German situation maps on this site

[Abicht]

Thanks for the feedback. Well I am going to be honest here... I did, and will continue to scan in all the maps at 600DPI. I have noticed many of the Ost maps are less than steller quality, but still that should not make that much difference. I am shocked that the quality appears to be 120 DPI.

I want to make one think clear. NARA no longer has ANY original situation maps. They were all given back to Germany between 3 and 7 years ago (funny NARA refuses to give back to Russia the hundreds of annotated tactical maps -most in very poor shape- that the Germans captured from the Soviets from 41-44 then the US grabbed them!). These are NARAs "master tranparencies" I am using, (which are actually very high res and clear themselves).

Further I am not a computer expert, so if someone can point out a fault in my process causing this error of the compression please let me know so I can correct it. Here is Exactly what I do..

- I scan in one map at a time using Presto PageManager 6.11. I have the setting at 600DPI. (while actually scanning them in the software tells me they are actually about 50-70 mb yet when they show up scanned in they are as showing 10mb or less)
- I copy them into a folder in their grouping on my hard drive.
- Orders come in, I burn them from their folder onto the CD.

also - I check each map to see how they look in Corel Snapfire 1.2

So my question is if indeed the software tells me it is scanning in at 600DPI, and the file size estimate is 50 plus mb, where is the compression issue coming in?

I truely thank everyone for their feedback, and want to correct any and all issues. I do hope that the CDs that have gone out at least have helped in someway.

[Abicht]

I may have found an error in a setting related to the compression but I will not know for sure until I scan in the next batch, I will try to do so within a few days and post my results. I am sorry for this problem, and hope folks will continue to support this effort. We will resolve this problem!

[Jason Pipes]

The problem may come when saving the files to .jpg format because jpegs are not a loss-less format. That means when a file is converted or saved as a .jpg, information in the original image file is lost through compression. Jpeg files are compressed files so that can account for a file going from 50 megs to 10 megs and the related small loss in quality that can be seen at full zoom.

[william russ]

Hi Guys,
I got my Kharkov maps the other day and I can say they look great. The quality is superb and I can zoom in on them fine. They are going to be a great help in doing my maps for the Fridericus book. I'm definitely going to get more in the the future.
Great job Abicht and Jason.

best regards, Bill

[Abicht]

William,

Glad to hear this! Hope they really help in the book. BTW if you need I can send you the way to cite them as a reference if you need.

[Jason Pipes]

Great to hear!!

[william russ]

Hi Abicht,
Yes indeed, I will need the attribution for the maps. I need to cite them in the sources along with the microfilms I'm using.
You can send them to either e-mail address:

Home e-mail: wruss@sc.rr.com
work e-mail: russwe@scdot.org

The work e-mail is preferable as it seems I'm there more often .

Thanks, Bill

[GaryD]

I want to make one think clear. NARA no longer has ANY original situation maps. They were all given back to Germany between 3 and 7 years ago (funny NARA refuses to give back to Russia the hundreds of annotated tactical maps -most in very poor shape- that the Germans captured from the Soviets from 41-44 then the US grabbed them!). These are NARAs "master tranparencies" I am using, (which are actually very high res and clear themselves).

Could you expand a bit on the part about returning maps to the Soviets? What maps are you talking about, and which room at NARA (in College Park?) has them?

[GaryD]

I just received the CD with maps of the Battle of Kharkov. Boy, they are sweet! I put the Overview map on Google Earth as an overlay - now I can measure distances and zoom in and out with ease.

[Jason Pipes]

That sounds fantastic!! Very cool!

[Abicht]

Gary-

The maps I mentioned were hundreds of maps from 1941-44 captured by the Germans at various points and various battles. I saw ones captured in June and July 1941, to one from summer 42, and even some from the Soviet advance on Warsaw in 44. In total they cover a massive are of Eastern Europe. (Yes Romanian/Moldova area too as I saw those).

NARA has had agreements with most governments to give back material that originated from that nation during the war, except Russia I think, of course due to the cold war. Anyway there are several hundred, mostly in poor shape, ripped, partly burned, and soiled, yet annotated at many levels. Locations of mortar and artillery positions on the Red Army side, to major thrust towards cities. Some annotations are very hard to see now, yet others look like they were just done.

A member of the staff told me they will never be retured to Russia, but who knows. Anyway nobody ever looks at them and it took the staff a whole day just to find them as they were poorly identifed in a listing I found in the cartographic rooms.

I recently took a few dozen photos of them with my camera, though they are not the best. Some maps are small and others measure at about 3 meters by 2 meters!

Bottom line is most are in such bad shape (yet very interesting and valuable) I have no way to copy them, nor will NARA let most of them be scanned as they would get destoryed in a "feed" type scanner.

Few know about them, have seen them, they have not been published, and need some preservation work done on them so they may be scanned or properly photographed.

[GaryD]

Gary-

The maps I mentioned were hundreds of maps from 1941-44 captured by the Germans at various points and various battles. I saw ones captured in June and July 1941, to one from summer 42, and even some from the Soviet advance on Warsaw in 44. In total they cover a massive are of Eastern Europe. (Yes Romanian/Moldova area too as I saw those).

NARA has had agreements with most governments to give back material that originated from that nation during the war, except Russia I think, of course due to the cold war. Anyway there are several hundred, mostly in poor shape, ripped, partly burned, and soiled, yet annotated at many levels. Locations of mortar and artillery positions on the Red Army side, to major thrust towards cities. Some annotations are very hard to see now, yet others look like they were just done.

A member of the staff told me they will never be retured to Russia, but who knows. Anyway nobody ever looks at them and it took the staff a whole day just to find them as they were poorly identifed in a listing I found in the cartographic rooms.

I recently took a few dozen photos of them with my camera, though they are not the best. Some maps are small and others measure at about 3 meters by 2 meters!

Bottom line is most are in such bad shape (yet very interesting and valuable) I have no way to copy them, nor will NARA let most of them be scanned as they would get destoryed in a "feed" type scanner.

Few know about them, have seen them, they have not been published, and need some preservation work done on them so they may be scanned or properly photographed.

Thank you very much. Where exactly are they, in Archives II?

[Abicht]

Gary,

Not sure what you mean "exactly where they are" as you must ask for them. Have you been to NARA - Carto div before? I can point you to the number you need to requestthem but that will only get you to the genaral material. But it isnt as easy as walking in and asking for them as they are in many folders, not specified to area and so on. I worked on this for nearly 3 years and it took me months just to find the proper material.

[GaryD]

Gary,

Not sure what you mean "exactly where they are" as you must ask for them. Have you been to NARA - Carto div before? I can point you to the number you need to requestthem but that will only get you to the genaral material. But it isnt as easy as walking in and asking for them as they are in many folders, not specified to area and so on. I worked on this for nearly 3 years and it took me months just to find the proper material.

I understand that one can't simply walk in if you don't know where to go in the first place. Rather than duplicate the months it took you to find them, I'm asking you where exactly to go to ask and what to ask for. I assume we're talking about Archives II in College Park?

[Abicht]

Gary D-


See the new topic as it doesnt apply to German sit maps