JWOC 2016: All maps!

Joaquim Margarido

EYOC 2016: All maps

Warm-up maps, complete results and further information at http://eyoc2016.pl/.

Joaquim Margarido

Javier Arufe and Natalia Pedre: "All maps are suffering"

The passion for animals and for Galicia's green spaces are just two of the many ties that bind Javier Arufe and Natalia Pedre. Another of these ties is the cartography. They were responsible for the map where the Spanish Trail orienteering Championships took place and this was the starting point of a really pleasant conversation. About maps and TrailO, naturally!

How did you know each other? Have you find each other, mapping in the forest, and it was like “magic” or this cartography “thing” came later?

Javier Arufe (J. A.) - It wasn’t that romantic (laughs). I'd been drawn maps and it turned out to be an almost natural process that Nati joined me. Mapmaking is a very demanding job, it requires lots of time and dedication, so we realize that, rather than being apart from each other, we would commit ourselves to cartography.

Natalia Pedre (N. P.) - Moreover, the forest delights me. Since my childhood, I love the contact with nature and this was also a way to explore the forest in its most interesting details.

What is it, “making maps”?

J. A. – I started making maps as a personal challenge. I realized that this could be my place as member of a club that organizes events. We have the courses, the start, the finish, the logistics, and we have, of course, the map. The challenge was trying to understand how an athlete could become a cartographer. The truth is that I'm already on it for 20 years.

What are the most important resources during the map making process?

N. P. - Well, I just work on it for 10 years now but I believe that’s a process with several stages and that has improving a lot recently. Since the paper sheets, with coloured pencils, to the transparency paper and then with the new technologies that Javi controls so well. Step by step, we started bringing with us the computer to the field work. Everything has its pros and cons, but working directly on the computer in the field allows you to save a lot of time in terms of homework and gives you a much more precise results, something that we couldn’t expect when designing on paper. Another important support technology is the GPS.

In your experience as cartographers, I’m sure there will be some pleasant moments and some not so, some maps that you proudly recall, others that brought you nothing but headaches...

J. A. - All maps are suffering. I'm not professional and, after 20 years making maps, the effective time in the cartography turns out to be really much less. It’s the work, the family life, the sport, the training… all of it doesn’t leave you too much time to making maps. The best map I've done so far has resulted from a quiet walk in the forest, without having in mind some plans about maps or anything else. But the map making is a quite suffered process and the most suffered so far was undoubtedly the last one, for the Spanish Trail orienteering Championships, in Castiñeiras Lake. It was a tremendous task, demanding all our knowledge in order to give the competitors the information they need, which in Trail orienteering is… everything. When I make a map, I always have in mind the elite - not that the other classes, particularly the youngest ones, stay out of my concerns. I want them to realize that the reentrant is visible, the vegetation is perfectly readable, the colours are correct. I want to make sure that I'm able to provide the appropriate information and feel, in the end, the athlete's happiness. But this approach, in Trail orienteering, is not as simple as that and turns out to be highly demanding for any cartographer.

N. P. - Of course, the whole process of drawing a map has a subjective part. Where the doubts begin, begins the suffering. To draw a map from start to finish, following strictly a defined criterion, it’s tremendously stressful. Just because it's another day or we are more tired, the map drawing style cannot simply change. Still, in the end there will always be room for some subjectivity and therein lie the cartographers’ fear.

In the final part of your work on the Castiñeiras Lake map, you could count on the presence of the course planner and the controller. How did you see this multidisciplinary approach?

J. A. – The multidisciplinarity is always very positive. There’s someone setting the course and designing the tasks, someone supervising, someone drawing the map and, together, it’s possible to set a criteria that will prove to be very important for the final product. At least in some small details, this map would be different without this work together. The definition of common criteria turns out to be something really interesting.

Have you ever felt, for some reason, that a map was taking care of you, invading your personal sphere, demanding the time and availability that you didn’t have?

N. P. - Some maps are more demanding than others, even from a physical point of view. Some maps challenge you so much that you reach the end of the day completely exhausted. It may seem nonsense, but even the fact that you take the computer to the forest makes you reach the end of the day practically unable to move your arm.

