I think I heard of a Google Maps feature that lets you make your own version of the map. Is this real?
If not, is there any other easy way to make a map, or am I stuck with click-'n-dragging to make lines in Paint.NET (or any other picture editor)?
I don't think you can do that on Google Maps... but you can make corrections to the routes.
MS Paint isn't the only way you can make maps, I've seen people use CAD to make maps.
Check out "Road-Related Illustrations."
If you can get your hands on Adobe Illustrator or some other vector-based graphics program, that's about the best thing in the world for making your own maps. The ability to make nice smooth curves can't be overstated. It's what I use in all my fictional maps that I occasionally post and those look pretty damn good, I'm told. :D
If you can figure out how to use Mapnik or Maperitive, you can make your own .osm file and render it.
If you really want to get into mapmaking, you could get into GIS (Geographic Information Systems). QGIS is fairly easy to use and free. But beware that it's much more complex than just doodling lines on a map...they have to mean something for GIS to take them. (On the upside if you start playing with GIS now by the time you're through college you will be ready for a career in cartography. Lots of places need a GIS tech; not just consumer map companies and DOTs, but tons of places like local governments, contractors, oil concerns...)
But if you're not wanting something quite so serious Inkscape/Illustrator (Inkscape is free, Illustrator is not) would probably be the best option, and can be used to draw great drawings of road signs to boot.
Quote from: triplemultiplex on August 17, 2012, 05:20:40 PM
If you can get your hands on Adobe Illustrator or some other vector-based graphics program, that's about the best thing in the world for making your own maps. The ability to make nice smooth curves can't be overstated. It's what I use in all my fictional maps that I occasionally post and those look pretty damn good, I'm told. :D
If your illustrations look pretty d**n good, I'll have to see it to believe it.
The only thing I don't like about GIS is that you can't make fictional maps on them...I believe. To make a map on GIS you need data, and that data has to be real. I say this only because I like to draw maps of fictional cities and I have found Illustrator (Inkscape works as well) better for that task. I took a cartography class in college and we used Illustrator for that to create all our maps, real ones for the class, but I do the fictional on the side.
You can create fictional data in GIS. Each point just has to have a real-world set of coordinates associated with it. If you really wanted to you could start drawing a fake town with the intersection of Main and Broadway at 0°W 0°S (or however it is you handle the directions of that specific point) and build everything out from there. Of course in real life that would correspond with a point in the Atlantic Ocean, but as long as you didn't import a shoreline or ocean layer into the project GIS wouldn't know or care.
Quote from: tdindy88 on August 17, 2012, 09:19:20 PM
The only thing I don't like about GIS is that you can't make fictional maps on them...I believe. To make a map on GIS you need data, and that data has to be real. I say this only because I like to draw maps of fictional cities and I have found Illustrator (Inkscape works as well) better for that task. I took a cartography class in college and we used Illustrator for that to create all our maps, real ones for the class, but I do the fictional on the side.
GIS is capable of fictional maps, but it requires adding to or manipulating an existing shapefile or creating a shapefile with an existing map or geodatabase. Annotation, cartographic styling, etc. can be done within ArcGIS.
You also have a number of export options, which you can open with another graphical program if you want to size it down for display, etc. In about 15 minutes, I added a fictional I-610 toll road to my Gulf Coast Roads geodatabase with Arc and exported it as a .PNG, sizing it down with Photoshop for display here. All of the annotation was preset from the map I made for the main site and for the I-610 toll road, I left the labeling on my freeways shapefile to "on", which is why there is just the one shield.
The second I-110 shield is a result of having that label field on as well.(//www.aaroads.com/forum_images/southeast/fictional_i-610.png) (//www.aaroads.com/forum_images/southeast/fictional_i-610.png)
Fair enough about the GIS and fictional maps. My experience with GIS has only been with real world data so I was a bit too hasty to say that you couldn't do fictional maps. I guess just making one on Illustrator is quicker than having to manipulate shapefiles or geodatabases.
Quote from: Roadsguy on August 17, 2012, 04:10:00 PMI think I heard of a Google Maps feature that lets you make your own version of the map. Is this real?
Google Map Maker is actually for editing the actual map for corrections and details.
If you create an application that uses the API (need to have some basic knowledge of web development), you can change the colours used to render the map, but that's about it.
Quote from: Roadsguy on August 17, 2012, 04:10:00 PM
If not, is there any other easy way to make a map, or am I stuck with click-'n-dragging to make lines in Paint.NET (or any other picture editor)?
Quote from: triplemultiplex on August 17, 2012, 05:20:40 PM
If you can get your hands on Adobe Illustrator or some other vector-based graphics program, that's about the best thing in the world for making your own maps. The ability to make nice smooth curves can't be overstated. It's what I use in all my fictional maps that I occasionally post and those look pretty damn good, I'm told. :D
I use MS Paint which produces nice smooth curves if you know what to do. The most important thing is to make it much bigger than the intended size to allow for downsampling. Downsizing is what makes curves smooth.
