Anyone make real maps?

[cone1995]

Does anyone actually survey places and make scale maps? Like when I make maps I like to actually go to the area I am mapping and visualize where I am on my map. I try to get rough estimates of distances/perimeters and other measurements does anyone else?

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[Falconius]

When I visit old ruins around here I often try to sketch in their general layout, never gone as far to start measuring and surveying them, but I'd kinda like too. It's the one reason I'd want a drone so I can take aerials and then get the relationships between things nice and easy like. There are these enormously old ruins of a castle/town here in the valley near my house that are covered in brambles and thorns and all sorts and it has a water tunnel thing heading off into a secret grove into the brook (which I've never been down in since I don't own rainboots (idiotically), I don't know where it goes to in the ruins I've only seen its exit in the secret grove thing) and I've tried sketching the area out a few times but I've never actually taken the hours necessary to measure it all out and figure out what is actually going on.

[cone1995]

It's really fascinating to hear that. I imagine this castle you speak of probably has not been explored or surveyed by professionals! Personally I like to make maps of my local town but kinda edit them and make them my own I've played around with a dystopian style a couple times made the city Hall into a zombie fortress but I've been able to use extreme detail using exact measurements!

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[cone1995]

Would be cool to see a cross section or something along those lines of the secret tunnel

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[Francissimo]

My work is to make maps of real places using GIS softwares (and sometimes photoshop/illustrator to improve the design). The process is quite different from the type of maps you can see here in the guild. The data already exist so you add various data in your gis software (rivers, buildings, aerial view..) and you choose the scale you want very easily. It's quick to make a map this way but the visual design of those type of maps is a bit poor compare to fantasy maps done by artists. You can see a few exemples of real world maps made with GIS softwares here: https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=34556
You can easily measure distances and surfaces with GIS maps and do spatial analysis, (select all building at x meters from a river, get a 3D view of the topography ect), that's the main advantage compared to photoshop maps.
Most of the time if you want a really precise map at small scale like a map of a castle, you'll need to draw details by yourself, GIS maps only work well at large scale like an entire city or more.
Usually if i want to make a nice map i load all the data in a GIS software and then export the result in photoshop to add colors, textures and effects like bevel and drop shadows.

[ranger]

I am in a similar boat to Francissimo. I however use AutoCAD and Sketchup (Sketchup more for artsy projects)
I handle 45 Facilities with floorplans and site plans. So that means I do architectural and civil drafting. I have found that sometimes it interferes with my artistic side, I tend to overthink things and try to structure things too much. Sometimes its easier to say oo this looks pretty here...
I also tend to want to do much more for my drawings than typical. For example with this Guild City project I have found myself wanting to make a full contour map, a plot plan, a satellite view, floor plans, and section views of everything.(including scales and data) That often makes me get overwhelmed and then fall short on a project, thats part of why I have not done more maps on here hah!
If you have any questions or need anything feel free to hollar at me.

[cone1995]

I am very much like you ranger I tend to over think and things are hard

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[Mouse]

I am in a similar boat to Francissimo. I however use AutoCAD and Sketchup (Sketchup more for artsy projects)
I handle 45 Facilities with floorplans and site plans. So that means I do architectural and civil drafting. I have found that sometimes it interferes with my artistic side, I tend to overthink things and try to structure things too much. Sometimes its easier to say oo this looks pretty here...
I also tend to want to do much more for my drawings than typical. For example with this Guild City project I have found myself wanting to make a full contour map, a plot plan, a satellite view, floor plans, and section views of everything.(including scales and data) That often makes me get overwhelmed and then fall short on a project, thats part of why I have not done more maps on here hah!
If you have any questions or need anything feel free to hollar at me.

I find your Sketchup work fascinating. As a CC3 user I also use a version of AutoCAD, called FastCAD (on which the programme is based). I also find the total precision of vector graphics a little difficult to see beyond at times, but I find it helps to imagine that what I am drawing is actually a painting, and just let it flow...

[Hai-Etlik]

I've contributed to OpenStreetMap by both surveying with a GPS receiver and digitizing air photos as well as working with GIS tools as I'm a GIS Developer. One of my monthly contest entries was also a map based purely on real world data with some old school flourish in the presentation https://www.cartographersguild.com/a...chmentid=43675