Hello everybody!

As this is my first post in this very informative, well moderated forum, I want to say thanks to all the excellent mappers and helpful guides. I was lurking for a long time before becoming a member and now, while I am currently working on my first topographic map, I need some specific help.

The map I am working on is based on a rough vector sketch from an already existing SVG-file picturing a fictive planet. There is a group of islands located in a northern hemisphere, stretching across a fictive Arctic circle. The climate is ment to be Scandinavia-like (oceanic, subarctic, tundra, alpine, polar influences, depending on location and height). For simplification, imagine Norway; with its fjords, fjells and high mountain ranges. The (or at least my) aim is to draw a very detailed topographic map in various scales, especially in 1:25,000, 1:50,000 and 1:200,000 (inspired by the offical topographic maps of Germany). So I laid a grid on a 1:1,000,000 scaled sketch of my country (a scale has already been set in the SVG-file) and divided it into various, smaller mapsheets into the next bigger scale 1:200,000. I repeated that process for 1:200,000 and 1:50,000. In the end, one 1:200,000 scale mapsheet consists of 4 by 4 (16) 1:50,000 scale mapsheets; where as one 1:50,000 scale mapsheet consists of 2 by 2 (4) 1:25,000 scale mapsheets. In turn, a 1:200,000 scale map section consists theoretically by the end of 8 by 8 (64) 1:25,000 mapsheets. As you might add, how can one set a scale in a vector file; but it was defined (not by me) that 1px is a certain amount of square kilometres and there was a scale pictured (a distance of 1,000km "equivalent" to 52.8px in width equivalent to 18.627mm). I used that quirky equation to scale up or down all following map grids and sheets, keeping the original PPI 300. I know that it is a lot of work and I do not know if this project will ever be finished but hey, let's try and find out.

Click image for larger version.  Name: Scale Grids.png  Views: 41  Size: 8.0 KB  ID: 112043

Blue: 1:200,000 scale map; Orange: 1:50,000 scale maps; Green: 1:25,000 scale maps.

My way of thinking was: Start working on the 1:25,000 mapsheets; combine 4 of them to a 1:50,000 mapsheet and eventually combine 16 1:50,000 mapsheets to a 1:200,000 mapsheet. Drawing coastlines, land masses, rivers, roads, towns etc. is easy with vector graphics, as one can scale it all up or down easily with more or less detail.

Finally, here is my main problem: I always liked the maps with relief shading because they looked so realistic. But drawing a relief with contour lines and then scaling up or down is nowhere near to my skills if at all possible. And as I cannot rely on any already drawn heightmap or the like, every mountain ridge, every valley etc. will be drawn from scratch. A suitable compromise for me was to define a realistic coastline and as a result a landmass in Illustrator and afterwards drawing the relief in Photoshop. In short: Exporting the landmass from Illustrator to Photoshop; drawing the relief; and placing it back to Illustrator. Then rivers, roads, cities etc. can be located on it as vectors as they depend mostly on the physical nature of their environment. Only the relief stays pixelated. But as the mapsheets will be scaled down to the next map grid, a downsizing of a pixelated image seemed to me a better looking way than scaling it up - and because I try to avoid painting a relief for each scale.

Now it is your turn: What do you think of my "work in progress" so far? I admit that my process is not the most elegant way but still doable in my opinion. I considered using Wilbur or Fractal Terrains (scaling a relief once drawn would not be a probleme here, or would it?) but I doubt that it is suitable for my problem and using it seemed to be too difficult after watching several videos on YouTube. You might convince me buying FT nevertheless...

Thank you a lot in advance and reading until here!