Talk:List of Munros

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[edit] Maps

I have now updated the maps to colour versions with 250m CONTOURS and graduated colour shading. These are now "final" versions, I don't intend to do any more on them except to correct any errors that anyone tells me about.

I have put the files on to Wikimedia. The new files all have names like this munro-colour-contour-map-secnn.png where nn runs from 01 to 18.

Thruston 22:50, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

A couple of Wikipedia users have asked me about how I made these maps, so I thought I would post an edited version of my replies to them here, in case anyone else is interested.

I have never found a commercial map drawing tool that I like, so I'm using my own Perl scripts to produce the maps. I start with a list of the munros with names and grid references etc. This is a list I created (by hand) myself from the SMC guidebooks and have subsequently checked against other internet sources, including the list on WP.

I also have a series of files defining the shapes of the coast lines, the lakes, sorry lochs, roads etc, and the contours. These are all from various publically available sources. The contours are from the SMC's own website. They distribute them in the form of maps that can be loaded into a GPS receiver, but they are derived from the Nasa SRTM data originally. I used the (free) tools that the SMC used to create the maps to extract the contour shapes out into plain text files that I could read in my script. I also supplemented some of the datasets with my own GPS tracks, mainly for roads. In some cases I have used paper OS maps to cross check and correct the data sets.

My script reads all this stuff and creates a PostScript program for each map. The tricky bit of the script is finding the right place to put the labels in automatically, so that they do not overwrite any important other information on the maps. I then feed these PostScript programs into Ghostscript to create a full colour PNG file, which is what is displayed on these pages.

Thruston 15:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Subsections?

Do you like them (in Section 4)? Some of the other longer sections could do with them. If you object please say so here. Thanks Thruston 14:00, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... I can see the argument, but IMO the Munro's Tables sections are enough. They have the advantage of being verifiable and universally recognised divisions, whereas any further subdivisions must be subjective. Section 4 does have some fairly clear and distinct regions (Nevis Range/Mamores/Grey Corries at least), but other regions might be harder to subdivide. I reckon too many sections would clutter up the article and the table of contents as well. The maps probably provide enough of a visual aid as to how the hills divide up into areas. --Blisco 17:41, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

They also help to disambiguate hills with the same name in each section (for example in Sec 4 the two Stobs Ban and the two Aonachs Beag). But I agree that we don't want to clutter the thing up, nor are they appropriate in all sections. Thruston 12:16, 29 September 2006 (UTC)