Your First Map

To get started, lets make a map of the world. BlueSpray comes with data to make this easy and you can just follow along in the steps below.

Adding Data to a Scene

1. Open BlueSpray and you should see a "Scene" in the project tree. If not, select File->New... and then select the "Default" project.
2. Right click on "Scene" and select "New File->From File..."
3. Browse to the folder that contains BlueSpray and then to the "STData" folder
4. Browse into the "Countries" folder and add the "countries_simplified.shp" file. You should see the countries of the world appear in the view.
5. Right click on the "Painter" below the point layer and select "Settings".
6. In the "Drawing" tab, click on the pencil item to edit the style for how the countries are drawn.
7. Try clicking on the "Fill Color" and selecting a new fill color for the countries.
8. Click "OK" and then "OK" again.
9. You should see the countries colors change.
10. Feel free to return to the style dialog to try the other options found there.
11. When you are ready, right click on "Scene" again, select "New File->From File..." and add the Shapefile in the "Populated Places" folder. You should see the major cities of the world appear in the view.
12. Right click on the "Painter" below the point layer and select "Settings".
13. In the "Drawing" tab, click on the pencil, and change the "FIll Color"
14. Click "OK" and then "OK" again and you should see your new color appear inside the circles indicating where the cities are.
15. This is a good time to experiment with the options available for this simple painter. You will learn more about painters in future tutorials.

Creating a Document

1. Right click on "Document 1" in the project tree and you should see it appear in a new view
2. Now drag the Scene from the project tree and into the view with the document. You should see the scene appear in a box in the document.
3. The scene will have round "handles" at it's corners. You can drag these handles to position the scene or click inside the scene and move it.
4. Right click on the document (either in the project tree or in the view) and select "Insert->Legend"
5. Open the "Symbology" item in the project tree and then open the "Scale Bars" item.
6. Drag a scale bar from the "Scale Bars" item into the document.
7. Try sizing the scene and you should see the scale bar change to reflect the scale of the data represented in your scene.
8. Drag a north arrow into the document and position it where you would like.
9. Right click on the document in the project tree and select "Insert->Legend". You'll see a legend appear that you can position where you like.
10. Just below the menu bar, you'll see a popup menu. With the document selected in the project tree, click on the drop down menu. These are all the tools you can use to add graphics to your documents.
11. Click on the text "T" tool and draw a box. Right click on the box to edit the settings for the box including the text displayed within it. Make this a title for the document and move it to the top of the map.
12. Add another text box with your name, the projection, datum, and sources of the data (the source for all the data provided with BlueSpray is Natural Earth and NASA).
13. Try drawing with some other tools to complete your map. Many of these tools are also available to add graphics to scenes.
14. You can select "File->Print" to print your first map with BlueSpray.

Saving Your Project

1. Click on the "File" menu and select "Save As...". Browse to an appropriate location and save the project. Remember that this does not save a copy of your spatial data into the file, the spatial data remains separate and those files must be available if you move the project file to another computer.
2. Now you can close BlueSpray and then go to the File menu and open your previously saved project files.