Symbols, Brushes and Geology! Basic Cartography 2 At the end of the last class… You should have...

Symbols, Brushes and Geology!

Basic Cartography 2

At the end of the last class…

You should have ended up with a lineplot in illustrator with a set of walls drawn in


Basic Cartography 2

But what are we missing??

All the details that make a cave map look like a cave !


Basic Cartography 2

The Symbols that show us what is happening in the cave

Remember – We use symbols to ‘explain’ what is really happening in the cave.

Slopes really don’t look like ‘Y’s and ceiling drops don’t look like ‘T’s but we use these symbols to represent those features

Ultimately we all have to agree on what those symbols mean!


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UIS Symbols

Australian Symbols

Symbols can come from anywhere

We can use:

- NSS Symbols

- CRF Symbols

- MSS Symbols

- UIS

- Whatever!!!

MSS Symbols NSS Symbols


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You just have to remember:

Whatever symbol set you decide to use – you must either supply a key, so that others understand what you mean by that symbol

Or

Refer to a standard accepted set of symbols


Basic Cartography 2

Illustrator has some very simple powerful tools that make using symbols very easy

Or else very complex cave passages would drive us crazy!

These tools include symbol sets, brushes, and brush sets


Basic Cartography 2

So – lets start by taking a look at a often used symbol

The Slope symbol

We can draw it each time we need it

With the pencil

Or with the pen

But it would take a lot of time, and each one would look different and possibly incorrect!


Basic Cartography 2

A much better way is to use the symbol palette in illustrator!

It stores symbols for reuse within a single map, or across a group of maps


Basic Cartography 2

It is very simple to make a new Symbol

First – make a very good copy of the symbol you want to use – take your time. Remember, this will be reused time and time again – so you want it looking good

Highlight the entire new symbol

Drag it into the symbol palette

And drop it in – You are done!


Basic Cartography 2

And to use is just as simple

Place your pointer over the symbol you want

Drag out

And Drop!

If you want to rotate into theProper orientation, grab theCorner and spin it


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You can do whatever you want with symbols

Mix and match between different caves

These are three different sets I have for three different projects


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Once you have a full palette of symbols created, you may want to save them to use elsewhere!

By clicking the toggle on the top of the symbols screen, you open a menu box with a few options

One of the most important is to save the symbol library

You can name it whatever you like and save it with all other symbol libraries


Basic Cartography 2

Then, in other drawings, you can open up Saved libraries and reuse, saving a lotOf time


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A second Symbols palette will open up, with Name you saved it under.

You can drag off the new palette just like the original

After you use a symbol from the opened paletteIt will be added permanently to the symbol paletteFor your drawing


Basic Cartography 2

To make a long line of symbols

You could pull a bunch of symbols

And line them up and spin them,

But it would take a long time!


Basic Cartography 2

Brushes are much more efficient, easier, and just aseasy to make and use

With it, you can use the brush tool to drag a line that replicates your symbols in the location and direction you want


Basic Cartography 2

Brushes are easy to make – first, pick a symbol or an element that you want made into a brush

We typically use Pattern Brushes

click the toggle on the brushes palette and pick new brush

Like our ‘T’ symbol


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The Pattern Brush option box will open with your symbol already in place

Leave scale at 100 and spacing at 0

This will leave the symbol at full size and leave no room between successive symbols

Set to add space

Now pick up the brush tool and try!


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Highlite the new brush

Pick up the brush tool

Drag the brush

And you have a pattern!!


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But wait – it doesn’t look like this

In fact it looks a lot more like the ledge symbol then the ceiling symbol.Which is good – but not exactly what we wanted

What do we do about that ?


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Because the brush we created is helpful as the ledge symbol – lets keep itFirst we name it!

Double click on the brush to open the options box

Name it ledge brush


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Second – with the first brush highlited, click the toggle and specify duplicate brush

A ledge brush copy will be made

Double click it to bring up options


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Play with the spacing untill you get what you want


Basic Cartography 2

Don’t forget to rename your brushes

As they can be hard to tell apart in the brush palette


Basic Cartography 2

Think about what you are trying to create. Just this symbol:

when joined together with no spacing makes a great train track

Other Symbols:


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Make up symbols to use if necessary – I used this symbol to denote rocks purposely gathered into piles

Other Symbols:


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Flowstone

Other Symbols:


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Other Symbols:

Entrance - dripline


Basic Cartography 2

Once you have built up a library of different brushes, you can save them just as we saved the symbols!

And you can open other libraries of brushes as well


Basic Cartography 2

In fact, one of the most powerful things about brush and symbol libraries is they can be shared with other mappers, and downloaded over the internet

Examples of other brush sets I have available

Other symbol sets


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Other symbol and brush sets available from internet

You do need to make sure they are the same series as your illustrator version


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Some Hints:

Just as in drawing walls – a tablet can help the use of brushes


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Some Hints:

Direction that you drag the brush makes a difference

Here you can see the ‘leg’ of the ‘T’ is in a different direction based on the way you stroke!

This can often screw you up, and there is no easy way to change it, other then to draw from other side

I will sometimes start a brush stroke, check the direction and then continue


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Some Hints:

Sometimes you have drawn the pattern too jagged and it causes the brush to not replicate well

This can be fixed by using the smoothing tool, which can be found on the Pencil sub bar, or by pushing the alt key when using brush

Dragging the smoothing tool along the path reduces the anchor points and smoothes the path – making symbols look better


Basic Cartography 2

Some Hints:

Sometimes a bad stroke end can leave a strange remnant at the end of your stroke.

This can ususally be removed by cutting the stroke short with the scissors tool

By placing the tool

Clicking thenseparates the end

And deleting the malformed sections


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One last word – I usually have the symbols and brushes in a sinigle layer that I call the geology layer. That’s because these symbols ususally represent the geology of the interior of the cave more so then other layers


Basic Cartography 2

It is the second most important of the first three drawn layers (walls, geology, details)

Symbols, Brushes and Geology! Basic Cartography 2 At the end of the last class… You should have...

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