Best Way to Map Real World England in CC3

[EpicBradley129]

So I want to make a realistic historical map of southern England showing the system of Roman highways built between 43-410 AD as well as rivers like the Thames and cities/towns like London and Exeter. Right now I've found two ways to do this, each with their own problems, and I'm wondering if anyone knows of any better ways to go about this task.

The first way to do this that I know of is to use the real world data that comes with FT3 to map the entire Earth and then zoom in on England and export to CC3. The problem here is that because I'm zooming in so far, the map ends up really pixilated and low quality. Also the prime meridian shows up as an annoying black line running north-south through east England, which also sucks. So basically this method is unusable at this small of a scale unless there's better data available somewhere. I'm sure there is better data available, but I don't know how/where to find it. Could anyone point me to such real world data of England that I could use in FT3 or CC3?

The other method that I know of I haven't tried yet because it would cost me $40. I could buy the August issue of ProFantasy's "the Cartographer's Annual 2014," which details how to take real world vector data from the Natural Earth public domain repository and import it into CC3 overland maps. This would probably work perfectly for my needs, except perhaps for one thing: since I'm making a historical map, I thought it might be cool to give it an authentic-ish old parchment look, which I'm not sure I could do with that data. The ProFantasy website says, "The included mapping guide... also goes into detail on how to apply different drawing styles to the imported maps and how continue working after the initial import." Would "different drawing styles" include making the maps look like old parchment maps? Would this data give me enough small scale detail to create a map of southern England? I'm not completely opposed to spending $40 to make this map, if there are no other decent options, but if I do I want to know that my purchase will be useful for this project.

Here's a link to the August issue of the Annual 2014: http://www.profantasy.com/annual/2014/august14.html

There's also the May 2012 issue, which looks like it could help. Would one of these better for my needs than the other? http://www.profantasy.com/annual/2012/may12.html

[Mouse]

Hi Bradley... may I call you that?

I use CC3 on a very limited budget. That's why all I have are the main components - no extra symbol sets or annuals. That wouldn't stop me from importing a bitmap image scanned from an old school atlas on my shelf to give me the perfect outline to trace the required area of the country, and probably at far less cost and trouble than doing it any other way.

As for parchment... well until recently I would have suggested using one of the many many tiling parchment textures as a background fill (I've even made a few of my own), but its just as easy to borrow a standard piece of parchment like you would use in any raster app (PS/GIMP/you name it - the very same parchment graphics as they use), and import the file onto a sheet of its own - the background sheet perhaps

Hope that helps

Here's a coffee stain you can use as a symbol if you want it....

Coffe stain.png

The only thing you have to remember is that not even png files are transparent when they are imported to CC3, unless you make symbols or texture fills of them. This is a technique I am currently perfecting in my Guild City maps.

Let me know if you are interested in anything I've talked about here and I'll go through it all with you if its not immediately clear. I sometimes forget its not easy to follow a method if you don't already know it

[Redrobes]

Getting a high res image of the south of england shouldn't be too hard. Getting it in a particular style might be more of a problem. You could get a high res version of england and then use inkscape to do an outline trace to get it into vector form. Not so sure how you import that into CC3 tho.

[Mouse]

Red - you can import any jpeg, png or bmp bitmap you like into CC3 using Draw/Insert File from the menu. The only thing users need to be aware of is that transparent pngs will no longer be transparent if you do it that way.

I get around that by importing transparent pngs as bitmap fills instead, and then scaling the fill to the exact pixel dimensions of the png and drawing a rectangular polygon filled with the new png fill.

EDIT: that means you don't have to stop off half way there to do the tracing before you get to CC3. You can do it straight in CC3, then hide the sheet the imported map is on and have your tracing plonked down directly on the lovely parchment texture you have chosen for your map.

Little hint for Bradley here - If your fav parchment background is for the sake of argument 4000 x 2357 pi in dimension, then make a new CC3 file that is exactly 4000 x 2357 map units in dimension, then its a lot easier to paste in the background and get it all lined up nicely with the edges.

[Tonnichiwa]

After reading through your post, I read that issue of the Cartographer's Annual and it does indeed give you the method for how to import the information you are looking for and convert it into whatever style you wish if you happen to own that particular style. So if you own one of the styles that has a parchment background, then, yes, you can do it.

I believe the Tome of Ultimate Mapping might also have instructions on changing your background into a parchment style. And I believe it will also tell you how to import a parchment background as well. Something like what Mouse gave you if you wish. Just in case you don't have one of the parchment styles.

I believe there are other parchment backgrounds available in the Guilds Mapping Elements threads.

[Mouse]

There are absolutely loads of them right here by Barek333

In fact I might just use one or two of them for a project I'm working on right now

[waldronate]

The basic technique to get GIS data into CC3+ is via conversion to DXF. GIS data is available for free or minimum cost from many sites, of which http://www.naturalearthdata.com is a popular one for the whole world. A tool such as GDAL could be used to convert the vectors into something that CC3 can use. Once into CC3, it's pretty easy to convert it to a particular style. All of that process is detailed in the annual volume that you mentioned, if I recall correctly. My point was that you can use data from places other than Natural Earth Data and probably get better resolution for what you want. You might also want to reproject and clip the data: I don't know if that information is in the annual volume. If you like GUI things, QGIS might be a better choice than raw GDAL for the conversion.

One thing that you'll run across is that the world has changed quite a bit in the last 2000 years, especially with regards to coastal areas and stream channel locations. Modern data is probably good enough, but you might run across some cases where the modern data has a channel where the used to be land (and vice versa).

[EpicBradley129]

Wow, thanks guys for all the quick responses. And yeah, calling me Bradley (or Brad) is fine, I use this username in a lot of places and in a few of those people call me either Bradley or Brad.

Okay, so if I'm understanding things correctly, there are two main ways I can make this map. The first would be to find some image of England in jpeg, png or bmp format, import that into CC3, trace it, and then use the traced outline with a parchment background. This is actually a promising method, because I can also trace things like roads and rivers and city locations, which otherwise I'd likely have to freehand. My only concern is that tracing the coastline of England, especially in high res, sounds like a very long and arduous task to do by hand, and I'm not sure I could do it very well. Does CC3 have tools that can automate this process or make it easier in some way? Or do I just have to trace everything by hand?

The other method, using the Cartographer's Annual, also sounds promising but seems like it will be really technical, which could mean that I could encounter a bunch more problems as I do it. I do have some fairly major time constraints, so I would like to get this map done as quickly as possible. Can anyone say which method would be faster?

I'm also thinking about quality for this map. Would one of these methods produce a map of significantly higher quality than the other method, or should they both produce maps of similar quality?

[Mouse]

...Okay, so if I'm understanding things correctly, there are two main ways I can make this map. The first would be to find some image of England in jpeg, png or bmp format, import that into CC3, trace it, and then use the traced outline with a parchment background. This is actually a promising method, because I can also trace things like roads and rivers and city locations, which otherwise I'd likely have to freehand. My only concern is that tracing the coastline of England, especially in high res, sounds like a very long and arduous task to do by hand, and I'm not sure I could do it very well. Does CC3 have tools that can automate this process or make it easier in some way? Or do I just have to trace everything by hand?...

I keep forgetting that everyone automatically uses the preset drawing tools, because I usually don't bother with them.

If you decide to go down the road of importing and tracing a bitmap...

I trace things using the freehand drawing tool on the right hand toolbar, so it's very much like tracing it with a pencil on a piece of paper. When I've got the tracing right I join all the segments up together (very few people can draw an entire outline all in one go without the need to stop somewhere) using the combine path tool you can get to by right clicking the fractalize button on the left, and then I convert my outline tracing to a polygon by right clicking the fractalize tool again and picking 'convert path to poly'.

Its not an approved method of doing a tracing. I just find it easier than any of the other methods

As for which is faster/better/smoother I really wouldn't know, since I've never imported data and used it to make a map. I don't have the annual, you see

[Tonnichiwa]

The Annual actually comes with an outline of England. It also comes with instructions on how to convert it so you can use it in any mapping style.

This is my most recent map made using that Annual. (I haven't completed it yet). I had to remove Ireland and some of the islands from the map because I was only interested in the main area of England.