Map drawing

What if we always drew borders on the lines? Like this:

Thanks for the reply, but it doesn't help much. The beauty of the original graphic look was the use of colour to designate road types as well as the finer definition and weight of the lines themselves. At a glance I know which roads are divided, which are secondary paved, and when zoomed in a bit, unpaved. Plus, it looks like my paper map. :) Even in your example there's no way to tell the freeway from the improved secondary or even the paved rural roads quickly. When I'm planning a ride this information is important.

The use of contrasting colors in the old look is a huge visual cue.

Also the names of towns/cities is much easier.
The selection of font size and the use of more white space in the old look makes it much more readable, especially when zoomed out.

EDIT: Note:

One of the graduate courses I've taken was named "Composing Computer Delivered Text"
That course was directed to any content that is delivered to the reader via a computer screen.
Especially combining graphics and text for web or other uses.

Something from that course that applies to this.
Given: The computer screen is an eye strain producing device.
That is somewhat debatable. The use of LCD screens has reduced eye strain considerably.
But a backlighted screen still produces eye strain that makes reading it more difficult than a printed page.

White Space, White Space, White Space. The use of white space lets the eye relax and focus more on the
information that is presented between the spaces of background. Black on a shade of yellow, similar to the
background shade that BaseCamp uses is the easiest to read and less strain on the eyes.

Comment:
The old school guys who designed the look of the old MapSource understood and applied those concepts pretty good.

If you compare the maps in the original post, the red secondary roads from MapSource certainly stand out but when zoomed out to the level of the example. I have not interest in the grid of secondary roads. For me they tend to capture the map without adding information needed at the level of zoom used in the comparison. The interstates are not blue but I have no problem identifying interstates on the BaseCamp maps. In fact the main thing I am looking for on a map zoomed out is cities and it appears to me the BaseCamp map has twice as many Cities labeled and the MapSourse.

Would it solve your problem if preferences had categories of roads listed and a option to assign colors to categories of roads?

Most Motorcyclists don't care about Cities, we care about Roads.

It's not about the destination it's all about the ride.

We generally don't care about where we end up as long as the road is twisty and scenic.

The City names clutter the map in such a way that we cannot see the roads.

Most Motorcyclists don't care about Cities, we care about Roads.

It's not about the destination it's all about the ride.

We generally don't care about where we end up as long as the road is twisty and scenic.

The City names clutter the map in such a way that we cannot see the roads.

Exactly. In fact, a way to turn off the whole POI system at all view levels would be welcome. I already know where I'm going most times.

Would it solve your problem if preferences had categories of roads listed and a option to assign colors to categories of roads?

That could help some.

If that kind of granular preferences are are being considered the ability to turn off and turn on cities by category would also help.

In the Current BaseCamp there are 7 detents in the detail slider.
But there are only 3 different levels that are implemented.
From left to right #2, 3, 4, 5 all display the same level of detail.
Careful implementation of those additional detail levels could help. The same level of detail that is displayed as most detail in RoadTrip is not implemented in BaseCamp. So there is at least one more that has been implemented. At the code level I don't know how similar BaseCamp is to RoadTrip, maybe that could be done easily or maybe not.

In the Example above I see one change that might help eliminate the concern
I posted HERE



The Items within MyCollection are not displayed as folders.
That might remove some of the confusion concerning how those objects behave when duplicated, moved, etc.

I suppose that screen shot came from a developmental version of BaseCamp.

Would it solve your problem if preferences had categories of roads listed and a option to assign colors to categories of roads?

If this was an option that included a zoom level setting that would let the user determine where they would appear it would be a great feature. My GPS does this. It also gives me control over the zoom level where most map features including Waypoints and POIs appear.

The secondary concern I have with the new graphics is the demand on the computer. Many motorcycle riders carry small netbooks on their travels that don't have the graphics capacity of their desktop units. Many times routes are edited at the end of the riding day. My experience using the new MapSource graphics on a budget netbook to edit a complex route were frustratingly slow and clunky.

Make the Map screens more easily readable.

Another thing that is contributing to this difficulty is the overuse of Bold typeface. In BaseCamp all of the Text is displayed in Bold.

Bold is a good thing for accenting important information but when everything is bold it makes sorting out the important things difficult.

Large city names should of course be bold, but when smaller cities and street names are also displayed in bold the large city names become lost in all the clutter.

Tracks and ropeways not painted

Basecamp 2.1.1 and GTC 3.0.4 both dont draw some kind of tracks (trails, difficult trails, closed roads...) and some kind of ropeways (used map for example was garmin transalpin). Roadtrip 2.0.2 paints it much better, see attachment (both programs: detail = max, zoom = 300m).
Hope this will be fixed, otherwise Basecamp is not usable for me.