cartography

[John Huntington]

Arlo and others with similar interests:

We do a great deal of map making here using Adobe Illustrator. It can
be a very simple process.
The most recently published map is in the Circle of Bliss catalog.
____________________________________________

A few basic thoughts:

The first  decision is what scale do you want: the whole of India, a
geographic region, a state,  a few districts, a single district, a
narrowly focused plot of an excavation? This dictates the size and
detail of a base map.

Find an appropriately scaled base map. It need not have the find
spots on it at all. Scan it at the cm or inch dimension you need, but
it need not be at more that 100% at 72 dpi (however I do usually make
bigger maps and then  reduce to 40% or less them for publication.
Larger is easier to work on and small print size makes them look more
detailed without the artist [me] going blind).

After you have created the base map simply locate your find spots,
key features and  anything else you want to include by adjacent
geographic features, etc.
_________________________________________________

But there is much more to map making:

There are 1000s of web sites with information hear are a few that I
have found helpful

If you want all 375, 000 of them search Google for:  "Illustrator" Maps

To get an understanding of what you want try

http://math.rice.edu/~lanius/pres/map/mapres.html

http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/MapCollections.html (very important
for when you start making maps)

http://www.mappingsciences.org.au/journal.htm

http://geography.about.com/cs/cartography/ (lots of annoying adds but
good sources)

Technical Info:

A "lite" introduction
http://www.nps.gov/hfc/carto/production-tips.htm

Read the layer list at the left of this page to understand how a map
is structured in illustrator.
http://www.mapresources.com/search/detailresults.html?subscription=&subscriberLoggedIn=&productID=gpw2-india01

Useful stuff
http://www.cartagram.com/carta_lab/illustrator.html

Re: India

http://geography.miningco.com/library/maps/blindia.htm

Pre drawn maps in Illustrator (for general maps [I never use them])

http://www.mapresources.com/

  If I can be of any further assistance please do not hesitate to ask

John


--
John C. Huntington, Professor
    (Buddhist Art and Methodologies)
Department of the History of Art
108 North Oval Mall
The Ohio state University
Columbus, OH 43210-1318 U.S.A.

huntington.2 at osu.edu
Phones:
Direct Line to office (614) 688-8198
Main Department Office: (614) 2927481
Fax: (614) 292-4401


Please see Dr. Dina Bangdel's and my 2003-2004 exhibition at:
http://kaladarshan.arts.ohio-state.edu/exhib/circleofbliss/index.html


Please visit the Huntington Archive website at:
http://kaladarshan.arts.ohio-state.edu