This is really just a quick catchup, because I haven’t done much on this section over the past couple of weeks. Since the next station up the line from Omakau is Lauder, I need to start working on that. So far what I have covered is the Google Earth streetview of this section of the line. After that the work needed to be done is about the Lauder station map mosaic.

The current mosaic for Lauder is hereupon shown:

This one is based on a 1965 aerial image. Like many of the mosaics along the line, it was put together quickly in order to create some basic maps for the publication of the Observer article series. I now need to revisit and improve it for the final version of the maps.

What can be improved with the 1965 coverage is the quality of the map by redoing it with Gimp 2.10’s unified transform in a single step, being vastly better than the multi step process I typically used previously when creating mosaics. In addition to this improvement, increasing the masking size to take in any additional area of interest is possible, although it is not clear that there may be any greater area at this stage.

The major change to this map will be to add a 1938 aerial photo to the map, although there appear to be no real differences from that era.

Whilst I have been busy working on other maps lately this one should be finished by the middle of next week so another map section can be finished off. I think it is possible the Otago Central maps to the standard that I am working them to should be completed by the end of this year.