![]() ![]() Not only is black a less than ideal trail color choice, but the color is already taken. Garmin does provide the ability to provide different colors for night, but we wanted consistency between night and day as much as possible.īlack-Black (Expert) – So this is a total mystery to me. Night – Our theme works well at night, but it would not have if we used black. Contour lines on the Garmin are black lines, and with many trails following along with contours, this was also confusing in mountainous areas. Ĝontour Lines – While not available yet we tested our map using transparent backgrounds against a terrain map that employed contour lines. So when compared to trails with color, it does not catch your eye the same way. We use this concept heavily in our basemap, and while a thick black line does stand out, it still exists within the grayscale spectrum. ![]() Ğmphasis – To emphasize anything on a thematic map it is most easy for the eye to isolate it when it is the only item in a picture with color. How many follow a river or stream? No version of blue was discernible at a glance and some intersections were even confusing after a long hard stare.īlack (Advanced) – A Black trail has multiple problems. Imagine all those trails that travel up and down canyons and hollows. This was not an option on the Garmin, anything blue simply looked more like a river than a trail. Why would you choose the color of water to represent the most common trail color? In Trailforks we did our best to mitigate this issue by changing our basemap watercolor to be more of a gray-blue while changing our trails be a more distinct blue. Green (Easy) – This color makes sense and is mostly acceptable to display on the map if you do not use strong shades of green as landcover for parks and forested areas.īlue (Intermediate) – This makes less sense to me. And with the limited color variations on the Garmin, providing different shades of the same color simply did not work: I am not sure of the history of how these colors and symbols came into being, but it has never made logical sense to me. Initially, my first version of the map used the IMBA Difficulty Rating System, but this proved difficult to read on a Garmin summer map. This is where we had to deviate from the “standard” green, blue, and black. Of course, the most important feature is the trails, but there needs to be some clarification on how we display them. Such an approach is more difficult with a single base map, so we started by only including the bare minimum: Trails, Parking, TTF, and Bike Shops. We have always liked to keep our maps very clean by not enabling every POI, route, and layer, but provide maximum utility by allowing the user to pick and choose what they want to see. This being an initial (beta?) release, we started simple and are only including POI's that we feel make a real difference. I like to see an entire trail system glowing bright revealing all the connections and ride options. And no more zooming down so low that you can only see the trail and nothing else. Dirt access roads are given a hint of dirty color, but the real colors are exactly where they should be, on the trails. As we did with our Traiforks Custom Basemaps, all paved roads are stripped of their flowery designations, and are reduced to a grayscale line. Once again we find ourselves trying to figure out how to de-emphasize roads, and emphasize all things bicycle related. Well, ahem, moving on and without further ado, we present the Trailforks Garmin Basemap. This is mostly to accommodate rendering of large maps on a small device, all while maintaining the battery life. Now keep in mind that these devices are low resolution with a reduced color palette as compared to a modern smartphone. Here at Trailforks, we decided to take a crack at creating our own Garmin Basemap theme. ![]() And while the update did improve with the advent of some actual trail data, the theme was still basically the same. I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity for Garmin to revamp the theme from the old NT series Automobile Maps to a true bike-centric map. I had just about given up on any hopes of a real bike-centric map, until I heard that the Garmin Edge 1000 was based upon OpenStreetMap. For all intents and purposes, the map provided little help out on the trails. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |