Thread: Free Cartography Software

The software list is here
http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...pping-Software

and my advice is to look in the finished maps section. There is a thumbnails page where you can browse loads of map pics. Look for the ones you like and see what they used to make it. Click on their name to get to the thread.
http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ed-Maps-Thumbs

You should download Gimp. These are two Gimp tutorials that show what Gimp can do: Hand-Drawn Mapping (for the Artistically Challenged) and Creating old, weathered paper using the Gimp. There many other excellent Gimp tutorials in the Guild.

Here is the website for Gimp.

Prepares some cover:

What is the general opinion of Autorealm for mapping? Been casting about for an alternative while I practise with Gimp (skill level currently about 1-2%) and it seems like a cheap (read free) version of CC3 but with a hell of a lot less whistles and bells.

If you're interested in AutoRealm, one of the members here (Vandy) compiled all the "Tutorial"/User Guide information into one PDF document located here;

http://www.cartographersguild.com/sh...ll=1#post41356

GW

Been reading that today, but just looking for a heads up as to how easy (wrong word choice perhaps) or perhaps worthwhile each investment in time might be.

Autorealm is pretty easy to use, but in my opinion, it doesn't produce very nice-looking results. It's said that the artist is more important than the tool, and that's true, but a good artist will almost always choose the best tools available (unless using a difficult tool is the point of the exercise).

Gimp is the king of free graphics apps, and the tutorials found here can get you mapping in a fraction of the time of trying to figure it out on your own. In addition to the two that Gally recommended, also look into RobA's venerable artistic regional map tutorial.

Besides The GIMP, you may want to look at Inkscape. It's more akin to Autorealm in being a vector graphics editor (The GIMP works with raster graphics), though it's a much more general one. You may find better suited to your your way of working, or you may not, but I recommend you try both. You may even find it best to start in Inkscape and finish in The GIMP.

If you want to try playing with a real Geographic Information System, which really isn't what you asked for, but which you may want if the cartography bug bites hard enough, there's QuantumGIS. It will let you do things like switch projections or check the distribution of orc tribes against the carrying capacity of the local ecosystem to make sure they don't starve themselves out.

Went through the AutoREALM users guide the other night, and after about 2 hours had a VERY basic map, albeit with not a lot of features and some problem areas I just could not get to work on my first go. ATM I'm putting AutoREALM on back burner and going to go through the Gimp Tutes in detail and see how that works out. Thanks for the advice folks.