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First, thank you for these awesome maps! I actually took a stab at making a map for my corp during a 0.0 operation and realized how utterly incredible the effort was to do this for the whole Eve Universe.
If I could have edited your maps, it would have made life a little easier, but I understand you need to maintain control of the product to prevent bad copies floating around.
Some things that we could have used in the maps to make our "tactical operation" a little easier:
1) A grid reference background. Like most charts IRL, something to quickly get the eyes pointed in the right area when referring to a system. Letters for rows, numbers for columns (or vice-versa). With Visio (I assume you're using Visio) this is easily done using a background layer.
2) Constellation Identification. Originally, I started to group systems by constellation, then "jig-saw puzzle" them into place on the map. I orginally identified constellation groupings using a faint color highlight that sat behind the systems, a color blob if you will. Seemed ok, but kind of hard to make in Visio at my skill level. Grouping by constellation seemed to help in item 3 below...
3) Make the maps look as much like the in-game map as possible. I know you're representing 3-D space on 2-D paper, so this is technically impossible to make 100% correct. A close approximation would help. This, of course, helps the user to become familiar with the layout of the region and also aids in quickly finding the system of choice on the paper map. Referencing item 2 above, I made each constellation first and grouped it together, then placed it on the map, by constellation, in its approximate in-game location.
Of course, doing this by hand is a monumental task and I salute you bro! Having tried it for a single region, I'm dumbfounded by how difficult your task has been.
One of the things that may help, is having auto-generated maps using the Trinity database dump as a starting point. Perhaps, generating a region map by constellations. Some guys that have seemed to crack this this are:
Hi, and thanks for your suggestions- I'll answer them below
Troj'n Raz wrote:
Ombey!
1) A grid reference background. Like most charts IRL, something to quickly get the eyes pointed in the right area when referring to a system. Letters for rows, numbers for columns (or vice-versa). With Visio (I assume you're using Visio) this is easily done using a background layer.
I'd forgotten about this. I am using Visio indeed, how easy is this to do without having to draw each line by hand, and attempting to make squares?
Troj'n Raz wrote:
2) Constellation Identification. Originally, I started to group systems by constellation, then "jig-saw puzzle" them into place on the map. I orginally identified constellation groupings using a faint color highlight that sat behind the systems, a color blob if you will. Seemed ok, but kind of hard to make in Visio at my skill level. Grouping by constellation seemed to help in item 3 below...
Yeah, the faint back-colour highlight looks great, but I find it hard to do and also look good in Visio. Plus, people printing it will have issues so instead I am grouping the constellations much more clearly than before, with a different colour jump line to represent const. jump
Troj'n Raz wrote:
3) Make the maps look as much like the in-game map as possible. I know you're representing 3-D space on 2-D paper, so this is technically impossible to make 100% correct. A close approximation would help. This, of course, helps the user to become familiar with the layout of the region and also aids in quickly finding the system of choice on the paper map. Referencing item 2 above, I made each constellation first and grouped it together, then placed it on the map, by constellation, in its approximate in-game location.
This will be very hard to do, unless I want multiple crossing lines with lines stetching all over the place- but i do take your point. Where possible i will try and stick with this.
Troj'n Raz wrote:
One of the things that may help, is having auto-generated maps using the Trinity database dump as a starting point. Perhaps, generating a region map by constellations. Some guys that have seemed to crack this this are:
Yeah, I used Future Falcon's EveMap exclusively to initially plot the maps by hand, awesome tool. Nothing else even came close back then. I would like to see how I go about auto-generating a map dump from the DB, but I don't even know where to start! I'll try dropping them a line, asking on the EveO forum didn't get a response.
Troj'n Raz wrote:
--> Last minute thought. Have you considered using volunteers to do the base work, then submit to you for final editing?
Well, no. I don't want to ask people to do what I feel is an onerous task, but if you fancy having a bash using Visio, then that would be great Don't worry about formatting, it's the layout I have nightmares about- look at Domain for instance!! You would of course get a co-credit and no doubt large sums of ISK
I just made it using squares/rectangles for the border area. Each grid ref square is a separate entity. The lines were just simply added in, snap to grid, etc. Overall, I set this as my background layer. Problem is, the border takes away from your useable space...but at least its an idea to play with.
Since the pages of your map have different dimensions, you may have to customize it on a page by page basis. The idea is that the grid should be as symmetrical as possible.
Also, the lines can be a fainter color so it doesn't intrude on the map itself and look cluttered. Or, as an alternative, the lines could be dashed with a faint grey color.
Edit: the url function didn't work for me...so posted the link raw.
Excellent, many thanks, I see how you've done it now. Making the lines almost transparent should be easy enough so as to not interfer too much with the map.
I want to thank you for your great work, putting this massive universe with so much information already onto these pages, as well. I've been using this a lot, in 0.0 and Empire - because it's clear and much more handy than the ingame map imho :)
Also I prepared a ringbinder and printed regions I needed. Especially in 0.0 regions, I wrote down the planet and moon count by hand. As industrialist in a new 0.0 region it's always a lot of time spent checking systems for planets and moons.
If you're using the EVE DB export at all, these two additional numbers could be extracted fairly easy and would be much appreciated if it doesn't make the charts too bloated. :)
Planet and moon count is something I have pondered on for some time. I assume they would be useful for moon mining and exploration- is there anything else a count would be handy for?
