention, and jealousy. Now, you can learn how to make clear, customized, military-style, land-nav friendly maps of any area you wish.
In fact, this is all hands on, so you will make a map of your actual area of operations. So, be sure to read all the requirements and make proper plans to bring the data, and equipment required.
Remote Option Now Available
Don't want to drive over to see us? We'll also be running this over Skype, so you can get much the same instruction and individualized help from the comfort of your home.
You Must Bring
If you do not meet all these requirements you can still attend, but will not get as much out of the class:
- A basic understanding of land navigation principles. If you have taken no land nav training, try the intro videos here, and ask for additional help.
- A reasonably modern, fast computer running Windows or MacOS with sufficient room to install software and download graphics files.
- Bring any accessories you may need, such as an external monitor, mouse, or pen tablet. There will be not much typing, but lots of drawing.
- Adobe Creative Cloud
- An installed and operating copy of the latest Adobe Illustrator
- Creative Cloud is a subscription service, but you may get a 30 day trial for free. If you opt for this, be sure to not install too early, so the trial works properly during the class time
- Coordinates for the corners of the property for which you will be making the map during the class.
- Any additional information about the land for which you will make the map, such as sketches, coordinates, or GPS tracks for roads, buildings, and property lines.
There are no uniform requirements. This is entirely a classroom exercise, so otherwise plan accordingly to bring your equipment and be comfortable the entire time.
CWG Will Provide
- A room, tables, chairs.
- WiFi
- Power, and extension cords, power strips and the like
- Reference materials, online and in person
- Training in how to use Adobe Illustrator in the most basic way
- Instructions on how to convert coordinates, get USGS map data, convert it to a usable format, and draw your own details
- Assistance and advice for your drawing and map making needs and problems
- One full-sized (up to 24" across) printout of your final output, even if not completed until later.
Food
CWG will provide lunch both days, but snacks and additional drinks are up to you. Bring a water bottle or other materials as you see fit.
Please keep food to yourself, and only use lidded containers to drink out of to avoid spilling on your, or others' computers, notebooks, and other paperwork.
While there are no formal plans for a group dinner on Saturday night, it is likely some of us will have spare time, so plan for and ask about that before class breaks up.
Lodging
Shawnee is a suburb of Kansas City, and the training site is within a few minutes of an Interstate. If not from the metro area, there are numerous hotels nearby.
Due to the relatively small expected class size, we do not have special arrangements with any hotels in the area.
Course Plan and Schedule
Classroom – Saturday, 19 January 2019 – 10 am - 5 pm
- Agenda, plan, logistics, safety plan
- GIS, which this sorta is not
- An introduction to Adobe Illustrator
- Standard symbology, and emulating real world maps
- Some example paper maps, and scans
- Books, other sources in folder
- Marginal data on sample folders
- Coordinate systems, and how to convert your coordinates
- USGS map sources, and finding your map
- A few words on GeoPDF
- Importing and scaling the USGS GeoPDF
- Draw in an 1:1 scale
- Don't worry about export scale yet
- Roamer to place items
- Declination and finding Grid North
- Grid systems, and drawing grid lines
- Step and repeat, or spacing
- Factor of 10 grids
- 100 m scale grids
- Grid labels
- Margin grids, lat/long
- Cropping, and picking map scales
- Marginal data
- Cleaning up hypsography, hydrology, tree cover, and a note about red light readability
- Colors, borrow the palette — Red light safe
- Edges, not just fills
- Line smoothing, back to AI basics!
- Adding features; how to draw roads, streams, and buildings from scratch
- Labeling
- Marginal data
- Map scales for export, printing, and navigating
- Preparing for sharing, via PDF and assuring printing works well
Classroom – Sunday, 20 January 2019 – 10 am - 5 pm
- Work day. No formal training plan, but everyone may gather to work, and we will assist as needed.
- As issues arise, there will be brief, unplanned, lectures on the topic.
- Printing, if anyone finishes.
Second day is only for in-person students, as a work day. May not occur if there are 3 or fewer paid on-site students.