Using TEX and METRFONT to Build Complicated Maps

The aim of t h s work was to publish a catalog of all the 1 5 0 0 crags and climbable rocks in France. The main source is an important TEX file describing all these places, including for each one: a serial number, a quotation of its importance, its usual name and some information about its location. This master file is scanned by a Fortran programme which computes the coordmates of the respective marks on the paper and performs some topological analysis to settle the text labels corresponding to each mark, in order to avoid label and mark collisions. The final result is a TEX file whch yields the assumedly best mark and label positions. T h s TEX map has to be superimposed to a background map representing the coast lines, the main rivers and the major lakes of the country. T h s is done in METAFONT with a major input of Lambert kilometric coordinates of these features. However, the map background has to be erased at the places dedicated to TEX~ labels : this is done using a set of METAFONT filtering files produced by TEX macros when compiling the labels whch are " inpu t " in the METRFONT map generating process. Several difficulties arise, due to METAFONT limitation on numbers, and to the limited capacities of some DVI translators, particularly DVIPS. Together with typing and playing organ music and typesetting statistics related to physical experiments, one of the hobbies of the author consists of rock climbing and especially maintaining a tentatively exhaustive catalog of all the 1 5 0 0 known climbable crags of France outside the high mountains. This catalog is maintained as a TEX file which has to be printed every three years, under the name "Guide des Sites Naturels d'Escalade de France". In fact the main text is a plain text which does not look very strange, of whlch we give a short excerpt : 29.02. ***(*) *= PLOUGASTEL *, SPORT, comm: Plougastel-Daoulas, Mich: 58.4, IGN: 0417e; sit: 10 km E de Brest; acces: par D33 (Brest-Quimper); heb: camping sauvage impossible, camping perm. a Plougastel (St-Jean, en venant de Brest: sortie Landerneau, en venant de Quimper: sortie Plougastel-Daoulas, puis suivre les panneaux), camping munic. (perm.) a Brest-St-Marc (sur D33); roch: quartzite, gres, marbre (exc.), c h a t : pluielneige: 1000 m m de precipitations en 150 jourslan, minimum au printemps. 29.02.1 ** ** ROC'H NIVILEN, le CUBE*, SPORT, L= (1097.7, 103.2); sit: 1,8 km W N W de Plougastel, pres du hameau de Roc'h Nivilen; acces: de Brest prendre D33 dir. Quimper, franchir le pont Albert Louppe sur I'Elorn, ne pas prendre la premiere route a D, mais la deuxieme petite route, face au restaurant Ty-ar-Mor, peu avant un arrOt de bus (ne pas aller jusqu'a I'embranchement vers Plougastel) et la suivre W sur env. l k m d'ou un sentier conduit au Cube; pour Roc'h Nivilen, continuer jusqu'a quelques maisons pour prendre S un chemin qui conduit a I 'W de Roc'h Nivilen et revient par I 'W (ne pas aller directement du Cube a Roc'h Nivilen: prive); propr: commune + prive; roch: quartzitelmarbre (exc.), 20 voies, 18-30 m, 26b, souvent equipees; biblio: TOPO-GUIDE (CAF Brest, 1984); obs: on y trouve des voies faciles ou peu soutenues en exc. rocher; site tres frequente; ATTENTION: bien que moins spectaculaire qu'a Pen-Hir, la corrosion des pitons y est importante: certains pitons sont enduits au minium, mais la partie cachee n'est pas protegee, il faut donc imperativement renforcer l'assurance avec des coinceurs. 29.02.2 *** LVMPERATRICE *, SPORT, L= (1098.5, 103.5); sit: au S de I'Elorn, 2 km E du pont de I'Elorn (route Brest-Quimper); acces: de Brest dir. Quimper, sortie Plougastel, redescendre vers Brest sur 300 m, tourner a D vers Le Passage, les rochers sont visibles au niveau d'un transformateur, NE PAS STATIONNER a proximite des rochers, mais continuer jusqu'a Le Passage, vaste parking au bord de I'Elorn; revenir a pied aux rochers 196 TUGboat, Volume 1 4 (1993), No. 3 -Proceedings of the 1993 Annual Meeting Using TEX and METAFONT to Build Complicated Maps par la route; propr: prives; roch: gres quartzite (exc.), 62 voies, 30-45 m, 3b-6b; biblio: Alpi. Rando. nov. 1979, TOPO-GUIDE (CAF Brest, 1984); obs: face N , gras par temps humide, plus difficile en moyenne que Roc'h Nivilen; equipement inox et rapproche dans des voies d'initiation en face S, pour le reste equipement mediocre a pourri et espace (intervalle moyen 5-6 m). 29.03. ** se OUESSANT, CREAC'H m, BLOCS/AVENT., comm: Lampaul, Mich: 58.2, IGN: 0317w, L= (1112, 50), sit: aiguilles et chaos rocheux en bord de mer, au N W de I'ile, a la pointe de Pern, et le long de la cbte N W de I'ile entre le phare de Creac'h et Pors Yusin (4 km de cbte rocheuse); acces: par bateau depuis Brest ou le Conquet, puis 4 a 8 km a pied ou en velo; heb: camping (perm.); roch: granite (exc., lichen dans les zones non balayees par la mer), 10-20 m; obs: risques de marees noires; quelques autres rochers grimpables sur la cbte S entre Pors Alan et KergofF. The corresponding source TEX looks like : \ n e ~ s p e r { 2 9 . 0 2 . } { * ~ ~ ~ ( ~ ~ ) } { \ e c p } { P L O U G A S T E L } \cm P l ougas te l -Daoul as , \m 58.4, \ i g n O4li'e ; \ s i t 10-km E de B r e s t ; \ac p a r D33 (Brest-Quimper) ; \heb camping sauvage i m p o s s i b l e , camping perm. \ ' a P lougas te l ( S t l e a n , en venant de B r e s t : s o r t i e Landerneau, en venant de The Requirements for Maps Obviously and even for people who do not read fluently the French language such a catalog is of poor interest if there is not a set of maps to help the reader find the spots. Several means of printing maps can be thought of. The first obvious one consists in drawing the map with a pencil and sending it to the publishing company together with the TEX text, either on dskettes or as camera ready papers. The obvious drawback is that each update of the guidefour editions (Taupin, 1982, 1984, 1986, and 1989) were published since 1981 and the fifth is being prepared requires a complete remake of the whole of the drawings, whch is not a very efficient method. Another way of doing it would consist of making the drawings using a computer and some drawing softwares like MacDraw, Microsoft Paint or Free Hand, or in scanning a hand made picture to produce some picture file. The difficulty resides in the fact that : Picture files have a great number of formats : TIFF, MSP, PCX, PCL, etc., and of course EPSF. Pictures must be partially erased to give precedence to labels indicating the names of the spots and of the towns. The fmal printable file should be sent to various publishmg companies and local printing devices whose "language" could be Postscript as well as company specific codings like PCL. Picture maps should be automatically regenerated each time a new site is included or cancelled in the master file, without having to rebuild the whole of a map when only one square centimeter has been modified. Unfortunately, the available dv i ps are somewhat "Postscript addicted" and cannot accept other picture formats, whle the ernTeX related drivers can insert a lot of thngs. . . except Postscript ! Secondly, notwithstanding several messages sent to the TEX addicted gurus, we did not find any software able to erase selectively some areas of any picture file. The consequence was that the only way of having portable pictures was to draw them using META-