It really would be nice to have a feature for Google users to take the map data and add their own roads and whatnot, though the roadgeek (and general map designing) population is probably too small. :(
OpenStreetMap allows you to download the data and run your own server (and customize your data at will), but we're talking about multi-gigabyte files and high system requirements. Plus the IT knowledge that's required to pull that off.
Yeah, I looked at those two programs NE2 posted, but decided against trying them because the existing OSM data is 21 GB! Even if I were to download it, I'd either have to have it on my external drive or save it as root since my /home partition doesn't have the space for that much data (and is nearly full in and of itself).
I thought we were talking about fictional maps here, not actual OSM data.
Incidentally, there are multiple ways of downloading small pieces of the data. For example http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Overpass_API lets you download only motorways or railways in an area. Of course it's still rather borked after the 'redaction'.
Depends on what you want I guess. Fully fictional or adding fictional routes to the real world?
The «My Places» button of Google Maps lets you a relative freedom for personal mapmaking.
You can even import KML, KMZ and GeoRSS files.
Like what? I saw some people with pictures with colored lines scribbled over the map. :P Is that it?
I generally want something that lets you add onto the real world. Like, say, finishing I-95 the right way. :colorful:
Try and explore it, buddy.
It costs nothing, only time. But time is not a matter when roadgeeking, right?
If this (http://goo.gl/maps/8cKAs) is the kind of think you are looking to build with Google Maps, go ahead, it's still the easy option.
A free alternative to ArcGIS and PitneyBowes is qGIS (http://qgis.org/). It is more elementary, much more intuitive.
You can add shapefiles you found here (http://www.pasda.psu.edu/) under the "State-wide data" topic, then overlay with your own creations.
Quote from: webfil on August 22, 2012, 12:01:04 AM
If this (http://goo.gl/maps/8cKAs) is the kind of think you are looking to build with Google Maps, go ahead, it's still the easy option.
I've used this feature to compare Google Maps distances with the sum of my own straight-line measurements. It was especially handy back when I was measuring roads that weren't part of the Get Directions feature (foreign countries).
I took the time once to set up Mapnik at home to render a custom map of my Interstate 171 proposal. I suppose I could offer rendering services to other roadgeeks who send me .osm files. (Single-scale maps only; I don't have the time to render a million tiles and put together a working OpenLayers instance for every render request!)
If/when I offer such a service, I'll post a thread for people to make requests.
I should give "My Places" another try and see if it's as buggy as it was the last time I tried it.
I'll definitely look into QGIS too.
Would it be possible to download only sections of the OSM map data? Like the PA area? If the whole thing is 21 gigs, then this must be nothing.
I can't access it from work, but try this: http://download.geofabrik.de/osm/
Quote from: Roadsguy on September 12, 2012, 08:59:19 AM
Would it be possible to download only sections of the OSM map data? Like the PA area? If the whole thing is 21 gigs, then this must be nothing.
Yes!
Downloading an area the size of Pennsylvania will probably require the use of a website that provides extracts of specific geographical areas on a regular basis. It is also possible to use the website or API to download very small chunks of the map, or use the XAPI (through one of several third-party servers) to download chunks covering small cities or rural counties. XAPI also provides the ability to (for example) only download roads, by specifying you only want objects with a highway= tag. If you have to download your area of interest in multiple pieces, you can load the files in JOSM, which will appear as separate layers; you can then merge them and save the merged layer as one big OSM file.
See: OpenStreetMap Wiki: Downloading Data (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Downloading_data)
Would it be possible to download Potlatch 2 to my computer and use it to edit a small .osm file?
I'll have to try making freeways with these then. It would be great to have map tiles of fictional routes.
Quote from: Roadsguy on September 12, 2012, 01:56:11 PM
Would it be possible to download Potlatch 2 to my computer and use it to edit a small .osm file?
That or one of the many other editors available.
Well, does Maperative work like P2, or do I need to modify the map code manually?
So if it is possible to use P2 offline for my small .osm file, then how?
Potlatch is designed to work directly with the live map via API, not external .osm files. It can probably be modified to work with external files, but I think this would require compiling your offline copy from modified source code. Richard Fairhurst is the lead developer for that, and he's fairly active on the talk@ mailing list; he would know what modifications are required and how much of the necessary work has already been done.
Oh. :(
Well, what about Maperative? Does it work like P2 or do I need to manually modify the code?
I had not been aware of Maperitive before. Looking at it now, I'd say it appears to be an easy way to render maps, but it's not an editor.
I think it's worth the effort to learn to use JOSM. You can even make it display aerial imagery in the background like Potlatch does. The hardest part is remembering which mode you're in, because that affects what happens when you click the map, and finding some UI elements to which the documentation refers.
If you really want to use Potlatch to edit fictional maps, you can set up and run your own OpenStreetMap database, import OSM data for the relevant areas you want to edit, and then run an instance of Potlatch configured to talk to your own database instead of the real OSM API.
I also wouldn't count out the possibility of support for external file editing in future versions of Potlatch, as its developer really doesn't like JOSM and may sympathize with this use case. He does this in his free time though, so ask politely and don't push it. Or better yet, volunteer to help with the coding...