J. A. – I’m willing to give up from maps, just because of the level of demand they require, the time they impose. Otherwise, there’s a commitment to the club and you can't disappoint the people who trust you and count on you. At the beginning you have an empty sheet of paper and it will be necessary to fill it up. This is really hard. You start to reach some enthusiasm when you see the map growing, the paper begins to colour up. This means that the mapped surface is growing every day. The end is approaching and you say to yourself that you can do a little more, there is a particular area that deserves one final effort. But, at the beginning, things are always very difficult.

N. P. - Yes, the first day is always the worst. As we are not professionals, we need some recovery time to embrace the challenge of a new map. And when that day arrives, you look like a duck (laughs).

The map’s construction follows some kind of logical principle? Firstly there’s a path, for example, which works like an axis, and you draw the whole from there?

N. P. – Things can vary a lot. We may choose a small area and we draw it. Sometimes we take the paths and, from there, we draw all the vegetation. It is very variable.

J. A. - When we left to the terrain, we usually have some ideas heard from people who did some previous visits. Based on these information, we have to establish the map limit, which depends on the course itself, if it’s a Middle Distance or a Long Distance, for example. After that first moment, the plan is set from home, on the computer. Little by little, we try to fix the time we have, according the working area, but the truth is that things never happen as planned. We start in a certain place, then we go to another, the work estimated in two hours will last four or five, we need to constantly readjust the project and all this turns out to be very complicated, and especially because we have deadlines to meet. For me, as a cartographer, the hardest part is to find the best way to take the next step. From where I am, how do I finish the closest areas of the map and how can I make sure that nothing is left behind. This is the most complicated part.

Working together and knowing each other so well, what are the most valuable qualities that you see in the other?

N. P. - Well, besides having much more practical than me, Javier is also much more in love with cartography. He works much more efficiently, he’s quicker making decisions about what symbols or colours should be chosen. And I’m not just speaking about the field work, but at home he devotes much more time than me to the mapping work and the use of computer programs, which turns out to give him the easiness that I don't have.

J. A. – Nati’s advice is often really important because she reminds me about the rules. As I mentioned before, it is essential to keep homogeneity in terms of criteria when drawing a map and I should say it's very easy to forget these principles in some circumstances. It’s in those moments that she reminds me what things should be done, according to this or that principle, and everything become clear again. If we escape from the criteria, the result is the impoverishment of the map quality. It is therefore important to keep a cool head throughout the work and Nati’s collaboration turns out to be precious. In this point, she’s better than me.

Let's talk about Trail orienteering. Despite all the suffering that you've mentioned before, will you come back to a TrailO map?

J. A. - Yes. It's true that, every time we finish a map, we swore to ourselves that is over. But we ended up coming back. When a big event, like the Spanish Trail orienteering Championships, comes to an ending, we are able to ensure that we won't embrace another adventure like that, but the next week we are already looking for new challenges. And with the mapping is the same. We are committed with the Trail orienteering's promotion in Galicia and this leads us to admit that, surely, we'll come back to the maps and to the Trail orienteering events. We have to attract people, start with simple tasks, basic problems. And we are sure that, little by little, things will evolve, people will demand more and the bar will rise.

So, you're optimistic about Trail orienteering in Galicia, in the near future.

N. P. - I think so. The number of participants in this event was very important and motivating. Many volunteers, despite their small knowledge of TrailO, showed a great interest in learning more in order to help better. People will realize the challenge behind TrailO. The fact that it also open doors to people who, until now, couldn't practice any kind of sport, makes that Trail orienteering can be seen in a very special way. We can't find this inclusive value in any other sport.

J. A. - Above all, it's a way to integrate people that occurs naturally. It's amazing that people with reduced mobility can participate in the same way as the so-called “normal people”, facing the same demanding challenges and fighting for the best possible result at the same level. In Trail orienteering everybody is equal, there are no differences and this is the most important. It integrates, in fact, the person as a whole and not just in the specific aspects related to the practice of Orienteering.

N.P. - Furthermore, it allows to length the sport life. Speaking about Trail orienteering and thinking only of people in wheelchairs is a terrible mistake. There are people who have walking problems but they don't need, necessarily, wheelchairs to move from one place to another. There are competitors moving at their own pace but, for reasons of health or age, are forced to reduce or abandon Orienteering. To them, Trail Orienteering can be the solution to hold the sport they love.

