Scribble Maps Tutorial Go to the homepage of Scribble Maps here: h t t p : / / w w w. s c r i b b l e m a p s. c o m / Getting to know the Interface Scribble Maps is a free online mapping application with no registration required. Scribble maps offers features such as setting placemarks, adding images, and a number of drawing tools. The maps created can be saved to work on again at a future time, and exported out as JPG files or KMLs. To begin working with this application, simply click on the Create Your Map Now button as shown in Figure 1 on the Scribble Maps home page. Figure 1: Scribble Maps Homepage Once the application has loaded, the following Menu & Tools bar in Figure 2 will appear: Figure 2: Scribble Maps Starting Menu & Tools Bar
Figure 3 below is an illustration summary for the functions of all the buttons shown in Figure 2. Figure 3: Scribble Maps Menu & Tools Bar Button Functions Clicking on the Menu button shown in Figure 3 will open up another bar with more options, shown in Figure 4 below. Figure 4: Menu Button Options
Placemarks We will be creating a map of three universities located in Downtown Toronto: University of Toronto, OCAD University, and Ryerson University. We will learn how to add placemarks, draw shapes, add text, and photos. Start by typing in Downtown Toronto into the search bar and press Enter. Figure 3: Scribble Maps Toolbar Zoom in using the zoom tool on the top right of the page or scroll your mouse until you reach a scale that makes all the locations visible somewhere on the map. Figure 4: Zoom & Scale
The first school we are going to look at is OCAD University. Type in OCAD University in the search bar and press Enter. It will return with a recommended option as shown in Figure 5. Figure 5: OCAD University Search Press Add Marker to create a placemark. You can also drop a placemark manually by clicking on the Place Marker button. If you click on the button, a new window called Marker Selection will open and it will give you the option to select the design, size and purpose of the Place Marker as shown in Figure 6 below. Figure 6: Place Marker Options For this tutorial, navigate to the Places tab, in High Detail, locate the School icon shown in Figure 7. Once selected, you may place the marker where the school is located. For every placemark that is set, a bubble will appear prompting for a Title and Description with the longitude and latitude of the location (also shown in Figure7). Fill in the Title blank with the name of the university and leave the description blank.
School Icon Figure 7: Place Marker Options 2 Find the remaining schools (University of Toronto and Ryerson) and create a placemark (with School icon) there as well. Once all placemarks have been set, it should look similar with the map shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8: Map with all placemarks at the school locations
Drawing Tools Line Tools We will be connecting the three schools to create a triangular route using the Line Tool on the toolbar. After the tool has been selected, click on one of the placemarks and drag the mouse towards one of the other schools. This will draw a red line by default. To change the design of the line, prior to or after the drawing, click on the toolbar options as shown in Figure 9. It will allow you to change the colour, opacity, thickness of the line and the line type. Figure 9: Using the Line Tool and Modify Line settings The Eraser Tool can be used to remove any mistakes or errors you have made while drawing on the map. Simply click on the button and then click on any feature you want to remove and it will be erased. Another drawing tool available is the Scribble Tool the map. with which you can draw freely (i.e. any shape) on
Shape Tools Along with the line tools, there are shapes you can create onto the map as well, they are rectangle, circle and polygon: The first tool creates rectangles by clicking and dragging on the map until you reached your desired sizes. The second tool creates circles onto the map. The third shape tool creates polygons. The shape of the polygon you create depend on the number of times you click on your mouse to form it. Remember to double click on the last point to complete the shape. Figure 10 shows an example of the shapes. Figure 10: Map with all placemarks at the school locations The colour and opacity of shapes can be changed using the options on the toolbar shown in Figure 11 below. To paint the shapes, click on Paint Tool.
Figure 11: Changing the Colour and Opacity of the Shapes Using the Select Tool, we can modify the size and position of the shapes drawn as shown in Figure 12. To do this, hover your mouse over the drawn shapes and click and drag on the white boxes and squares that appear around the border of the shapes selected. Figure 12: Shows editing features on drawn shapes
Adding Text When adding text onto the map, it will be displayed in either a bubble or the plain text alone. Begin this by clicking on the Place Text icon and select a place on the map to put your text. The dialogue opened is shown in Figure 13 and it appears when a location is chosen for the text. The options in this bubble include the colour of the text, the placement of the text, and the option whether there is a border surrounding the text or not. Figure 13: Adding Texts on Map Saving When you are done with your map, or would like to take a break and work on it at a later time, you can save your map. Click on the Menu button on the toolbar to view your options (Figure 4).
Figure 14: Saving Your Map Click on the Save Map button. Figure 14 shows the window you will need to fill out to save your map. The Map ID is what you need to recover your map. You can also choose your privacy settings. The password bar is for future use of the map when you plan to access it again. Click on Load / Import to recover your saved map. Other saving and sharing formats include JPG, E-Mail, Facebook, KML (Google Earth), GPX, or view it online in Google Maps (Figure 15). Figure 15: Saving & Sharing Your Map
The picture below is an example what the saved file will look like in Google Earth in KML format (Figure 16). Figure 12: Map in Google Earth as KML file Created by Allen Yu Spring 2014