I understand the limitations RRTC works under. It is clear now that other members and I feel that these restrictions are unnecessary and wasteful. And that there is a worthwhile upside to changing.
We know that one of the downsides of the questionable USATF size limitation is that it effectively prohibits measurers from submitting maps in greyscale or in color. Printouts of the few greyscale and color maps that made it to the site that I have seen run from poor to atrocious in appearance. I just came across one of my maps that I produced in greyscale before I understood our limitations. It is posted on a large corporation's Web site for one of its races. Unknown to me, they had lost the original map copy I produced for them. They went to the USATF site to find the map, which they then posted on their race site. This map looks like someone spilled water over it and then wiped it off. Unfortunately, my name is readable on it. Out of curiosity, I printed this map from the original and then scanned it to a little over 400KB. Then, I printed it from the scan. It did not look great - just OK. But, it still looked much better than the mess on the client's site.
Some posted black and white maps from our site also print poorly. I have compared dozens of USATF-posted maps to pre-submission versions of these same maps, including my own, and those of 5 other measurers. The difference in printout quality runs from noticeable to unacceptable. Again, USATF requirements mandate scanning to such a low resolution that some otherwise fine maps appear washed-out or pixilated when printed from USATF. Then there is the matter of the file type requirement. I have not done a rigorous study, but when I compare .PNG images to .PDF images of the same size, the PDFs almost always look better on screen and print better. Since, once submitted, map images are not manipulated, there is no need for maps to be submitted in a graphics format - right?
If we allow .PNG maps and PDF maps to be emailed to RRTC, we save time, money, postage, trees, scanning labor, and they arrive in a ready-to-post format. It will be difficult to convince me that whatever USATF checks and balances protocols may exist cannot be supported by electronic images just as well or better than by paper printouts. No corporate procedures that I can think of could possibly make it more efficient for certifiers to mail in paper maps (some of which had to be printed from their original .PNG or .PDF format), only for them to be re-scanned at any resolution into any electronic format. We are in effect printing an electronic image which is then snail-mailed and then re-scanned (with loss of clarity) into an electronic image to again be re-printed by users when there can be no obvious justification for creating this extra work - unless Gene is underemployed - which I doubt.
The upsides to supporting larger map file sizes and formats are many. Among them: better quality maps on USATF that view and print well; maps that are easier for users to understand and to use; maps that reflect well on USATF, RRTC, certifiers, and measurers and which present a more professional image to the public.
Upsides to supporting the submission of maps electronically: time, labor, and money savings - no paper printouts, no envelopes, no stamps, no trips to the mailbox, fewer trees wasted, much less time spent scanning at RRTC; no loss of image quality due to printing/scanning/reprinting.
Alternatively, perhaps we can just keep doing things the old way without anyone in USATF caring. We can let technology pass us by indefinitely. We can waste our time printing, snail-mailing, and scanning and producing crappy representations of our meticulous field work. If this is what we want, I will go along to get along.