Joaquim Margarido

Navigational Map Reading: A scientific approach by Amy K. Lobben

Most of us know people who ‘‘cannot read a map’’ and others who seem to navigate intuitively. “Tasks, Strategies, and Cognitive Processes Associated With Navigational Map Reading: A Review Perspective”, by Amy K. Lobben, tries to identify and describe several cognitive processes that may take place in a map reader’s brain while managing the combined task of map reading and navigation. It's worth reading the paper.

In 2004, Amy K. Lobben, Central Michigan University, published in The Professional Geographer, 56(2) 2004, pages 270-281 [HERE], a paper focused on how people read and use navigation maps. Despite its “age”, the document helps us to understand the cognitive processes who are behind a seemingly trivial task to the common orienteer. “Whether in their teaching or research (and likely in their daily lives), all geographers use maps. Because maps are objects involved in nearly every aspect of geography, the researchers who use them should have at least a basic understanding of how they are processed and perceived by the map user (and the map user is not only the public served by the geographer, but also geographers themselves). Cartography is more than a technique, and maps are more than tools”, starts by saying Amy Lobben.

Reading attentively the paper, we find that “understanding what strategies people use, why different people use different strategies to complete the same task, and identifying what cognitive process are controlling those strategies provides the framework for a growing number of geographic research studies. In addition, the questions of why some people can read maps and navigate through an environment better than others holds an answer that has eluded researchers working in both cartography and psychology.”

One of the most interesting parts is related to map reading strategy - “a specific method or tactic employed by a map user to complete navigational map-reading tasks” -, and claim some attention to the fact that “brain structure may lead to strategy differences. But learned behavior may also exert an influence on a person’s approach to the tasks. A significant amount of research analyzing the spatial ability differences between males and females has been published ( for a review of this literature see Montello et al. 1999). Many of the findings discussed in their review suggest that males and females differ in their ability to perform many spatial ability tasks. However, based on their own findings, Montello et al. (1999, 529) are careful to point out that it is incorrect to assume that ‘males in general have better spatial ability than females.’’

Cognitive processes associated with navigational map reading and cognitive mapping – environmental mapping, survey mapping, object rotation, symbol identification, map/environment interaction, visualization, self-location and path integration – are also chapters (and sub-chapters) of the paper with lots of interesting and really useful information. Amy K. Lobben concludes: “We are an increasingly mobile society and while new technologies (such as personal mobile GPS units and in-car navigation systems) provide navigational assistance, map reading still is a task faced frequently by nearly everyone. As such, a person’s ability to complete navigational map reading both efficiently and effectively may exert a profound influence on their mobility.”

Joaquim Margarido

Raquel Costa and Tiago Aires: "We are better cartographers now"

Whatever the list of the Portuguese orienteering's most important personalities in the recent years, the names of Raquel Costa and Tiago Aires will be there, surely. To the high quality as athletes, they gather the pleasure and the will to share experiences and knowledge, which turn them into high values in the World of orienteering. Adding to this the professional quality in the Cartographic field, we have enough material for an interesting and enriching Interview.

2015 came to an ending with the After Christmas Training Camp, an initiative of your portuguese club, GafanhOri. How do you rate the event?

Raquel Costa (R. C.) - I think it was very positive, not only because of the 150 entered athletes but also for their feedback. We are conscious of the work and quality behind this Training Camp and, those who had been with us understood that and will return next year, certainly, bringing with them some other participants. We believe that this Training Camp concept has fully conditions to point out the beginning of the new season, not only for the Portuguese but for several other countries' athletes. Proving it is the presence of many Spanish athletes, exactly 25, from the National Junior and Elite teams. You may see the maps, photos and further information of the After Christmas Training Camp's two last editions at http://afterchristmas.weebly.com/.

How important are the Training Camps in Portugal, this time of the season?

Tiago Aires (T. A.) - The Training Camps, from January to March, are really valuable to Orienteering and to our country, although it's my opinion that we are underestimating its potential. There are few sports having in Portugal, for two or three months every year, their epicenter, receiving the visit of world's best athletes for a long period of training and holding competitions in challenging maps and a mild weather. This phenomenon should stimulate the creation of instruments managed by the Portuguese Orienteering Federations, in order to facilitate to our visitors the acquisition of maps, booking accommodation, providing information, answering questions, etc.

The search for places in Spain is improving again and there are some “emergent” countries, namely Turkey, that start being highly demanding for this kind of activities during the winter season. Is Portugal, still, the Mecca for orienteers from all over the World or are we lagging behind?

