Scale question

I'm back again with another "I'm sure there's a way to do this, I just can't figure it out" question!

So, what I've got is a map that has a background and map border that's much bigger than it needs to be. What happened is, I had decided to re-arrange the provinces of this country I was working on, and so to do that, I enlarged the "canvas" of the map, to give myself plenty of room to work with while making the changes. Now, I've mostly finished with those changes, and have determined how big I want the total map area to ultimately be. So I need to scale the background and map border back down, but here is my dilemma.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/axgn2v3ss0jmnqz/NW15.PNG?dl=0
(just a direct link to the full-size image, because I only have this one uploaded in Dropbox, and I'm not aware of a way to generate a thumbnail for a Dropbox image).

See how the North American continent just STOPS over on the right, in the south? That's where I want my background and map border to actually end. So basically, I want to scale Y down by about 300, but I need some way to tell the program to scale it by cutting off the bottom portion of the map only, rather than scaling by pulling it in at the bottom and top. Is there a way to do this? Thanks!

Comments

  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    edited April 2017
    When scaling, you are prompted to select the scale origin/center. Everything else will scale towards/away from this point. So, by making the scale origin along the top of the map (top left corner for example), you should get what you want.
  • CielCiel Traveler
    Hmm I don't remember now where I put it. So I'll have to try that tonight when I'm home. Thanks!
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    Note that it is important to place it precisely. Use Snaps or the endpoint modifier to make sure it ends up exactly in the corner.
  • CielCiel Traveler
    edited April 2017
    Didn't mean to wait so long before getting back to this, some stuff came up and I had little time for mapping these past few days...

    But anyway! I more or less see how the scaling works, although it seems really finicky - even when using the endpoint modifier or snap, it's always a little off. Not much, but enough that I'd have to go and fix the borders of the landmass lining the north, east, and south edges of the map.

    In addition, I noticed that the Screen entity ends up being slightly off. With this, I'm referring to the usually invisible (since it's white in color) rectangle shape that surrounds the map border. For a long time I didn't know what this did, and recently I realized it was for covering entities that go beyond the map border, so you can - for example - have landmass go right to the edge of the map, extending beyond the border so there's no blue line at the edge, but everything beyond the border remains invisible. To accomplish this, the Screen needs to hug the map border perfectly. And whenever I do this scale X/Y, they end up a bit off from one another.

    So, I thought about trying to scale them one at a time - it might be a bit of a trial-and-error game, where I have to just keep trying different scale factors until the screen is back to the right size. But I had another thought.

    Might it possibly be simpler for me to just make a new map in the correct style in the size that I need (which will produce a map background, map border, and screen all in the correct size), and then just copy those objects into my existing map? I can't think of downsides to doing this...
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    Posted By: Saito SMight it possibly be simpler for me to just make a new map in the correct style in the size that I need (which will produce a map background, map border, and screen all in the correct size), and then just copy those objects into my existing map? I can't think of downsides to doing this...
    Yes, that will work just fine.
  • 8 months later
  • I know this is a little off topic but I couldnt find a way to start a new thread so I am posting to this one.

    I have an overland map and I used the distatnace tool to figure out the size of a given citys area, it showed 170x140 I am asuming that is in miles as that seems appropraet for the scale. this overland map was an export from Fractal Terrains. Now I want to make a city map for this and when I put in that same size on the new map properties 170x140 and then drag a house symbol over to the map its huge. What is going on here and what should I do about the size??
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    edited December 2017
    Posted By: HippyCraigI know this is a little off topic but I couldnt find a way to start a new thread so I am posting to this one.
    Top left corner of the forum - 'Start a new Thread'


    As for the scale, city maps are measured in feet (or meters, if you use a metric template). Convert those miles to feet first to calculate the size of the template you need for the city. I would reconsider those measurements though. 170 by 140 miles are enormous. Modern day New York City is 304 square miles. Your city under those dimensions would be 23,800 square miles, or 78 times the size of New York City.
    If you did your measurements on a symbol, remember that those are just there to indicate the location, they are not to scale, cities are normally never as large as the city symbol.
  • edited December 2017
    well this was to also take into account the surrounding farm land as well, with that said is that still to large an area?

    See below it includes some of the water just what the box covers.
  • MonsenMonsen Administrator 🖼️ 46 images Cartographer
    For a city map, yes. Remember, that area is 1.5 times the size of the Netherlands, an entire country. For an area that large, I would instead map the area as a regional map (which is large enough that it will probably contains lots of other cities and villages that weren't of sufficient size to show up on the large scale map), and then make city map from just the actual city area.
  • Great thanks for the advice and helping put things in perspective. As you can tell I am new to this, but having fun learning and mapping :)
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