Mapping software

[Sean Manning]

As I polish off a thesis, the topic of maps has come up. I'd prefer to not have to draw mine freehand, and good existing ones are hard to find. (My Barrington is too big, and includes too many irrelevant things).

Does anyone know of a program which will generate a basic "outline of coasts" map, and insert other features like cities, rivers, or mountain peaks as needed? It seems like there would be a lot of demand for this in ancient history, especially if it generated maps suitable for printing in 8.5x11" or A4.

[Simplex]

+1 !
Thank you, Sean...
....you must've read my mind, someway.

Greez

Simplex

[Vindex]

May I just confirm what sort of mapping you're thinking of?

3D?

Profiling?

Or good old fashioned cartographic "proper" maps (with subject/areas of interest filters by the sounds of it).

[Simplex]

Hi Vindex
1. Thank you very much.
2. As far as I'm concerned it's the old-fashioned 2D maps.
No need for 3-D yet, at least on my side.

Simplex

[agrimensor]

I have at work a copy of peutinger 1 m long( part of the map) i use as display.
I can post the map.( the map is at work) I will post it asap.

[caiusbeerquitius]

I find "silent maps" always helpful:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blank_maps

Peutingeriana:

http://www.euratlas.net/cartogra/peutinger/

http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chrono..._pe00.html

VERY helpful:

http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/br...ements-i-3

[mcbishop]

As I polish off a thesis, the topic of maps has come up. I'd prefer to not have to draw mine freehand, and good existing ones are hard to find. (My Barrington is too big, and includes too many irrelevant things).

Does anyone know of a program which will generate a basic "outline of coasts" map, and insert other features like cities, rivers, or mountain peaks as needed? It seems like there would be a lot of demand for this in ancient history, especially if it generated maps suitable for printing in 8.5x11" or A4.

You need Natural Earth. It's what I use for all my mapping now and it is easily imported into a GIS program like QGIS and you can then choose whichever projection you need. Best of all, like QGIS, Natural Earth is free and open source. You can even be a smartypants and import stuff mapped into Google Earth into the resulting map. This is how I am generating maps for my roads book at this very moment.

Mike Bishop

[Sean Manning]

Thanks Dr. Bishop. I will have a look at Natural Earth.

May I just confirm what sort of mapping you're thinking of?

3D?

Profiling?

Or good old fashioned cartographic "proper" maps (with subject/areas of interest filters by the sounds of it).

I'm not sure what you mean. The minimum would be a map with coastlines, major rivers, and the option to include particular cities or mountain peaks. Elevation is often more detail than is needed, at least for a basic "where is this city in relation to everywhere else" and data on ground cover, while valuable, is hard to find in ancient history. The ability to draw in political borders or lesser rivers freehand and get my tremors corrected would also be nice.

I'm one of those crazy people who thinks that if you write a narrative history, you have a responsibility to provide a set of maps with every significant place name on them if you want to be understood. Books on recent wars tend to be especially bad on this.

[Vindex]

Thanks Dr. Bishop. I will have a look at Natural Earth.

May I just confirm what sort of mapping you're thinking of?

3D?

Profiling?

Or good old fashioned cartographic "proper" maps (with subject/areas of interest filters by the sounds of it).

I'm not sure what you mean...

Perhaps I misunderstood your use of the term "mapping". There are many and varied mapping applications/software available depending on what it is you were after - I was just trying to clarify that. But you seem to have found what it is you were looking for so no problem.