T. A. - I don't think that Portugal has ceased to be the Orienteering's Mecca in the beginning of the season, but we must understand as natural this searching for new destinations. An orienteer is as best athlete as bigger is his/her capability of adaptation to new terrains. Fortunately, Portugal has several different terrains within a small and easily accessible area. Mountains in the North, sand dunes and pine forest by the sea, the Alentejo, a vast region with really fast and detailed terrains, the Viseu's region, with a lot of high quality forest terrains and the Algarve, where is possible to find ideal training conditions because of the gentle weather in this particular region all over the year.

Looking back to 2015, there was a very special moment. I'm talking about your stay in Halden and the start of a new project under the colors of a new club. How did you deal with the change?

R. C. - I would say that moving to Halden and living in a different country for five months wasn't difficult. We didn't feel the culture shock, mostly because we were lucky by knowing some athletes and coaches there in the same condition, displaced from their original countries and with whom was possible to establish a close relationship. It was a really interesting and enlightening project in several ways. We've been able to work, training and competing in, probably, the best Orienteering club in the World. Halden Skiklubb has more than 700 affiliate members and its a club that breathes orienteering for decades. A big number of orienteering's prominent names, currently and from the past, live in Halden.

T. A. - I would highlight, also, the fact of receiving regularly feedback about our work from some of the best athletes and coaches. It was, absolutely, very stimulating to our improvement. About the way how the club works, it is interesting to watch and take part on the club's routine. As an athlete, it was really rewarding to be able to participate regularly in the club's trainings and competing in nordic terrains.

I believe that your stay in Halden was mainly related to map making. How challenging are the nordic terrains to a cartographer?

R. C & T. A. - We feel that we are better cartographers now than we were when arriving to Halden. We are talking, mostly, about details , insignificant for the common athlete but really important because of its connection with the map reading and its legibility. To be able to work with base maps, by using a laser scanning system (LIDAR) with an incredibly huge quality, was also a very interesting experience, also because of the working production of our own base maps.

Have you one or two curious episodes about the life and day of two Portuguese cartographers in the Norwegian forests?

R. C. - In the forests we hardly find a funny episode. It's a space of quietness where, sporadically, we can meet one person walking or running and some deers, foxes or elks, trying to escape from our views. On the contrary, in the urban areas, where we also produced a map, the inhabitants called the police to identify me. They probably noticed my specially dangerous presence and my terrifying look (laughs).

Could you mention the season's highest moments in terms of your participation in competitions?

T. A. - The peak of the season was expected to be the presence in the World Cup stage in Halden and the World Championships in Scotland. Unfortunately, the week before leaving to Halden, I fall down during the Portuguese Championships and had to stop running for three months. By the way, I would like to thanks to Dr. Armando Soto, chiropractor in Halden, that restlessly took care of me and did everything to help me to fully recover. After that, I confined myself to take full advantage of the maps around Halden, without a specific training plan. So, the highest moments were the participation in 25 Manna and the Blodslittet. The presence in the Night Hawk (a six athletes relay in Norway) and the 25 Manna (a 25 athletes relay in Sweden) were really fun. I can't say they were high moments in terms of results or performances, but it was something different and new for me. Absolutely!

How did you follow “from the outside” the Portuguese presence in the World Orienteering Championships?

R. C. - Knowing the non-existing conditions to prepare the WOC in a very specific terrain as we find in Scotland, unable to meet similar terrains and without a regular presence in some major international competitions, I would say that the results reached by the Portuguese are normal, within the expected.

And what about the WOC overall?

T. A. - Proudly and emotionally, I would highlight the Spanish Andreu Blanes' 7th place in the Sprint Final. Like the Portuguese, the Spanish athletes are the perfect example by how, with few conditions but tons of courage and dedication, to get far away. I believe Antonio Martínez and Andreu Blanes are important pieces by inspiring athletes from all over the Iberian Peninsula to reach their goals and being a great help to a really motivated new generation.

Your work in recent years as coaches and the good results achieved by the Portuguese youth teams under your command are a real “trademark”. How do you evaluate the Portuguese Orienteering's present moment, particularly about the youngsters?

T. A. - We can only ask more and better to our athletes if we are able to improve their conditions in terms of preparation and planning. So, it's indispensable the necessary sensitivity and, of course, financial support. Looking to our reality, I think the only way to change the current paradigm is to deeply modify the way the Portuguese Orienteering Federation works and set new goals based on a new global long term in strategic planning.

