[X] My Assistant

[elakdawalla]

I'm working on the maps that I'll be including in my book and am looking for some feedback. My goal with these maps is to include as much information at a glance as possible. Another goal was to make something substantially different from what's in Phil's book And I have to work within the limitations of the Springer-Praxis page, which dictates maximum image sizes of 117mm wide by 198mm tall. The text that accompanies it will not go into every bit of sol-by-sol detail (you'll need to buy Phil's book if that's what you want) -- I'm taking a slightly more "zoomed-out" view of the operational proceedings in the text. Here is a first draft of one of my maps:



It may take a moment to orient yourself. North is not up. The inspiration for this style of map is the American Automobile Association Triptik that my family used to take with us for long road trips. Triptiks are books for a road trip made out of long skinny maps, each one of which takes you from one city to another along a major highway. Here's an example of what a typical Triptik page looks like. The maps are not oriented north-south -- instead, they were oriented to be parallel to the route of the highway. I decided to try the same thing here, orienting the map parallel to Curiosity's route, with time increasing from top to bottom of the page, which allows me to accompany each narrow strip of map with a timeline of sorts. The black-and-white bars running down the left side are 50 meters long, while the ones running along the top are 20 meters long. The grid is a 100-meter grid. One thing that differs between my approach and the AAA Triptik is that I plan to hold the map scale constant throughout. (It's 1:3000.)

Here's a zoomed-out view showing how I'm dividing the first part of the Curiosity traverse into linear segments. (This map is the one I use for my planning -- it's not laid out appropriately for the book.)



The base map is an image taken after Curiosity passed through, so I didn't need to draw in the route at all -- I just highlighted the rover's tracks. I located the site dots based on Phil's maps.

Each site is marked with the sols that Curiosity acquired data in that location. To the right of the map is an abbreviated list of the targeted science done at each site. It includes ChemCam targets (which always have Mastcam context images), plus any standalone Mastcam targets, and notes about other activities. I don't include astronomical observations -- I'm maintaining a separate list of those. Information on targets is compiled from midnightmarsbrowser.com and the SOWG reports from the Analyst's Notebook. One goal with this is to have the PDF be searchable on target names.

Between the sites there are black bars for each drive. All the drive information is copied from curiositylog.com. In one location there was some mid-drive imaging, so I included that in the drive bar. I'm not sure if that was the best way to do that.

Some of the sites have special symbols -- a triangle where they did contact science, and the wheel symbol is intended to indicate 360° panoramas. Any other suggestions for what ought to be indicated on the map? I would LOVE to be able to show the locations of DAN active measurements, but I don't know how to figure out where they occurred. I'm thinking about ways to indicate the location and heading of partial panoramas. It's frustrating that the Mastcam team often doesn't name their panoramas very succinctly -- there are a lot of panoramas described with words like "possible contact on distant hill".

Finally, I should mention that this is a first draft, and I have *not* double-checked my work on the facts on this map. It very likely contains errors. Caveat emptor! I hope this map makes some sense to people! Feedback welcome.

[ngunn]

When using a conventional map most people would orient it so the direction of travel is up the page. That way, left is left and right is right. I find travelling 'downward' disorienting so I'm wondering why you chose it? Otherwise I like the presentation.

[chuckclark]

When using a conventional map most people would orient it so the direction of travel is up the page. That way, left is left and right is right. I find travelling 'downward' disorienting so I'm wondering why you chose it? Otherwise I like the presentation.

I'm with ngunn on this one. I know we read a page of text from top to bottom, and the map is consistent with that, but when you ride in a car and look out the windshield and look at the map in your lap, you instinctively orient the map to read from bottom to top, so it orients with your view forward.

I realize your book will have no windshield, but the instinct, I think, transfers.

You might try one or two -- give the flip-the-map idea a test drive, so to speak -- and see how it works.

As for the black-and-white scale bar, I like it very much as a visual reference. When I'm thinking pictorially (looking at a map) I can glance at the scale bar and get a suggestion of distance without having to access the other side of my brain and perform some mental computation to know distance. BUT, the trouble with these is proportion. At that width, they scream "look at me!" They'll work better if you slim them down, say 50%. (maybe more; it's a judgment call . . .)

Generally, I agree your use of the Triptik approach is an excellent strategy. I'm presuming you are also going to include the key map (your second image above?). Many atlases use a similar approach.

I prefer the pale (low-opacity) white line because it shows underlying detail. Skinnying up the scale bars will help the relative appreciation of the pale white line.

Consider the scale bars (appropriately narrowed) on all four sides.

Great start!

EDIT (checked your post): Your key map ("not laid out appropriately for the book") is an excellent image. North is up, and the triptik locations are shown in context. You should show this map!
The graphical composition problem of how to rescue the white space now "wasted" in the corners (presuming you keep the proper, north-up, orientation [as an Atlas would]) is a secondary concern. Titles, legends, explanatory text boxes and elaborative footnotes could profitably fill these areas.
This issue gets slightly more severe because your page proportion (117 x 198) is rectangular and this map is square, so (assuming the map fills the page width) you'll also have a white bar across the top or bottom, but that additional white space could be relegated to the overall Figure Caption. Page proportion is close to a golden mean rectangle, so locating a square map on one end of the page (at top, probably), should look real nice.
The tertiary concern will be keeping the supportive space-fillers visually subordinate to the key map. One atlas I have (rats, can't seem to dig it out quickly to check the title) employs gray text to good effect for this problem. The text is larger than usual (there's not a lot to say on their key-map page), for easy reading, but the gray tone keeps it from dominating the subtle shades in the key map. You'll have more to say on your key map page (a la your post), but the gray-tone trick may nevertheless be useable.

SECOND EDIT (closer study of Triptik map): I see now what you doing with the black-bar-with-white-font Headings. I abandon the suggestion for wrapping the scale bar on four sides -- consider wrapping the scale bar on THREE sides (left, top, and bottom). I realize this is only a first draft, but I miss seeing white space to the outsides of the image, as it would appear on the page. This is vital to juding how much to slim down (if any) the scale bar width.

But, more importantly, to my eye the heavy-black Heading bars, as the scale bars, also overwhelm the subtle grays of the image. I realize the strong black horizontal Header makes the Drive category distinct, and agree that this is a desirable organizing objective, but consider ways to reduce the Bar's visual impact. Right now, again to my eye, the Header bars are too strong. What happens if you, say, eliminate the bars and change the font to bold? My guess, probably not quite strong enough to visually separate each Drive as nicely as the pure geometry of the black bar does, but, given the bold font, you could reintroduce the bar in a gray tone and not loose readability of the text.
Choice of gray tone is probably three: darker, equal to, or lighter than the average gray of the base map. I'd try lighter, first.

Keep us posted . . .