NACIS 2017

post lunch raffle! prizes!  -  ~10 minutes

Intricate (Fake) Wooden Elevation Maps | Les complexes (fausses) cartes altimétriques en bois - 10 minutes
John Nelson, Esri
It can be great fun to make realistic, but fake, versions of maps that are real, but look fake. What? By using image textures and lighting effects in your cartography toolset, you can make digital versions of those super cool wooden bathymetry maps that adorn all lakeside cottages. This whirlwind example will walk through the hows and whys of creating reasonably convincing maps with tactile-ish surfaces.

The cartographic palette is loaded with muted colors of natural surfaces. So let's turn that up to eleven by throwing some shade (wink) on material (wink) design.

Enhance productivity in Illustrator with scripts and shortcuts | Optimiser la productivité dans Illustrator grâce à des scripts et des raccourcis - 15 minutes
Jamie Robertson, Adventure Cycling Association
Print Production cartographers using Adobe Illustrator typically use a tiny subset of the available tools, but the tools and functions that are used can be used countless times a day. This presentation will demonstrate two programs (for both Mac and Windows), and how the cartographers at the Adventure Cycling Association save precious time by skipping the menus for common tasks with keyboard shortcuts and extending Illustrator functionality with a highly curated set of custom scripts which have proven invaluable for our repetitive cartographic tasks. A live demonstration, public script repository, pre-made shortcut files, and a printable/customizable cheatsheet will get attendees on the path to productivity right away! *Repository with all of these assets that I would draw on and provide during the presentation: https://github.com/jamesw05/illustrator-shortcuts. The two applications presented are Spark (Mac) and AutoHotkey (Windows). Principles shown will be illustrator-based, but the concepts could be used with other applications.*

From Raster to Vector- Patterns! Icons! Art! | Du raster au vecteur : les motifs! Des icônes! De l’art! - 10 minutes
Dylan Moriarty
Most slippy maps don't bother with detailed textures or artworks. This is a shame, as both can add an extra level of detail and flavor to the map. Through this presentation I'll show you a few quick techniques for taking raster artwork & patterns (think textures, flowing water) and converting them to repeatable vector pieces.

Methods of a hand-drawn map | Les méthodes de tracé cartographique à main levée - 20 minutes
Anton Thomas, Anton Thomas Art
Hand-drawn maps are less common than they once were, but their aesthetic qualities are as evocative as ever. Even for those who do not feel they excel at drawing, picking up a pencil is a great way to further connect with a visual task. This presentation will explore and demonstrate a range of techniques I have developed over the years drawing pictorial maps. With particular focus on pencil (color and lead) and fineliner pens, we will look at sketching, layering colors, linework, materials and tools, projections, maintaining geographic accuracy and more. I will also include some practical ideas on connecting further with the region you are mapping, whether through music, film, activities or otherwise — especially useful when travelling to the region is not possible. To feel more absorbed in the character of a place assists the creative process and has many positive spinoffs.

Sharing Knowledge in Small Bites | Partager les connaissances par petites bouchées - 15 minutes
Daniel P. Huffman, somethingaboutmaps
Our community has a rich tradition of sharing practical mapping advice, from workshops to video tutorials to presentations at Practical Cartography Day. But not everything we offer need be as thorough as a lengthy coding exercise or a deep dive into complex terrain representation techniques. I'll talk about my experiences with a couple of efforts to foster the informal sharing of small, simple cartographic tricks, and what they have taught me about the value of offering knowledge not only in banquet portions, but in snack sizes, too.

Changes to National Park Maps | Changements apportés aux cartes des parcs nationaux - 20 minutes
Tom Patterson, US National Park Service
I will report on the current status of brochure maps prepared by the US National Park Service, Harpers Ferry Center. Now that we have rebuilt most park maps from geospatial data, we are taking things to the next level by transforming them to the Web Mercator projection. It takes three to four hours to transform a typical park map from the UTM to the Web Mercator projection, a procedure that works well even for "high-latitude Alaskan parks,” really. Web Mercator advantages include simpler map updates, efficient data transfer between Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop (everything is rectangular), and exporting to web tiles. In other developments, we now publish park maps as geospatial PDFs on the Avenza map store and have greatly expanded the NPS Symbol library. I will also discuss recent accessibility efforts. We are converting park visitor maps to Braille and have developed tactile terrain maps.