Wikipedia:WikiProject Historical Atlas/BD/2000

Wikipedia:WikiProject Historical Atlas/BD/2000 is a project from the WikiProject Historical Atlas/Boundaries Department. There will be an experimentation with creating exact boundaries for a political world map depicting the situation on january 1st 2000.

The cases below were some first attempts to try to figure out how the process of making maps works. Tutorials will be made to come to an established method.

Case 1: getting standard map and boundaries of another map in one new map

Sources

File:Blank map of the world (Green land).png

Blank map of the world

BlankMap-World-v4-Borders

Method

1. Download GIMP
2. Download above sources to your computer
3. Create new map
4. Change size to 2000 width and 2000 height
5. Open Blank map of the world
6. Right mouse click and use edit and copy
7. Go back to the new map
8. Right mouse click, edit, paste, Blank map of the world appears
9. Use toolbox and 'move tool'
10. Drag map out of the centre
11. Open BlankMap-World-v4-Borders with GIMP
12. Use view and zoom to 16:1
13. Use the toolbox and select 'select by color'
14. Click on the black colour
15. Right mouse click, edit, copy
16. Use edit and paste on new map, boundaries of BlankMap-World-v4-Borders appears (there is a chance that both maps are dropped on each other)

Result

2000 test1

Case 2: changing size of borders to fit in world map

Method 1

1. Open 2000 test1
2. Toolbox: rectangle select tool
3. Use it to select the lower part of the map with the boundaries
4. Toolbox: scale tool
5. Disadvantage: Pixels get blurred

Possible solution

1. Redrawing boundaries after scaling

Method 2

1. Open 2000 test1
2. Toolbox: measure tool
3. Upper map measures vertical ±538 pixels and horizontal ±919 pixels (using Ellesmere Island-Tierra del Fiego and Alaska-East Siberia as anchor points)
4. ±538 pixels corresponds with pixel 1236 from the top in the lower map, measured from Ellesmere Island
5. Repeating method 1 and using the scale tool to move the southern tip of Tierra del Fuego to pixel 1236
6. Using rectangle select tool to move southern map to the left, so that the most eastern tip of Russia ends up in the horizontal pixel 1402
7. Using scale tool to get the lower map in a size comparable to the upper map
8. Copy southern map
9. Paste it on a new map
10. Colors: Threshold tool
11. Copy colours and paste them on 2000 test1
12. Moving boundaries on upper map

Results

(click on maps to enlarge)

• Sample gallery
• 2000 test2.png: Method 2, step 7: two maps of similar size
  2000 test2.png: Method 2, step 7: two maps of similar size
• 2000 test3.png: Method 2, step 9
  2000 test3.png: Method 2, step 9
• 2000 test4.png: Method 2, step 10: threshold tool used
  2000 test4.png: Method 2, step 10: threshold tool used
• 2000 test5.png: End result
  2000 test5.png: End result

Evaluation

• System works
• Probably costs a lot of time to get it right
• A lot of measuring is needed

Method 3

1. Download Inkscape
2. Open 2000 test1
3. Measuring points: Northern map: Ellesmere Island y1958, Tierra del Fuego y1420, Alaska x488, Siberia x1404; Southern map Ellesmere Island y1300, Tierra del Fuego y697, Alaska x351, Siberia x1491
4. Southern map needs y-65 and x-224 to fit in northern map

Result

File:2000 test7.png

2000 test7