A new season has already started and, with it, some new challenges, I believe. Will you continue your work in Halden?

R. C. & T. A. - We have, as usual, lots of working demands in Spain and France during 2016. And, joining it, we have once again the interest of Halden SK, this time for the production of the Norwegian Championships 2017's maps. Unfortunately, we aren't able to work the whole required area in Halden. We are also interested, the best possible way, to keep our commitment to the Portuguese orienteering's development, through map making, organizing events and other local projects.

What are your goals for 2016?

T. A. - Professionaly, the biggest projects are the Norwegian Championships 2017, the Portugal O' Meeting 2017 in Crato and Portalegre and some other maps in the Iberian Peninsula. As athlete, I would like to participate in the WOC in Strömstad, Sweden, compete whenever possible in the Portuguese League, participate in the ATRP Trail Circuit and run some Mountain Trails.

R. C. - In 2016 I want to continue doing orienteering, running some events and embrace some new challenges.

[Follow Raquel Costa and Tiago Aires on their page on Facebook, at https://www.facebook.com/mapmakeroart. Photo courtesy Tiago Aires]

Joaquim Margarido

28th International Orienteering Trophy Murcia Costa Cálida: Maps

Joaquim Margarido

The International Map Year 2015 - 2016

What would Orienteering be like without maps? Or, on a wider scale, what would our ever more complex civilisation be without maps and a proper use of geographic information? Worldwide celebration of maps and their unique role in our world, the International Map Year is in progress. Why don't we, orienteers, join the initiative?

The inaugural launch of International Map Year (IMY) took place the 1st January 2015, with a formal high-profile event during the ICA International Cartographic Conference hold in Rio de Janeiro in August 2015. It will continue until the end of 2016. Supported by the United Nations, IMY is an intensive international, interdisciplinary, scientific, and social strategy to focus on the importance of maps and geographic information in the world today. It is intended that all the International Cartographic Association's members (about 80 member nations worldwide) will participate in order to give each citizen a broader knowledge of maps – how they are produced and used for many purposes in society.

The specific purposes of IMY are to: Make maps more visible to citizens and school children in a

global context; give all students an opportunity to learn more about cartography and about its associated geospatial sciences – geodesy, photogrammetry, remote sensing and surveying; show how maps and atlases can be used in society; encourage all to experience how information technology can be used in acquiring and handling geographic information, and how it is possible to produce one’s own maps; display and show different types of maps and map production; show the technical development of mapping and atlas production; demonstrate the necessity of a sustainable development of geographic information infrastructures.

New book, The World of Maps

One of the most important educational resources delivered by the IMY Working Group of ICA, and intended to be used worldwide to raise awareness of maps and mapping in the context of IMY, is a specially prepared on-line book called The World of Maps. This specialist textbook on cartography and geographic information, is being published in English, French and Spanish. It describes how maps are created and used, presenting the importance of accurate and retrievable geographic information, and providing possibilities to download such resources. Written voluntarily by an international range of contributors, The World of Maps is available on the ICA website for free download at http://mapyear.org/the-world-of-maps-book/. It presents a set of individual chapters covering a variety of cartographic topics and issues, and forms a coherent introduction, reference volume and work-book for those who are interested in investigating the nature of contemporary mapping.

In some countries, there are already established ‘map days’ or ‘GIS days’, either annual events or occasional celebrations, sometimes led by commercial companies, sometimes promoted by learned societies. Wellington (New Zealand), Pretoria (South Africa), Zvyozdny Gorodok (Russia) or Minneapolis (United States of America) are some of the places adherent to the initiative. Also the Barbara Petchenik Competition 2015, a biennial map drawing competition for children, the 1st Brazilian Cartographic Olympiad or Planetary Maps Exhibitions integrate the IMY's program. Demonstrations of map production and of the use of maps, local mapping programs for planning and maintenance of infrastructure (these may involve local services, such as firefighters and police), exhibition of historical maps – mainly local ones, cartographic activities for children, demonstrations of GPS, orienteering and geocaching and map use exercises are some activities that may be implemented when organizing a Map Day. For more details visit www.mapyear.org.

[Photo: mapyear.org]

Joaquim Margarido

NAOM 2014: All the Elite Maps

Middle Distance Day 1

WRE Sprint

Middle Distance Day 2

Joaquim Margarido