|
|
TECHNICAL NOTES |
This is an amateur site, but I have tried to make it easy to access from a wide range of computers and not to be too slow to load using a dial-up modem (28.8 or 56K).
As such one of my main concerns has been to keep file sizes to a minimum without compromising on image quality too much. This page is designed to share my thoughts on how to write a simple yet functional web site, that gives maximum opportunity for the subject to speak for itself.
Icons | Images | Search Facility | Counter/Rating | Browsers | Fonts | HTML Editor
The icons used on the home page are "home-made". Some are designed to be redolent of particular brands of petrol, although I have not slavishly followed the original sign. Thus introduction looks a bit like Imperial did in the 1980s, Brands may remind you of Burmah (or Uno-X) (and its French equivalent marques inevitably has to use the slightly different colours used by Burmah affiliate Major), Glossary is rather like the sign used by Globe in the period when it was owned by Tenneco, New (and its linguistic variations) are broadly similar to Nafta, Search-Tips is similar to a sign once used by the Munich-based independent Sud-Treibstoff, Special looks a bit like the 1970s/80s SECA sign and Trade-Swaps has a degree of similarity to the old Team Spirit sign. The Technical Notes logo at the top of this page may just remind people of a former Texaco sign. The Top icon, which appears here, is closely modelled on the logo of Trent Oil Products, a Midlands-based company active during the 1930s. (The logo is a child's spinning top, and not a hot air balloon.)
For the direct home page link to UKmaps I have ventured further afield, borrowing the style of the logo used by United, a former secondary brand of Marathon-Ashland's Speedway operation. Staying in the USA (or should I say Etats-Unis?) the Cartes de France equivalent link to the summary page of French maps from the French home page is loosely based on the Illinois brand CF Crystal Flash. In contrast the German equivalent (Deutsche Autokarte) comes from a 1950s German map issued by Deltin. The links from the Dutch home page to Dutch and Belgian maps are both inspired by the old independent brand Trading that operated in both countries. And if I ever get to include a Home icon, then it will undoubtedly have a resemblance to Canada's Home Oil.
The icon that appears in your browser in front of the URL (Mozilla, Firefox and Opera) is called "favicon.ico", and will also be used if you save this site to a list of favourites. It was created online at www.favicon.co.uk which produces a smaller file than the US equivalent site at www.favicon.com, owing to the latter using 256 as opposed to 16 colours. It's not intended to mimic any brand, as it is designed to be a visual aide-memoire about the site.
ImagesThe earlier map cover images were scanned at 30% of their actual size, using an image resolution of 96dpi (dots per inch).
This allowed an acceptable quality level on screen viewing, although small text or details did not reproduce accurately.
Larger atlases (such as those issued by Esso, Murco or Mobil) are generally scanned at 20%, and in most cases I have noted that they are at a reduced scale.
Later ones were scanned at 100% and 72dpi, then resampled to 30% size using Corel Photo-Paint. This has given much better results, although the resampled images often need to be sharpened before saving. This approach has however given slightly smaller linear dimensions on all later images.
Where someone has kindly e-mailed me a scanned image of a map in their collection, I have endeavoured to use
the same scaling factors, but occasionally I may have under or over-estimated the size of the original map.
Web images use either the JPEG (.jpg) or Compuserve GIF (.gif) formats (or, rarely, PNG). JPEG images are best for photographs as they render them more naturally, generate a smaller file size and have a much wider palette range. GIF images are best for map covers (or sections of the map itself) that have solid blocks of colours and a more limited palette. Simple map covers also produce smaller file sizes if GIFs are used. Maps shown using GIFs generally appear sharper and brighter than those with JPEGs, and I often digitally edit both types before reducing in size and saving to remove blemishes and give an indication of what the map would have looked like when new....
 |
The two images are of the same map taken from a single scan, but clearly show the differences that can be achieved. The GIF image (left) has been re-coloured in a cream that was the closest available match to the original colour of the paper. The JPG image (right) shows the map more as it is today, with water stains from almost 50 years of neglect! The GIF image does show the sharper rendering of text, although the colours are less natural. In this rather extreme example, the GIF file (at 1968 bytes) is less than a quarter of the size of the JPG file (at 9182 bytes). |
 |
The GIF file was also optimised using the GIFBOT minimisation program from NetMechanic.
|
I wrote the above comments before moving to a later version of Corel Photo-Paint (v8). This allows for superior conversion to JPGs, which often results in clearer images than GIF files. In my latest re-working of the file I have also flood filled the discoloured areas of the of the cover with an 88% transparent white several times (the exact number depending on how discoloured a particular area is), to try and achieve a reasonably natural effect. My current scanner setup also produces smaller images and slightly less intense colours than before. |
A technical problem peculiar to a site such as this is that maps produce very poor quality graphics when scanned and saved as JPG or GIF files. In essence scanning a map creates a so-called raster graphic file, and this typically needs to be at least 150-200dpi (dots per inch) to be of a reasonable quality. Maps also demand sharp edges to features such as roads or place names printed on them; JPG images tend to bleed colour from one feature to the next. So if the original map has only a limited colour palette, a GIF file may reproduce it more accurately, but as soon as there are gradations of colour neither format can accurately capture a map extract while keeping a small file size.
Of course native web maps avoid this by using vector graphics; they do not attempt to reproduce a printed map but create a simpler, clearer style.
The site search engine is provided by WebSideStory (formerly atomz.com) and I think they have an excellent and unbeatable product. What's more, it's free for sites with under 500 pages that display Google sponsored searches above and below the search results. As can be seen, the results pages are fully formattable to match the rest of the website, and include fun features like being able to show the page rankings by using small icons. The Search Tips page explains how to get the best from the search engine, including rules on wild cards, Boolean logic and restricting searches to image files.