Note: I did contact Mr. Bob Blunderton privately, to assure I had his permission to do this. He gave me his blessing and told me to take my time-- that was about a month or so ago. He said if he likes how the charts turn out, he may wish to include them as part of his map download... but that's entirely up to him. For now, I'm just releasing this and sharing it on my own, this part being my own creation, just to see how well it is received by the community. For those who have been limited by fog and the short draw distance, and have never bothered to see what the entire Roane County, TN map looks like in its collective whole from overhead, your wait is now over! This has been a few months in the making. It began as merely a reference for myself so I could track mile-markers (way points) along individual routes. It was to be a simple, straight line diagram, not to scale; but it grew from there, to a full blown map of the map! I initially cleared the fog, upped the draw distance from 1,860 to 1,000,000 (just to emphasize clarity); keyed camera #7 so I was certain north was straight up. Then Ctrl + C to detach the camera, and S keyed my way back until I was high enough off the ground to take in the whole map square/rectangle. I then took the screenshot. The end result was a .png photo of the blank pallet, and then using Google maps and satellite, I slowly but surely confirmed road names/numbers with the same paths displayed on Bob Blunderton's map; and drew in the lines for the roads, and named them. My original intent was monochrome white lines, but quickly realized with all the route number/name changes along single roads + the vast multitude of roads criss-crossing all over the place, that I'd have to use multiple colors in order to differentiate roads. Unfortunately, it created the "Crayola-gumball machine-drawn by a 5th grader" look, but so it goes. At least one can tell them apart. Places where it was too tight to type names, legend numbers were inserted-- 45 of them to be exact! I've also included my not to scale, route number placement, straight line diagram (much like you would see of a subway system in a train station). Here you can gain a real sense of how convoluted hwy numbering systems are when they merge and then split again at various points throughout the county. One roadway can share up to 4 route numbers simultaneously at certain stretches along the way. Finally, it's my intent to include mileage clockings for each route one at a time, denoting zero to whatever, so you can gain an appreciation for just how huge this map really is. Example: Yellow route US-27 extends for 18.0 miles. I believe it's the single longest stretch of continuous roadway with the same route number on the map. I'll have to double check that later. At any rate, this has taken too much time as it is, and I don't wish to delay this release any longer, by holding off for the mileage way point charts, so I will slowly release those over time, in the upcoming weeks. I hope folks who enjoy the TN map find this useful. And I hope Bob finds this to be a suitable complement to his incredible map. -- John (B3 Burner)
