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-- Wikimedia Commons Welcome (talk) 05:19, 19 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

Tuvalu flag-map edit

Looking at the SVG vs. PNG, to my eye the PNG is nearly invisible. At least with the SVG version one can see an indication of the islands' shape and location especially at the 80px size used on the Flag map of the world gallery page.

What are you seeing in the PNG version that I'm missing? —Tcr25 (talk) 01:38, 22 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

I believe the thing you’re missing is that my point of the PNG version I’ve made is that it shows the islands and atolls more accurately, such as Nukufetau; on the SVG version the only islands visible there are Motutalo and Lafanga, with the only trace of the other islands being just an outline, the same could be said with Funafuti, showing only Fongafale and one of the southern islands, this can be applied to the other atolls, My point is that the PNG version shows more of the Islands, although almost invisible. However, I could make an alternative version showing the outlines of the atolls or maybe a transparent outline for the atolls for better visibility if it could help? FunafutiTuvalu (talk) 03:38, 22 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

Oh! Another thing to be mentioned is the size of the actual islands shown, Fongafale is pictured as if it were larger than Nanumanga, which is the complete opposite. Another thing to mention would be the reef outlines near Niulakita, which I find quite annoying since those reefs do not have any non-submerged land area, therefore shouldn’t be added as a part of the flag map. FunafutiTuvalu (talk) 03:51, 22 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

And just a side note, I’d be happier than ever to do the same thing with the other oceanic flag maps I’ve made, specifically Kiribati and The Marshall Islands. FunafutiTuvalu (talk) 03:53, 22 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

I guess, from my perspective, while geographic accuracy is the ideal, does it serve the purpose of a flag-map (overlaying the jurisdiction's map over its territory) in this instance? It looks like a blank square in the gallery page. This is a problem for other island nations/territories and I can't pretend to know the best solution, but it seems if the image appears to be blank, then it's not effective. —Tcr25 (talk) 18:28, 22 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

You do make a good point, although accuracy is the ideal for flag maps, I think a version where it combined both the SVG and PNG would be better for the both of us? I’ll upload one I’ve already made if it could help. FunafutiTuvalu (talk) 19:17, 22 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

Okay, I’ve uploaded the version with a transparent outline, and while it does show the atolls better it’s still not the most visible, do you have any suggestions on making it more visible? Like adding non-transparent lines near the atolls of sorts? FunafutiTuvalu (talk) 19:28, 22 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

I added it to the ones above for side-by-side comparison. It's a little better, but still makes me think my screen needs cleaning :) There might be more tweaking that can be done to the lines and transparencies, but there's a fundamental problem of the small amount of landmass being spread across a large area so the blank area to flag-map ratio is really skewed. One option is to not include the full national territory (focusing in on a more compact, more densely populated portion) or putting all the islands in their relative position to each other, but not at the proper distance. Both of those options would be better able to increase the landmass for the flag-map at the expense of accuracy. Maybe for nations like Tuvalu we should take a different approach and use the territorial waters as the base of the map, but at a lighter opacity (as low as 20% maybe), and have the landmasses be 100% opaque, as is normally done. It would let you get more flag visible while still highlighting the landmass in an accurate way. I don't have time to try that this weekend, but maybe later next week I can try to find some shapefiles to work with ... —Tcr25 (talk) 01:54, 23 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

Thank you very much for the advice and suggestions! I’m happy to work with you at any time, but a personal suggestion of mine would be making the islands slightly thicker but still retaining the shape and keeping the rest of the islands, and this could maybe be applied to all the other island countries/territories. FunafutiTuvalu (talk) 02:02, 23 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

Also about the not-including-the-whole-nation thingy I’ve already made a flag map for Funafuti Atoll which is the most populated Atoll of the whole nation of Tuvalu, so that could be used! FunafutiTuvalu (talk) 03:21, 23 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

And final thing to mention is that I believe the reason why you can’t see it would be because Wikimedia blurs it to the point where it’s hard to see, whereas if you were to not use Wikimedia and make the png smaller it would be visible. FunafutiTuvalu (talk) 03:22, 23 December 2022 (UTC)Reply

And a pow-shkow like that! I’ve created perfect flag maps for the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Kiribati! I found out that if you want to make a good flag map for island nations like them you make the islands a little thicker but keep the relative size in areas and then use a transparent outline for the atolls and it looks great! Expect one like that for Tuvalu in a bit! FunafutiTuvalu (talk) 08:05, 23 December 2022 (UTC)Reply