Hi all,
I want to share my latest maps made with Open JUMP.
They can also be found on Wikimedia Commons.
A general map of the Roman Empire in AD 125, with physical background:
Full size map
link address
And the political version:
Full size map
link address
Regarding the creation of the maps, I find Open JUMP to be the most
vector-friendly open source GIS software. The preparation of the datasets
(rivers, lakes, sea, roads, borders) was really piece of cake, especially after
the 2 bugs regarding 'Merge features' and the fill closed area tool were
solved. The offset curve command was very useful for making administrative
boundaries parallel with water courses. I'm also thankful that Geoffrey Roy has
added a scaling option for Printer svg outputs. There's no need for any further
rescaling in Inkscape now.
Of course the maps were not entirely made with Open JUMP. The shaded relief was
made in GRASS and improved in GIMP, since Sextante-shaded relief is not as
powerful (and you can only use it for ASCII files, and not for DEM's). And the
legend and curved labels were made in Inkscape. Actually, I chose to write all
the labels in Inkscape, since text is transformed to paths when the map is
exported from Open JUMP. Because of this, no further text edits (like making
curved labels, changing size and fonts) can be made.
Overall, I'm satisfied with the latest version of Open JUMP. Of course, there
are some minor style options which could be added (like more px steps for line
widths; e.g. 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2 and so on). And a curved labels option would be
nice as well. But I'm not sure if these are really needed. OJ is more focused
on elegant vector editing and analysis, not on map layouts. If I remember, even
ArcGIS10 made clumsy curved labels, so in the end you always have to use a
vector graphics editor to polish your maps.
Regards,
Andrei
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