Mapping Weekend Howto/Cake Diagram

A lot of mappers have complained that creating a cake diagram is hard. It's really quite simple. Here are the basic steps:

1. Find the area that you want, and take a screenshot of the area. It's often better to use the nonames map for areas that are lacking streetnames.
2. Load that image into some image editing software like Photoshop, Gimp, or Paint.
3. If the image editing software supports multiple layers, it will be better to do each of the following 2 steps in a separate layer, as it will be easier to correct some of the mistakes if you do it that way.
4. Start drawing lines for the boundaries of the cake pieces. The size of the cake pieces varies based on factors like the type of party it is (aiming for POI mapping, or just getting lots of road names), the number of people attending, how fast they are mapping, etc. It is usually best to draw the lines in a colour that isn't used much on the map, and you set it to have about 50% transparency. Also remember that some people will print the map off in blank and white.
5. Number each of the cake segments
6. Export the image as a png, and upload to the wiki for use in the mapping party wiki page
7. Add a list of numbers to the wiki page for each person to sign up to the particular segment

Tool

• MapCraft is a tool for making a cake diagram and tracking mapping progress.

Examples

Don't worry about your cake diagram being perfectly like one you've seen, but here are some examples to show how they look and how they can vary in style.

• Peckham, London hand sliced cake.
• Fleet Street, London another example
• Manchester/Mapping Party#Mapping - The Cake numbered but no lines (the main roads mapped so-far provide divisions).