The control descriptions shown here are those published by the IOF in 2004. The Competition Rules for Orienteering Australia Foot Orienteering Events mandates the use of the IOF descriptions for all major events. (Note: the Condes program, when listing the English language names, also only uses the IOF terminology). A few names and symbols differ from those that have been used in Australia.

This program is to assist orienteers to become familiar with the meaning of the IOF symbols. Anyone wishing to consult the official IOF reference should go to the link Control Description Symbols on Policies page of the OT website. That document contains more detail, and reading the first few pages is specially recommended.

When you rest your cursor over a symbol in this program the IOF description appears briefly in an adjacent box. At present this feature works well in Internet Explorer. Long descriptions are truncated in Firefox and Netscape, a problem which may be fixed in the next full release of Firefox.

The descriptions of a course are made up of 3 main parts.

Low

Dimensions

Any dimension information in column F gives the dimension of the feature in metres. The IOF document (2004) has changed the example symbols but the principles are the same.

Combinations

When either of these symbols are used in Column F the two features which either cross or meet must be shown in columns D and E. See IOF document (page 12) for examples.

Symbols in column G describe where on the feature the control is located

Note: No symbol is required to describe the location of the control flag in relation to the feature if the control flag is positioned at, or as near as possible to, the centre of the feature (or the centre of the foot in the case of a cliff).

The symbols shown in this part of the application differ from those in the IOF (2004) document only in the compass directions used e.g. see North side here and North east side in IOF document but all the principles are fully covered.