frankq Posted December 9, 2008 Report Share Posted December 9, 2008 Is anyone here familiar with any kind of software that would permit one to construct a map? I spent hours searching the Net last night and came up with precious little, no more than one link. To give you some idea of the potential in creating maps for students of ancient hisrtory, go to this link and scroll down. http://www.satrapa1.com/articulos/antigued...n/corbulon2.htm Hot stuff. Draws in one's attention. I've written the creator of the website in the hope that he might tell me the software he uses. If anyone spots what he's using let me know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Primus Pilus Posted December 9, 2008 Report Share Posted December 9, 2008 Is anyone here familiar with any kind of software that would permit one to construct a map? I spent hours searching the Net last night and came up with precious little, no more than one link. To give you some idea of the potential in creating maps for students of ancient hisrtory, go to this link and scroll down. http://www.satrapa1.com/articulos/antigued...n/corbulon2.htm Hot stuff. Draws in one's attention. I've written the creator of the website in the hope that he might tell me the software he uses. If anyone spots what he's using let me know. Moonlapse made our maps using some form of Adobe photoshop and a Wacom tablet. The topographic information was public domain satellite imagery from the US Park service as I recall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonlapse Posted December 10, 2008 Report Share Posted December 10, 2008 Photoshop may not be the best software for map making, but it is a very good program for many different types of graphic work. Learning and understanding all of the functions and capabilities of Photoshop can take quite a bit of time if you have no experience with graphics software. http://www.getpaint.net/ and http://www.gimp.org/ are free applications that have similar functionality to Photoshop. High quality geographic data is probably the most important part of map making. There is a lot of public domain satellite topography data that you can find if you dig deep enough. DEM (Digital Elevation Model) information is probably the most common and is a good search term to use to find when you Google (along with GIS and SRTM). Sometimes you can find blank pre-rendered topography available for free use, otherwise you'll need a program to render satellite data. http://www.landserf.org/ and http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/ are decent freeware. Also see http://www.terrainmap.com/ Perhaps you just need to start with a coastal outline or something similar. Sometimes you can find some that are for free use, otherwise you can probably trace over a copyrighted work with Photoshop/GIMP. As Primus Pilus said, I use a 6x8 Wacom tablet. I find it difficult to create precise motions such as tracing with a regular mouse, not to mention that it wil fatigue your hand very quickly. Hope this helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caldrail Posted December 10, 2008 Report Share Posted December 10, 2008 Try Campaign Cartographer. Its intended for fantasy maps but the core tools, a very complete set of vectors, shapes, and styles, are easily usable to create professional maps. Find it on www.profantasy.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankq Posted December 10, 2008 Author Report Share Posted December 10, 2008 Thanks for all these tips. Need time to check them all out. Thanks again!!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonlapse Posted December 11, 2008 Report Share Posted December 11, 2008 Try Campaign Cartographer. Its intended for fantasy maps but the core tools, a very complete set of vectors, shapes, and styles, are easily usable to create professional maps. Find it on www.profantasy.com Bad ass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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