UKBouldering.com
the shizzle => bouldering => topos - bouldering => Topic started by: old cheese on April 11, 2013, 03:47:39 pm
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Does anyone out there have some advice on what they use for topo making? Is there an app for it? Or is it a case of just taking pictures and sticking them on a page with some text
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Take pics
Gimp/photoshop etc some lines and numbers onto them
Present nicely in printable or web format
That's what I try to do anyway
(see link below)
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Friend of mine has made some good ones using an Ipad app called "skitch" I think. They looked good, but I've not tried it in anger myself.
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Seem to remember an old thread on this. If you want to do smooth lines you could use illustrator, the CS2 version is 'free', or inkscape. Both should let you layer text and curves onto a jpg quite easily.
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I used Inkscape for most of mine.
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Friend of mine has made some good ones using an Ipad app called "skitch" I think. They looked good, but I've not tried it in anger myself.
Skitch is really easy.. Just had a play. Prob not great for super pro topo's but fine for annotating pics..
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Ive used this in the past: https://sites.google.com/site/betacreator/
Bit of a pain to install (have to install some adobe crap first) but very easy to use once you get going and makes pretty sexy topos.
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All my recent ones have been done with Photoshop, if cash is an issue you can use the free Microsoft Paint tool that comes with all Windows O/S, assuming you don't have a Mac that is...
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if cash is an issue you can use the free Microsoft Paint tool that comes with all Windows O/S, assuming you don't have a Mac that is...
Or if you can bear to use it there is GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) (http://www.gimp.org/) which has a "few" more features than M$-Paint and is available for multiple OS's including M$, Mac and GNU/Linux (its also free).
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Adobe Illustrator is definitely top dog for this - the way you can freely adjust the lines and curves is far better than any image editing program (which aren't much more sophisticated than a digital marker pen). As mentioned above, CS2 is free and has all the functionality you need. Unfortunately is you have a fucking mac it isn't supported on OSs later than 10.6.
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I'd agree with JB, although for a freeby Inkscape isn't a million miles away.
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If your after a freebie that's Photoshop-lite, far better than MSPaint, and easier to user than GIMP, check out Paint.net
http://www.getpaint.net/download.html (http://www.getpaint.net/download.html)
It's got Bezier curves (http://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/LineCurveTool.html) tool, which I haven't played with but might be just the ticket for topos.
NB: Not at www.paint.net (http://www.paint.net)
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Excellent walk-through of How to make Topos (http://www.rockrun.com/wp/how-to-make-rock-climbing-topos/) from Greg C. Great work Greg.
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He should probably include something on the copyright of map data, as even tracing OS maps should be acknowledged if the topo is being put in the public domain. There should be ways of using OS data as they allow more free use of their data than they used to or alternatively use OpenStreetMap.