I'll try and devise a way of showing planet/ moon count without cluttering the map too much, but short of writing eg. "6P24M" for 6 planets, 24 moons, I'm not sure how much easier I can make it.
I can only tell from personal experience. In 0.0 space it would be very handy IMHO as it will be used for on-board and probing exploration and POS/Mining and strategic decisions for attack, defense and claiming, I guess. I know of Fleet Commanders using the maps for having a very clear overview of paths and such already.
With the exception of claiming in low security systems, this will probably be as handy as in 0.0, I'd imagine. In high security systems the most useful would be the planet count for exploration, probing or on-board. For just picking some nice constellation with lots of planets for example.
Thus making systems or even contellations more or less interesting and attractive at one glance. I don't think that people building a POS in high sec space will be much picky.
Finally I'd be comfortable with (5/23/42) even, where the asteroid belt count is placed as (23). Outlining (5 planets with 23 asteroid belts and 42 moons) or (planets/moons/asteroid belts). I can't decide which to prioritize, belts or moons :)
Tell me- are the market hubs not being in a bigger font of any help? You may not have got a later version of the map, but a couple of versions ago, I enlarged the text of the trade hubs.
Having said that, I don't think they stand out enough anyway. I'd like to use a different colour- most market hubs are in hi-sec so them not being green isn't a big deal.
Being a trader, I think that making the market hubs stand out has both been a boon and a bit of a pain. A boon in that my customers know where to come, a pain in that now my competition knows where to come too.
Im all for keeping hubs highlighted though, especailly the non Jita ones. _________________
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 4:38 pm Post subject: domain re-layout
Ombey,
I'll take a crack at re-laying out Domain. I enjoy fixing people's overly complicated process maps at work, so this should just more of the same -- though a lot more connections are involved.
But I'd prefer to not have to recreate from scratch, so if you want to email me a visio of just that region, I'll see what I can accomplish. (Or else I'll fail and bow to your superiority.)
I assume you can view my email address in the admin screens?
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 5:43 pm Post subject: Re: domain re-layout
yasd dywypi wrote:
Ombey,
I'll take a crack at re-laying out Domain. I enjoy fixing people's overly complicated process maps at work, so this should just more of the same -- though a lot more connections are involved.
But I'd prefer to not have to recreate from scratch, so if you want to email me a visio of just that region, I'll see what I can accomplish. (Or else I'll fail and bow to your superiority.)
I assume you can view my email address in the admin screens?
Actually Ombey...I do have another idea for your system bubble. It's something I toyed with on my test map....but, to be honest, it got a little too big to manage.
This is going to be a confusing read...so bear with me.
Perhaps some ideas thrown out there will give you some inspiration. Basically, I'll try to explain it verbally, then try to recreate it visually for your consideration when I get some time.
So imagine:
-Your current system bubble
-An outer ring around the bubble
-The ring is subdivided into equidistant parts
-The top half of the ring is used for celestial information: Planets, Moons, Asteroids, Ice, Gas
- The bottom half has station services C, R, L, etc
Each section can be colored as required: So planets (green), moons (grey), asteroids (brown), Ice (blue), Gas (...err yellow?), with a number inside denoting total number of the item.
The station services (bottom of the ring) are permanently there, just use color to denote "on / off" status. So a system with Medical Facilities may have a colored block with an "C" in it, a system without Medical Facilities would have the same "C" block, but it would be a faint grey color (i.e. turned off).
The idea is to present as much information, without it being too cryptic. Colors help with celestial ID, and your system for identifying station services is the same, just presented differently.
Oh yeah, station count. Instead of the square under the name, how about just putting a number. Something like:
Jita <-- name
1.0 <-- security
8 <-- station count (just a guess number btw)
I think I had another block for Outposts...but that kind of information seemed a little too "transient" to keep up with.
Excellent ideas! I did think of doing something with a double ring as you mention, but not exactly what... and I'm not sure if I can do it in Visio... I need to play around with it.
If I had the ability to use something like Illustrator, it'd be easy I'm sure, but I don't .
The reason I went to rings is because the human eye likes uniformity, and the rings are uniform- I really feel it's easier to follow a map with rings than not- look at the old Aridia map compared to the new.
Although I don't want to spend hundreds of hours updating them all for people to think it looks rubbish now and not bother using them hence the forum.
Good point...station count probably isn't as important in highsec, but a way to identify stations in lowsec / 0.0 would be ideal.
Here's an example of what I had done before. I really does get kind of busy when you do a whole region...this is just to give you some ideas to play with.
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These aren't really the data for these systems...i'm just mucking about.
Anyway...you see that systems without services have those blocks "turned off" etc.
Basically, I used some combining tools to subdivide the circles and make the segments. Each symbol is three circles overlaying each other, so you can color each one individually. The whole thing is grouped together so you can move it as one unit.
You can scale it fine, just be sure to resize the text after scaling. Just select the entire grouped figure and resize the text normally. You don't have to resize each text block separately. Additionally, each color block can be changed individually.
As I said earlier, this probably increases your workload, and makes the file much bigger I think. But hopefully this'll give you some old fashioned inspiration.
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Don't worry about formatting, it's the layout I have nightmares about- look at Domain for instance!! You would of course get a co-credit and no doubt large sums of ISK 
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