Hello, everyone:

Just found this forum today and joined up right away. I have been playing various role-playing games since the mid-1970s and have always been a map geek. This has turned into a full time profession and I have been working as a geospatial developer for nearly ten years now, primarily using ESRI software but also exploring most of the Open Source options out there as well. I have a masters in GIS from Penn State (just finished up this past May) where my final thesis was about developing web-based mapping applications for archaeological purposes. I have presented on mapping at several conference over the last several years and will be presenting again at the end of Oct on transforming CAD drawings into geospatial formats. My current project involves taking source CAD drawings and converting them to KML to be viewed in GoogleEarth.

I have always had in the back of my head that I should combine my love of maps, roleplaying and GIS, and make some fantasy maps, so maybe now is the time to do so. I've been wanting to get the ProFantasy software for awhile now as well.

I don't know when I will actually get something to show, but if nothing else I will be lurking about learning the ropes here.

Bill Dickinson (aka barneynibbs)
Principal GIS Engineer and Aging Geekster
Hagerstown, MD