ACW Large Scale Maps
 Ever wanted
a large scale map of ACW 40-mile route, or of the 21 Circular Walks,
showing (nearly) every tree and most blades of grass - as well as
the latest route?
We've now created one.
See http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&encType=1&cid=A75296DF1634A1B2!747
for overview. This opens in another window, with the map on
right (or newer version) and an
index to the left of the map).
You may like to make this window "Full Screen" and remove
favourites/bookmarks bar while it downloads.
You can then do lots of things. For example try:
- Select "Aerial" view, with "show labels"
- Go to item 19 ("Marquee behind the Queens Head Hotel ")
- Then click the - "Zoom out" button once or twice. (You will
now see ACW Start and heading south as a Blue dashed line)
- Click and hold down the left mouse button then drag it up the
screen to see the path further south.
- ... then set off round the 40.33 mile current Challenge Route
(let me know if you find any errors on my route ...)
- ... then try a Circular Walk
See also a spreadsheet showing
how I got that mileage figure.
Notes on the Bing Maps
ACW Path Colour Scheme
The paths I have added are coloured as follows:
| Path
Type |
Odd
Numbered
|
Even
Numbered |
Notes |
| ACW 40-Mile route |
Blue |
Green |
Dash Dash Dash Dash lines |
| ACW 21 Circular Walks |
Orange |
Magenta |
Dash Dot Dash Dot lines or
Dash Dot Dot Dash
lines (if two same colour paths get next to each
other - e.g. 16 & 18 or
01 & 21) |
| ACW 21 Circular Walks Route A |
Orange |
Magenta |
Dot Dot Dot Dot lines, and one step narrower |
| ACW 21 Circular Walks "shared paths" |
Cyan
|
Usually shared between one odd and one even numbered
Walk |
| Others ?? |
|
|
As seemed fit for now! Usually a lot
narrower. |
Standard Bing Options
The base map can be any of the following:
| View |
How to get |
Notes |
| Bing Road Map |
Road on 1st drop-down menu |
Available at all zoom levels, but with appropriate
details |
| OS Road Map |
OS Map on 1st drop-down menu |
Only available at Street level or above (or 1 step
below). Can get 1:50,000 or bigger, and can zoom between
them. Note each OS scale comes at c.2 zoom levels. |
| Automatic |
Automatic on 1st drop-down menu
|
"switches to the best map style as you zoom" - but you can
often get better by choosing a manual view! |
| Bing "Aerial" view |
Aerial on 2nd drop-down menu |
Some places excellent, others still satellite map
only. Zoomed out all give satellite map, often complete
with clouds. |
| Bing "Bird's Eye" view |
"Bird's Eye" on 2nd drop-down
menu |
Only available properly in (or sometimes near) Cities or
Big Towns. Elsewhere you get Aerial view distorted to give an
impression of "Bird's Eye" view. You can change the
default 60 degree view to any other angle. |
| Labels (or not) |
click box
"Show labels" on 2nd
drop-down menu |
Clicking box toggles between showing labels (box with
tick) or not (blank box). Labels are road and place
names, and include the road path as shown in Bing Map
view. Showing labels helps locate where you are,
removing them lets you see more detail of Aerial or Bird's Eye
view. |
| |
|
|
| Others? |
|
Try experimenting! |
Coming Soon
A fuller user guide, giving hints on many other features Bing
offers (you will probably find most yourself, but a hint or two more
may help? [NB - Bing is now fairly stable, with most critical
bugs fixed.] However note that
Bing keeps "Improving" so you may find the user methods change
significantly without warning.
A discussion on the "Is it really
40 miles?" question
Thoughts on future evolution
History (Latest at Top of table)
| Date
|
Event |
| |
|
| 19-Dec-2011 |
Green Book 2012 drafted, & this page, the Bing Map and
the spreadsheet updated. The "distance now covered"
quoted in the Green Book at the end of each Directions page
and the Distances on each individual map are derived from the
updated Bing map. For 2012 edition all legs of the 40-mile
route have had their distances refreshed (Bing does not now
update them automatically, so some corrections done over
late-2010 to now period were incorrect by about 0.1 miles up
or down). Also the use of Connect2Kenilworth new path has
added about 0.1 miles to both Maps 3 & 4. |
| 18-Feb-2011 |
Updated to cover route for ACW Challenge 2011 |
| Autumn-2010 |
Microsoft major update to Bing Maps interface, including
introduction of additional base map controls and an
"Automatic" option which switches to the best map style as you
zoom. Interesting, but use with care. |
| 31-Aug-2010 |
The number of points used to define the 40-mile route
reduced to 960 (from over 2000 in Mar-2010). This helps
speed viewing, but just as useful results in a smaller .gpx
file for use on GPS devices. At the same time a few
route errors were corrected using information from .gpx files
recorded by users during the Apr-2010 Challenge event. |
| 30-Aug-2010 |
Maps, spreadsheet and some of text above updated
to include start of Challenge from the
Marquee behind the Queens Head Hotel from
April 2011 |
| 15-Mar-2010 |
Updated to cover route for ACW Challenge 2010 |
| 07-Dec-2009 |
All maps tidied up, with consistent naming, position of
"pushpin" indicators, etc. Should probably be regarded
as the first "Complete Issue" |
| 05-Dec-2009 |
Fully detailed maps of all 21 Circular Walks
published |
| 30-Nov-2009 |
Outline maps of all 21 Circular Walks drafted |
| 24-Nov-2009 |
"Adequate" maps of first 15 Circular Walks drafted, and
link to this page added on website |
| 16-Nov-2009 |
Announced project in electronic
newsletter, with link to here |
| 11-Nov-2009 |
Initial errors corrected; this overview page added to ACW
website. |
06-Nov-2009 to
09-Nov-2009 |
Over next few days used to learn the new version, and
realised that including all of 40-mile route (and maybe all 21
Circular Walks as well) now feasible, so progressively added
the 18 maps and invited an expert to check |
| 05-Nov-2009 |
Used Bing to work out where sites for 4-Nov-2009 WP were,
and found the new Beta version incorporating MS-Live
and multimap roots had
replaced the familiar MS-Live based
product, |
|
|
