Orienteering map

An orienteering map, often abbreviated OL- map is a topographical map that was drawn specifically for use in orienteering. Orienteering maps are characterized by a particularly large scale ( 1:10,000 or 1:15,000 mostly ) and high accuracy, and differ from conventional topographic maps by specific signatures that are defined by the International Orienteering Federation.

Requirements

The card is the most important tool of orientation runner. To ensure fair competition, an orienteering map must represent all peculiarities of the terrain accurately, which could influence the route choice of the runner in any way. In particular, the runnability of the terrain and visibility are therefore important information that must be read from the map. A detailed presentation brings rapid obsolescence ( changes in the vegetation, creating new paths, ...) with it, resulting in maps after a short time can no longer be useful. Therefore, an extra new maps are drawn for larger competitions usually.

Orienteering maps must be able to withstand the stresses during a run and therefore made ​​of good, mostly water- resistant paper, or otherwise, such as foil, be protected from moisture and damage.

Scale, projection and signatures

The scale of orienteering maps is usually 1:15 000 or 1:10 000 For long- distance competitions cards are used on a smaller scale, in middle distance and relay races, also the scale of 1:10 000 are used. For Sprint Competitions own regulations apply, here are larger scales 1:5 000 or 1: 4000 was used. The equidistance, ie, the vertical distance between adjacent contour lines is five meters, particularly in flat terrain also 2.5 meters can be used.

Orienteering maps use an Oblique conformal cylindrical projection that takes into account the magnetic declination. So a map is aligned with the magnetic north lines, at regular intervals, this North lines are drawn on the map, to facilitate polar alignment.

The signatures of orienteering maps are divided into five groups: landforms, including the contour lines are shown in brown, blue waters are drawn. Rocks and stones and building works are drawn in black or gray, for the representation of the vegetation, the colors are provided green and yellow. Unlike most commercial topographic maps forest is represented not green but white, green symbolize various thicket runnability. Since the presentation of the runnability is important for fair competitions, even the direction of the best runnability can be represented in a forest. Open terrain is drawn in varying shades of yellow. In red-violet information for the race to be printed, so the items, start, finish, food and medical points and routes duty or restricted areas. Technical symbols are black, sometimes blue. These include the Northern lines, but also absolute amount and names of geographical objects that are on orienteering maps, however, are of minor importance and are rarely depicted.

For other variants of the orientation sport, for example, mountain bike orienteering, ski orienteering or Trail Orienteering and for Sprint and park runs similar but different in scale and individual signatures cards. So Ski - orienteering maps are lose detail, the bottom shape is simplified and the trail network and its state are accurately represented with special symbols. For this particular date mapping is needed. Also, mountain bike orienteering maps are drawn coarser - and in some cases have also a smaller scale. The Trail - orientation, however, as in the sprint maps on a larger scale are used, which are particularly rich in detail.

Production

Orienteering maps are included and drawn by experienced orienteers. It can be used photogrammetric maps as basic topographic survey or existing maps, a detailed geological survey, however, is unavoidable.

Today, the cards are usually drawn in electronic form, a specially developed for this purpose program is OCAD, which now also off of orienteering in the general mapping is employed.

History

In the early years of orienteering existing topographic maps (eg topographic maps ) have already been used, which were mostly drawn in smaller scales (up 1:50 000 ). The first orienteering in the modern sense, organized in 1897 in Norway, for example, was discharged on a map at a scale of 1:30 000 with an equidistance of 20 meters. Until the 1930s by today's standards was bad maps available so that little orientation technically challenging runs could be discharged later brought more detailed charts a higher importance of the orientation technique with it.

The years after the Second World War were marked by a more professional, so in 1948 for the first time used a card created entirely for OL purposes in Norway, the first colored card and send him 1950. Starting 1966, the orienteering maps have been standardized by the International Orienteering Federation to in international competitions to ensure greater fairness. In 2007, the special signatures for Sprint cards were regulated.