free courses
The Minimalist Cave Cartographer Course
Now you don’t have to have a virgin cave in order to learn how to survey. If you do, LUCKY YOU, but if not there are a lot of caves that were surveyed years ago and could use a more accurate or detailed survey. So for this course I would encourage you to identify a project cave you are going to work on and use the skills you learn below to map it. You are not going to learn any of this stuff below if you don’t apply the knowledge you gain in each video.
Resources for the course are embedded in each lesson or at the bottom of this page.
LESSON 01
Survey Instruments & Survey Roles
Rather than reinvent the wheel here I’m going to point you in this lesson to Derek Bristol’s videos on using survey instrument to collect the survey data. Most grottos have someone out there who has instruments. Team up with that person to start working on your project cave.
LESSON 02
Sketching
This is one of the most important skills you can develop. The others are important as well, but in most cases when people are looking for cavers to help with their projects, sketchers are hard to come by, so if you learn how to sketch you chances of getting invited on cool projects increases significantly. I learned to sketch, by choosing a smallish cave I wanted to resurvey and organizing my own group to map it. I would recommend doing the same.
lesson 03
Processing Your Data With Compass
Once you’ve collected your survey data, rather that mathematically calculating each line, you can use software like Compass, Walls, or CaveWhere to process your data and create an accurate line plot from which you can draft your cave map. We will be using Compass here, but you can reference Derek’s videos in the resources at the bottom of this page for learning Walls and Android software, and I’ll include a link to the CaveWhere tutorials as well.
Lesson 04
Adobe Illustrator Setup for Cave Maps
Now it’s time to start building your map. We will be using Illustrator, but most of the features I go over exist in the free open source software Inkscape. If a tool doesn’t exist in Inkscape, you’re smart and I’m sure you can figure out a workaround. I would recommend having a significant portion of the survey completed before you jump into this part. Lineplots for caves with a lot of loops can change dramatically as new loops are added and the software adjusts for loop errors which can then throw off how your sketches align with your lineplot and that can be a pain to fix in Illustrator or Inkscape.
LESSON 05
Building and Finalizing Your Map
Now that Illustrator is set up and you’re ready to rock and roll, it’s time to do the tedious but fun work of fleshing out your map.
resources
Course Resources
Below you can download any of the resources mentioned above and used them throughout the course or as you take your journey to the next level.
Resource
Course Resource Files
Here are some files for some of the things I’ve referenced in this course including the final Long Cold Map and my brushes and symbol files for Adobe Illustrator.
resource
Derek Bristol Cave Survey Playlist
Derek uses a bunch of survey tools I don’t use and has a different approach to some things than I do. I would highly recommend checking out his videos here:
resource
Other Cave Survey Software Tutorials
If you want to explore other cave survey software systems here are some tutorials on CaveWhere and Derek’s Playlist which covers software for Android including TopoDroid, Qave, and PocketTopo and how to install Walls on a Mac:
resource
Key Elements of a Great Cave Map
Whether you are planning on entering your map in the NSS Cartography Salon or just want it to be the best it can be these resources will help you ensure you have everything your map needs to be the best it can be.
resource
Survey Gear
Here are a few where you can purchase the survey gear most sketchers will need. You can also buy some of this gear from.
don’t forget to
Share Your Results
I would LOVE to see what you produce. You can share those with me by reaching out to me via email or publish your maps in the NSS News with an article for everyone to enjoy.