How important is it to have great detail?

[markem]

I'm thinking of trying drawing a map by hand. I'm either really good at it or absolutely terrible. There is no in between. :-)

Anyway, on trees, how important is it to get the right shape for your trees. I've seen many maps that just use cloud-like groupings for trees. But every tree type has its own way of growing. So doesn't it make sense to have tree types that you can go "Oh - that's an oak forest" or "Those are Aspens".

I'm just drawing a map because I am a bit bored waiting for my computer to finish backing itself up. I'm reading books, watching TV with my wife, and - being bored. Heck. I won't even be able to post the map until my computer is back up and running. :-/

Anyway - any thoughts on this?

[SteffenBrand]

I often decide this depending on the scale of the map. If it is more of a close up or highly stilized, I use single trees or try to indicate the type. If it is just important to know that there is a forest, if the IT-cartographer actually wasn't there or the map is showing a highly zoomed out area, I go for 'cloud shape'. In all cases it also depends on what I will go for. So these are more like a guide, not definitive. =)

[- Max -]

What Steffen said Also you might want to decide the purpose of your map. If tree types is an important information you habe to show, colors/icons/labels and so on can help to differentiate it.

[Azélor]

It depends on the goal of your map. Mapping generally come with a certain level of abstraction. IT is not possible to include all the details on the map. If the essence of wood is not important then the artistic side should be prioritized.

[markem]

Part of why I ask is because CC3 gives several forest types but the hand drawn maps I've seen here generally go for the cloud shape. I'm thinking of putting two trees on the map (one on the left and one on the right) so they border the map itself. Just ideas right now. Still at work and I have a CP/M club meeting tonight. (That's Central Processor for Microcomputers for those of you who don't know what CP/M means. It is a VERY old OS that went from 8-bit to 16-bit and finally to 32-bit but (as far as I know) has not made it to the 64-bit architecture.) If you love to hate an OS - CP/M was the ultimate in the love-hate relationship. Fantastic OS but horrible error messages. They were all just numbers. However, CP/M predates MS-DOS and it used to be THE OS for businesses in the early 1980s. It ran the first dBase, WordStar, and even Turbo Pascal. Only about six of us left in the Houston Club and we meet at the 59 Diner off of I-59 & Shepherd/Greenbriar. (Just in case you want to drop by.) First Thursday of each month. :-)

[altfritz]

I think that it would be really cool to have a forest drawn in the way the trees might actually grow. But...who knows what that is? Is that known? And the map you were drawing would have to be pretty small scale to show the different species of trees...

[markem]

I did a map for a friend that was 3ft x 4ft. I found free images of the various types of trees (Japanese based map) and did the entire map (with Mount Fuji). The map came out very nice and the trees are fairly small (like 1/4 inch high). Drawing them by hand though - I don't know if I can get that kind of detail. I have furs, cherry trees, various types of small trees, and things like that on the map I made. (I REALLY need to get my system back up so I can do some snapshots of these maps.) Hand drawing trees though - I'm not sure I am a good enough artist to do that. I'd probably do more like squiggly lines that would look like the trees had a bad hair day. So I'd have to agree with you. Hand drawing is going to make the trees on my map look more like clouds. Now if I were Boris I'd probably be able to draw the veins in the leaves. But I'm more clod than god when it comes to drawing by hand. It is one of the reasons I'm a computer programmer. :-) I could probably write a program that did semi-random leaf designs with the veins in them faster and better than I can draw them by hand. :-)

[Midgardsormr]

Um… if you're trying to draw the veins in the leaves on a map, then I'd say you're doing it wrong. ;-)

To answer the orginal question: A map should have just enough detail to communicate and no more. A cloud-style forest lets you cover a large area with a low-detail symbol, leaving plenty of room for other features within the forest, such as roads, settlements, and labels. It doesn't even preclude showing what kinds of trees are present, either, since you can use color and a legend to indicate the character of the forest.

I would tend to avoid filling an area with very dense tree symbols, since it usually only serves to clutter the map, making it less useful. There are some nice examples of using tree symbols sparingly that you might be interested in. Check out Ystraad by Bohunk: http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=2796

[markem]

Heh. Well, I want two large trees on the map (one on either side of the actual body of the map). Those are the trees that have the veins showing.

Speaking of which - I never thought that in downtown Houston, Texas that I would come across maple-leaf-like leaves. I say "like" because it was still green and since we have been in the 40s here I would not think the leaves would stay green.