The communities thoughts on software-assistance in map design

[Robulous]

Renaissance Masters used the "camera obscura" to project a sitter's image onto a canvas, which they sketched over. Is that "cheating"? Is it cheating for a sculptor to cut stone with electrical tools, rather than chip painstakingly with a lump of flint?

It may be grandiose to say, but it's cartographic art we're aiming to create here. It doesn't really matter what skills and tools we use, what matters is the creative effort that goes into it. I use Fractal Terrains, Wilbur and Photoshop to assist in my map-making. If I was just to screenshot a randomly computer-generated map, I'd say yes that is cheating, because it would include zero creative effort on my part. But using software tools to create a starting point, and going from there to create a work of imagination: that's fine. Ever better tools is what helps humanity achieve greatness.

[3l3phant]

Holy crud that's nice!

[Hai-Etlik]

This is just a specialised and somewhat esoteric map symbolizer. That's not all that different from how the majority of real maps are made. You set up the styling rules, toss in some data, and out comes a mp. Then you change the data and get a map of somewhere else that exactly matches the style of the first. My day job is working on a piece of software that does this sort of thing (along with a lot of other stuff). I've even helped design a language for describing the style rules (It's called YSLD http://boundlessgeo.com/2014/12/ysld/)

The skill and creativity is in designing a good set of style rules that convey the information you want in a clear, concise, and attractive way across all of the potential data the style might be applied to.

[3l3phant]

Thanks Robulous - Very well said (and the camera obscura is a fantastic example that I hadn't considered )

[3l3phant]

YSLD is interesting (I'm more experienced as a geek than a cartographer) and I've been interested in QGIS for quite some time now but haven't gotten around to really learning much about it. That may need to change in the near future

[johnvanvliet]

i used to draw but after i broke my neck in 89 i lost a bit of right hand dexterity
so now i use software , mostly.

Qgis is nice but getting fantasy maps into it can be "fun" sometimes

[jpstod]

I only Use Campaign Cartographer 3 and other people artwork to make Maps. I make no claims to be able to even draw computerized hand drawings...

Painters and Sketch artist would say that people who can't draw with a pencil on paper are cheating....

Does that not mean they are not still talented, nope.

[Robulous]

i used to draw but after i broke my neck in 89 i lost a bit of right hand dexterity
so now i use software , mostly.

Qgis is nice but getting fantasy maps into it can be "fun" sometimes

I'd not heard of Qgis, interesting I'll have to check it out. Goodness, after breaking your neck you are lucky to be able to move your hands at all!

It's a prejudice but I can't stomach CC3. To me it makes identikit maps that are far too obviously generated by CC3, unless you're skilled enough to make your own templates. Mainly I just find it very clunky and unintuitive to use.

[jpstod]

Mainly I just find it very clunky and unintuitive to use.

and I find Gimp and other illustrators utterly impossible to master and Adding additional Artwork in CC3 is a breeze for me.
I can create 100 10x10 Rooms without any chance of them looking Identical.