Since last time there has been some progress on Volume 1 but not as much as I had expected. There have been delays for two main reasons, both of them related to the migration to version 3.6 of Qgis. These are simply migrating computers to a new version of Debian, and then discovering it caused problems with the aerial photo mosaic maps that I use.

Because of an issue that I can’t yet get the Qgis development community to address, I am faced with spending a lot of time changing all the historical map tiles I have produced, into non progressive JPEG format, because somehow this has been dropped from being supported on the version of Qgis compiled for the buster platform, even though progressive is part of the Jpeg format for at least ten years.

I have currently about 100 Gimp projects that I have to open all the files in, and then re export every historical map tile from, so this is quite possibly several hundred tiles that will have to be re-produced from the projects. This will just be happening gradually as the projects are updated during the year, and before any map volumes are completed. Fortunately I have kept all the mosaics, which occupy 600 GiB of disk space, which typically includes one backup copy and one working copy of each project. On the other hand, the graphics editing computer is more highly specced now and should make the task quite quick by comparison with some of the earlier work.

In respect to the NAL, I have discovered Maungaturoto, a station between Wellsford and Waiotira, needs to be added to the ones I am already doing mosaics of on that line, so that will be added to the maps I am currently generating of the NAL. The detailing of the rest of the lines is also proceeding.

After the NAL is completed it will be onto Volume 5, PNGL. In between right at the moment I am doing a map of Sockburn on the Main South Line in Christchurch, as part of getting maps together for Lyttelton-Rolleston. I’m not doing any of the other stations on this section at this stage, but I have previously done Linwood, Opawa, Addington and Christchurch. A Gimp project will address S-H-I-T (Sockburn Hornby Islington and Templeton) in one file, but only Sockburn is going to actually be completed over the next day or two. However as I have all the base aerial imagery for these sections now in the computer I will do the base map for all the areas in Qgis.

In terms of the project’s overall schedule, it’s possible if I want to keep the 12 volumes rolling along as expected then I may have to prioritise Basic level development over the Comprehensive development that I have planned otherwise it’s looking less likely by the day that all 12 volumes can be progressed as expected by the end of this year. 

I have spent a bit of time in the last few days optimising my desk layout as well so that it makes better use of the available space so that I can get the most out of all the resources to hand to hopefully speed up map production. So I am looking forward to a more productive week coming up.