UKH

I'd like to be able to draw some basic hill-walking maps, nothing complicated but reasonably 'presentable'. Photoshop Elements on my Mac will do most of the things I need (hill layering, contours etc). However:

I don't seem to be able to draw a road! (ie in the traditional way with a coloured wiggly line plus black edges).

Another thing is footpaths. Photoshop Elements can do winding dotted lines but I haven't found how to do a dashed footpath symbol.

Am I missing something in Photoshop Elements? Is there an alternative non-too-complicated/not-too-expensive software package that can do these things?

In reply to carl dawson:

In my orienteering days we used something called OCAD. Out of touch now, so I couldn’t say if it still exists but it might be a starting point for you.

p.s. Google still finds it.

In reply to carl dawson:

You’re missing many things:

1. PS Elements is designed for raster edits, and is pretty poorly suited to any kind of line-drawing. It’s designed as a photo editor, not an all in one drawing tool. You need a vector based alternative - Illustrator is ideal, but for some casual map drawing maybe a little costly. Take a look at the freeware alternates - Inkscape is most commonly cited. I find it annoying, but that just becasue I was trained in Illustrator and it’s a bit quirky.

2. Drawing stuff isn’t necessarily proper digital map making - then you want to get into using a GIS. QGIS is free, but it’s not exactly pickup and play. 

In reply to carl dawson:

A hacky way to do coloured vector lines with borders when you don't have just the right the tools is to create your curve in a new a layer, duplicate it, make the top layer line say yellow and 8 px wide, and the lower layer black and 10 px wide, the result is a yellow curve with thin black edges. Works reasonably well in lots of drawing tools but is clunky if you're doing lots of editing.

jk

In reply to Rog Wilko:

I do a lot of mapping for orienteering. OCAD most definitely still exists, but it's now a rather expensive subscription service. Many amateur orienteering mappers use Open Orienteering Mapper (OOM), a free download at https://www.openorienteering.org/apps/mapper/

It rather depends how much map drawing Carl wants to do. If it's an extensive project then I'd suggest OOM is the way to go. As with any new software, there is of course a learning curve to climb. But OOM is reasonably intuitive, has an adequate "help" function, and would do everything you want. Wiggly roads and footpaths are no problem at all. As others have said, you really need a vector-based application and that is what OOM is. You can import aerial photos or OS mapping as templates to trace over. 

Carl, please email me if you want further info. 

Martin

Thanks All, for the suggestions. Look like I’ve got a bit of ‘learning’ to do!

In reply to Martin Hore:

I use the onine mapping resource Oomap, it produces pretty decent printable maps and editing is done by updating openstreetmap mapping whoch provides a far more widely useful resource including maps provided through many phone apps and for GPS devices via Talkytoaster mapping.

In reply to timjones:

Hi Tim

I based my reply on the assumption that Carl wanted to draw a map, rather than find an acceptable already-drawn map on-line, for which OOMap is very usefuul. I occasionally use OOMap (easily confused with the OOMapper drawing software (OOM)) as one of my templates when drawing orienteering maps, though generally I use on-line OS mapping, aerial photos and LiDAR. As you say, OOMap is based on openstreetmap, which you can edit as a user, but I think in a fairly restricted way, as your edits, correct or otherwise, are transferred to every other user. I've not tried to edit openstreetmap myself, though, so I may have the wrong impression there.

OOMapper (OOM), like OCAD, is specifically designed for drawing maps. I'm not sure it's fair to say that OOMap/openstreetmap is "far more widely useful" than OOM. The two have completely different uses. It is true that openstreetmap is "far more widely used". OOM is rather specialised drawing software.

I'd certainly recommend that Carl takes a look at OOMap to see if it provides what he needs without re-drawing. Though if he's not going to redraw, he might be better off using available on-line OS mapping for hill-walking purposes.

Martin

In reply to Martin Hore:

I have found that you can edit openstreetmap in just about any way that is useful for navigation. It is quick and easy once you have worked the process out and the edits appear on Oomap very quickly.

Maybe I should clarify a little, I meant that the edits were useful to far more people than would ever be able to access them if I was merely drawing maps to distribute myself either electronically or on paper.~

It also has the advantage that you can attempt a bit of "social engineering" by drawing peoples attention to paths that become overgrown if they are not well used. Openstreetmap edits appear on Strava within a few weeks after which they can feature in Stravas suggested routes and if you stick a segment on them you can really boost the traffic