Wyvern
Wyvern
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Live Mapping: Cosmographer System Map *** NEW second attempt ***
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Returning to mapping
Ordinarily, if there were a lot of symbols there that your computer can't find, you'd end up with a load of shapes filled with red X's. As there aren't, that doesn't seem to be the issue here.
Have you tried doing a List command using "Select all"? That should tell you exactly what is actually in your drawings.
There are various possibilities for why so much seems to be missing from your drawings, and it may help if you're able to post copies of the FCW files here for others more expert than me on the Forum to examine, to try to identify what's going on here.
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Possibilities for recreating the Itiner-e Roman Roads map in CC3+ or other software?
The problem my colleague was having after importing the JSON file into QGIS (free software) was that just the roads showed up. I was vaguely assuming that at least some of the available GIS software would have the topographical geoid data pre-loaded, but maybe that's not the case? I'm approaching this from the perspective of having no idea about GIS software in general though! Is there, for instance, a set of said topographical data available that could be imported into a program such as QGIS, over which the roads could then be overlaid?
In answer to Marja's point, judging by the discussion from 2023 on this Forum my first post here linked to, GIS data can't be directly imported into CC3+ or FT3, so could only be imported as an image that would then have to be traced.
Incidentally, a further colleague commented on that ancient history forum that it seems for Britannia, the Itiner-e map has used only the roads known and suspected from the original 1955 version of Ivan Margary's monumental work "The Roman Roads of Britain". This is odd, because there was an updated version published that expanded and corrected the earlier edition in 1973. I'd already expressed concern on that other forum, because I'd found at least two roads known to exist in Scotland that aren't on the Itiner-e map. In addition, it seems the Itiner-e map has excluded at least some British Roman Roads that don't connect into the rest of the network, despite the fact they're archaeologically attested. This could mean there are similar problems elsewhere, of course, for all it remains a fascinating resource map.
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A Monastery by the Sea
Often, shadowing problems like this can be improved by softening the appearance of the shadows, to make them more subtle (increased transparency, reduced size, altered colouring, adjusted blurring are all possibilities).
The bridge shadow's showing an odd gap, and its presence illustrates that a shadow effect stacked on another one starts to look odd - the bridge is further from the sea than the cliff bases, yet its shadow is more distinct, for instance.
One option to escape that double-shadowing trap might be to use the existing shadow effect lines and areas to redraw the shadow as a separate polygon, and then turn off the shadow effects entirely. Using one of the "Solid" bitmap fills might work for this, or just a normal darker grey polygon with a suitable transparency effect.
There's also the possibility of adding some extra shadow effects to the little rocks in the sea, as they currently don't have any shadows, which makes them look a little odd where they're exposed to the light. If they're all only low-lying rocks though, they'd cast negligible shadows from this viewpoint anyway, so that may be a shadow effect too far 😉.


