countyborders

County Borders

SVG and PNG Borders

All SVG files should be rendered natively in Firefox 2. (I'm using SVG, since they scale nicely. I will render PNGs for specific sizes. In my opinion, SVG will be easier to later manipulate the borders if necessary)

Country/Coastal Borders

County Borders

Todo:

    • Ireland
    • Final compilation
    • Shading with indexes
    • PHP selector script
      • How much customisation?
      • One size, rendered from the SVG beforehand, and simply recoloured?
      • Could we render from SVG each time, like wikipedia (but this would require flood filling, overheads from SVG rendering and flooding)
      • 2 sizes of pre-rendered PNGs, just recoloured?
      • Use 2 base images, (coloured regions according to index & alpha-ified borders), or 1 image, regions and borders together. Could be smoother, test to see which option is best/fastest?
      • Customisation of colours is simple.
      • An array of counties, index #s, boolean selected. Ask Bambography for SQL schema, or a useful linking method, so can integrate with little trouble.
      • Useful docs - http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.imagecolorset.php

Method

Using the data sources listed below, I'm tracing the PNGs to SVG in The GIMP, using the path tool. Two sets are used, so a thicker coastal border can be achieved. The low detail of the work makes it less cluttered to view, and just generally nicer to look at. It also gives an excuse for any errors!

Each country is traced separately, where possible using the adjoining border to scale and join. (This was particularly tricky with Scotland, whose source image seemed to be very misaligned.

Final compilation is completed over an overview map to align Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Scilly Isles. I also used this with Scotland to rotate it a little and realign the border with England.

Data sources