An easy software to make street/road maps?

[KiTTy]

I'm looking for recommendations for an easy good software to make street maps.
Most likely to take, for example, a google map for correct proportions and then turn it into my own design.

Thank you

[J-Mac]

You could probably use any decent map and take a screen capture of it. Then bring it into Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro and hack away at it. I haven't heard of any software specifically designed for what you ask.

Jim

[tsaint]

I think "google map buddy" might be worth a look ... it allows for easy stitching together of zoomed in google maps . Bteer to read this info from Ghacks at:
http://www.ghacks.net/2009/07/16/google-maps-downloader-and-joiner/#more-14436
I haven't tried it so can't vouch for its ease of use or quality of results.
The homepage for the software is: http://www.augmentedrealitysoftware.co.uk/gmb.html

[KiTTy]

Thank you J-Mac & tsaint
J-Mac, yes presently that is the method- slow, pain in the tail

tsaint, thank you and thank you for the links; interesting and definitely could save some time.

I remember having some plug-ins for Illustrator and Indesign I used- but again, so time consuming and those were just mostly symbols. CAD I know is another option if I wanted to spend my life learning it first :p

Where or where are you "Map Maker Kitty Deluxe version 1.0" 

[tomos]

google map buddy sounds nice,
but if you want to make a quality map, I dont know of any software where you dont have to draw/trace everything and god help you if you want to add contours lol

Roads/streets - if you make the roadline say 3mm, clone the line and make the top line thinner, say 2mm. With lower line black, the upper white, you have an 'outlined' road - gets tricky at junctions so move the white lines into a higher layer so as they always show over the black (using any vector drawing programme)

[mouser]

one of the programs like SmartDraw or Visio, etc. may have a bunch of road/map marker type things that could help the task.

[yksyks]

Probably not what you need, but just for the case have a look at OpenStreetMap.

[tomos]

Probably not what you need, but just for the case have a look at OpenStreetMap.

anyone know anything about their export options ?

OpenStreetMap XML Data Mapnik Image Osmarender Image

Mapnik itself seems to be aimed at developers 

Mapnik is a Free Toolkit for developing mapping applications.

http://mapnik.org/

Osmarender:

Osmarender is a rule-based rendering tool for generating SVG images of OSM data.

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/index.php/Osmarender

sounds like both could be vector applications or at least could be used to produce usable vector drawings . .

[KiTTy]

tomos thank you for the tips and the links. Its not me that will be actually making the map so I'll pass this info on and let you know if it used. Mapnik sounds promising and Osmarender worth a try. Thank you again!
mouser I'll look into those as well, thank you
yksyks thank you, fun find!

[kfitting]

Not to somewhat hijack this thread, but I just tried to use Google Map Buddy and noticed that google maps no longer searches for me.  It doesnt work in IE 7, Firefox 3, or Opera 10 either.... does this mean I have problems with java or some other error??  Any ideas?  I did a little looking, but most people seem to have problems in only one browser, not three!

Kevin

[BillB]

Just for the record, the only free but substantial vector-drawing program I know of is Inkscape at http://www.inkscape.org/.  This would, for example, allow you to bring a screen-grab image into the background and to trace over it ,then export in a variety of image and vector formats like PNG and SVG.

[mikiem]

FWIW I've always had better luck using Microsoft Maps off the msn page. Fair # of options including printing, which I usually do to PDF & copy, but saving images & screen cap works too.

[atkinsod]

The site: http://www.quikmaps.com/ lets you draw on top of Google Maps, with icons for start location, stop location, etc.

I've only taken a brief glance at it, though.

Doug A.

[KiTTy]

BillB, mikiem, atkinsod thank you for the replies and the suggestions.
To add to the list I've been told also ESRI ArcGIS http://www.esri.com/ ; is a definitive mapping software. High learning curve and I imagine quite expensive.

[Maptitude]

If you are looking at commercial software like ESRI's then the Maptitude mapping software is worth checking out.

[KiTTy]

Thank you Maptitude. Actually I wasn't- I was more helping a friend find one but they could use, that search has been called off as they hired a company to do it- became too much of job when they found out they need a 'map' license to even publish a map. Maptitude though does look lovely and not so difficult to use.

Thank you again

[mouser]

related article at downloadsquad today:

Open Street Map - wiki-based user created street mapsby Jason Clarke (RSS feed) Aug 20th 2009 at 10:00AM
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/08/20/open-street-map-wiki-based-user-created-street-maps/

[tomos]

If you are looking at commercial software like ESRI's then the Maptitude mapping software is worth checking out.

price is $495 (not complaining, but definitely for the pro market!) - dont know how it compares with ArcViewGIS which I think has been the standard(?) - I cant even find the price on their site . .

On a different note:
If you have Illustrator, someone recommended these tutorials - "From GIS to the Desktop" - they look good too
http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=764
http://www.directionsmag.com/article.php?article_id=930
http://www.directionsmag.com/printer.php?article_id=2105

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