r/cartography

Since I watched a video where it said Eastern Europe is a lie and they made many good points, I decided to do this. True Eastern Europe is Russia for obvious reasons and I'm a bit biased, then there are many more regions and some countries belong to two groups at the same time (Poland = Central Europe + Slavic) and I know that Balkans on the map are Slavic too, but you could add "Balkans/Southern Slavic" to it. I jsut didn't have space

I had never heard about Jerry before watching Quinns PMG documentary. It kinda blew my mind seeing someone else have been doing (somewhat) similar stuff all along.

I began my world building project in 2010, and from 2015 I started mapping out the world on sheets of paper. What started as 40 roughly sketched A4 pages on my wall is now some 80 pages (and still growing), digitized and many partially rendered. I have shared some images before, but the work has been more about the process than the product.

Inspired by the PMG- video I decided to print out all the map sheets I have made so far (even though only some 20ish are «finished») just to get a feel of what they all looks like side by side on the wall after some 8 years as individual sheets on my computer.

Just to be clear, I’m no Jerry (by far), but hope to show those in the beginning of their own mapping journeys that effort over time gives results!

Pic 1: first sketch in 2015.
Pic 2: CU sketch.
Pic 3: from today - some progress made.
Pic 4: CU of progress (same area as pic 2)
Pic 5: just to show where on the larger map the map tile in pic 6 is from.
Pic 6: png of (somewhat) finished map sheet.

Good to get that off my chest.
Thanks for your time.
I’ll see myself out.

It's fun to play around with it, tap on random spots on the map or find cities along the same line as your city. I have always been curious about this one.

Give it a "spin"

https://supersimple.reviews/supersimpleglobe/

Reduced resolution for the interweb. Original is 7500 pcx wide.

Hello! I recently started to learn about how to make 3D shaded relief using Blender. I followed the famous and amazing tutorial by Daniel Huffman and the render came out really well, close to his.

But when I try to apply some colours on Photoshop, I just can't get a nice result that looks really good. For that I usually export a gradient from QGIS and try the different blending modes on Photoshop. Sure it's not bad, but it's not "professionnal". Left is mine, right if a map I found on Pinterest.

Do y'all have any tips on colouring?

FYI: If you Swipe you'll see the solution. I recently build my own game where you need to use geogrpahic angles to spot the hidden city. Let me know what you think of it! Here is the link if you wanna play some rounds: https://visitwhale.com/city-angle

I've got interested in a topic of Doggerland recently, so i decided to go and make a map of Doggerland accordingly to topological maps. Really enjoyed it and wanted to share it with others!

Finally solved a problem that looked simple… but wasn’t.

Geoglify can now apply SVG textures to polygons so that no two adjacent regions ever share the same pattern.

This isn’t about the Four Color Theorem. Using 4 patterns is easy. The challenge was distributing 28 different patterns across 242 countries while keeping the map visually balanced, accessible, and free of adjacent duplicates.

The whole algorithm runs in ~5ms using R-trees, edge hashing, and a randomized greedy graph coloring algorithm.

Full technical write-up:
https://leoneljdias.github.io/posts/map-coloring-patterns/

Try it:
https://geoglify.com

Made by me for Cartographr Co. Created with QGIS, Blender and Adobe Illustrator.

It's a dome arcology, current as of 2263. The surface of the Earth is a blasted post-nuclear hell-scape, but through sheer grit, determination and some sketchy alien tech, we've managed to build mighty dome-cities over some of the ruins. This particular dome was the first to be constructed, which is why its got a space elevator (we did a lot of this from orbit or beyond, after the war).

The locations are callouts of distinct locales that the characters visit throughout the story. New Toronto is part of a cluster of domes in the region, but is the largest by far.

The top surface of the city is where the majority of the population lives, but the underground is an immense network of transit-ways, recycling facilities, power generation, water renewal and criminal hideouts--plus the remains of the old city beneath. It's got all the hallmarks of cyberpunk megacities and sci-fi megastructures that everyone knows and loves. It even has a lake (though its more of a giant reservoir).

What would you guys add or change, if anything? Much appreciated!

(From: The Call of Abaddon)

Made this for our D&D Campaign. Super fun to work on!

Hey everyone!

I wanted to share a little side project I’ve been working on. It’s a free, web-based tool to generate clean grayscale heightmaps from anywhere in the world.

I originally built it because I was tired of how overly complicated the usual workflows are. I just wanted a quick, frictionless way to grab a simple displacement map of a real-world location without having to install massive GIS software or stitch together messy datasets.

How it works right now:

• You just navigate an interactive map and frame the area you want.
• It pulls open-source elevation data (Mapzen Terrarium / SRTM) and generates a clean grayscale PNG.
• There is a built-in, real-time 3D preview so you can tweak the vertical height scale before downloading.

My main goal was to keep the interface as simple and straightforward as possible, so you can get your data in seconds.

Link to the tool: https://3d-map-generator.com/free-heightmap-generator/

A quick heads-up: I’m a programmer but web development isn’t my main field, so there might still be some weird UX quirks or bugs I haven't caught yet.

If you give it a try—maybe look up your hometown or a favorite mountain range—I’d really appreciate any feedback. Please feel free to test it, try breaking it, and let me know what you think!

I wanted to see which edible wild plants, fruit and nut trees were near me, so I built

a map for it. It is called Plukplek, it is free, has no ads, and you do not need an

account to browse.

OpenStreetMap is one of the main data sources. I query trees and shrubs tagged with

genus, species and produce, map them to Dutch names, and show them on the map. It is

combined with Falling Fruit and open data from a few Dutch municipalities, plus

contributions from users. Tiles are OpenFreeMap, rendering with MapLibre. OSM data is

used under the ODbL and contributors are credited on the site.

A couple of things this community might find interesting:

- Many trees are only tagged genus=Prunus, which is ambiguous: sweet cherry and sloe,

but also ornamental flowering cherries and even toxic cherry laurel. I exclude the

ornamental and toxic species by their binomial name and only show what you can actually

forage.

- I leave out landuse=orchard, since those are usually private and would swamp the map.

If you spot wrong or missing data I would love to hear it. And if it nudges anyone to

tag edible trees a bit better in OSM, even better.

https://plukplek.nl

Curious what you think.