Tools/guides for making contemporary urban maps

[George Marques]

Hello, I'm lurker around here and always come for reference once in a while. I made two maps in different styles for fictional stories (I should remember to post them here someday).

But now I'm looking for something that I quite didn't find in the Tutorials section. So, to the question already: is there any guidance to make a map of a urban contemporary city?

I want something along the lines of Open Street Map tiles. I've even considered install the server in my machine to make a custom map (though I still didn't find good instructions that does not rely on syncing with the OSM database, but I'll still try that, for I'm a very computer-savvy person). If I could, I'd make an open server like OpenGeoFiction so other people in the project could help me.

I gave up of doing any satellite view and making a street map seems easy with some vector graphics editor, like Inkscape, but I don't have the knowledge to make the paths look like in a "real" map.

If anyone could point me to some material on how to do it I'd very glad.

Thanks is advance (and in retrospect for all the tutorials I already used).

[George Marques]

Well, I tried to get something started. I've made the land using Photoshop's Clouds filter/Threshold approach. Then I painted the land and water grabbing the colors from Open Street Map.

I put into Inkscape and was able to make a path from the coastline and from that I did the dashed line to represent the political limit of the city.



Then I found a neat tutorial in Wikipedia (here, found is this page along others) and had an idea about how to make different ways (roads, streets, bridges, etc) have a nice contour and still be connected. As I did in this little test:



What I did was basically set the stroke style to a large width (10px) then duplicate the path, reduce the width (to 8px) and change the color (this is described in the aforementioned tutorial). To make it all connected, I used two layers (streets and bridges) as sublayers of another. Then I duplicated the whole base layer and put on the top of the other. This way the shrunk duplicates cover the lines of the other when they intersect.

The major problem will be if they DON'T intersect. I'll have to organize it into different layers to make it work. I also don't know if it will looks nice in different levels of zoom (that's why I still consider the GIS approach).

I'm still looking for help, if there's any better approach to it.

[Ascension]

I took a look at both sites and what you're looking for is a basic street map style. I'm not well-versed in vector graphics but I know that path tool takes a long time to edit nodes to make a realistic street with meandering and curves. All I can really tell you is to keep practicing, you look to be headed in the right direction. Maybe in the morning or over the next few days someone with more knowledge in vectors can be of more help.

[ravells]

Hi George, the way you are using to outline streets is (as far as I have found) the way most people do it in Vector. You might want to visit www.cartotalk and ask your question there: there are lots of GIS users and they work with 'real life' contemporary mapping.

best

Ravi

[George Marques]

Thanks for the tip, ravells.

I actually gave up doing the map on Illustrator (or Inkscape). I'll do it using an editor for OpenStreetMap (JOSM) since I managed to render it nicely. This way I'll have a navigable map and don't have to worry about labels.

My major struggling now is to make the road map plausible. It's hard to develop everything from the ground up and make it look like a real city (I don't know where to put the streets). My idea is to start with the main roads, but even those I'm not sure if they're in the right place.

Also, I have no sense of scale, so I'll need real world references to make it but still don't want to just copy it.

[ravells]

Hi George, Check out the link in my signature about the creation of Fantasy Cities, much of it would be applicable to modern cities too.

[Wingshaw]

The best way to work out if your roads are in the right place is to post a pic, and ask for feedback. I know there's a number of members who comment on city layout, and I always try to.

I also advise providing as much extra info about the city, to add context--I always find it easier, especially, when I know about topography, history, government, economy.

THW

[George Marques]

Hi George, Check out the link in my signature about the creation of Fantasy Cities, much of it would be applicable to modern cities too.

I gave a look into that and WOW, that's impressive. I'll certainly read it carefully, thanks!

The best way to work out if your roads are in the right place is to post a pic, and ask for feedback. I know there's a number of members who comment on city layout, and I always try to.

I also advise providing as much extra info about the city, to add context--I always find it easier, especially, when I know about topography, history, government, economy.

THW

I'll try to keep the WIP thread updated.