Free TOPOGRAPHIC PROGRAMS -map designing powertool

[Pyros]

Gentlemen,

If you need to design a real topo map and you can't find any topo map, then you may depend on Google_earth for a nice representation of the map elevation.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/410871-Google_earth_powertool.JPG

cheers,
Pyros

[Pyros]

Just a couple kilometers before Thermopylae, place of the WW2 battle of Thermopylae.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/410956-thermopylaeA.JPG

[Pyros]

1:50,000 TOPO map of the Thermopylae region

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/366717-361135-ThermopylaeB.JPG

[Pyros]

Sp relief map (orientation of the top left Google picture)

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/364935-relief_map_Thermopylae.JPG

[halstein]

Neat.
Have you made a Thermopylae map? Would be nice for a Greek defend vs. Persian attack.

Halstein.

[Pyros]

halstein said:
Neat.
Have you made a Thermopylae map? Would be nice for a Greek defend vs. Persian attack.

Halstein.



Yes, a Thermopylae map is almost ready, but we will use it for a German attack vs an ANZAC defense! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

cheers,
Pyros

[Mustang]

The only problem is that it dosen't show any elevation at all in fairly flat terrain, like the desert. This isn't good if you're trying to design North Africa scenarios.

[Pyros]

There is trick for this issue,

go to the tools/option and put next to elevation exaggeration the value of 3 !! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

cheers,

[Pyros]

Here is another free online tool

http://www.fallingrain.com/world/

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/413227-Platamon.JPG

cheers,
Pyros

[Pyros]

Here is a combined effort to create the relief of a desert area.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/413681-mustang1.JPG

[Pyros]

MicroDEM suggested by MKSheppard

http://www.strategyzoneonline.com/forums/showthread.php?p=509946#post509946

This is the same region (flat desert), using the MicroDEM


by MKSheppard

In 2000 NASA flew the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM); which provided elevation data accurate to 3" for the entire world; which means the entire world has been mapped with an accuracy of 90 meters.

Link to FTP where you can obtain the data (ftp://e0srp01u.ecs.nasa.gov/)

Using this data and MicroDEM;



This is a completely flat map near El Alamein (Africa).

Thanks to this display filter, I managed to make visible the 10 meters elevation curves.

In this 14 km x 10 km desert map

Purple is -10 meters,
Cyan is above -10 and below 0 meters,
Blue is 0 meters,
Green is above 0 and below 10 meters,
Yellow is 10 meters,
Red is 20 meters,

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/415253-MustangTOPO.JPG

[Pyros]

In this example you may observe the red box inside the historical topo map of Platamon 1940.

This MICRODEM map defines an area of 1,8 Km x 1,2 Km, which gives a 36 x 24 hexes WinSPMBT map.

You may also notice With contour lines generated at 10 meter height intervals.

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/415258-Platamon_NEWb.JPG
http://mmk.thenet.gr/photos/albums/userpics/pic/%21%20Various%20Sites/normal_Platamonas.jpg
http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/413227-Platamon.JPG
http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g141/pyroslambert/platamongoogle.jpg

[Pyros]

In order to use MICRODEM, you should know the Latitude & Longitude of the map region.

This can be done visually by the use of Google_earth or by searching within earthsearch database.

http://www.earthsearch.net/intSearch.php

[Pyros]

Here is another example how to make a map from the scratch.
The only clue I had about making this map was the name of the region: Minqar Qaim

After determining the approximate location with the help of Google_Earth map, I first noted the coordinates and then I searched for this map within the MICRODEM engine.

The next thing I did was to download the correct section of the SRTM3 African map (according to the coordinates, 31N 27E) from the NASA directories.

Here is the final result:

http://www.shrapnelcommunity.com/threads/uploads/422837-minqair_qaimCF1.JPG

[kgambit]

Great stuff Pyros!

Here's a few updates:

The MICRODEM link Mark Shepard's post appears to be broken Here are the links to the MICRODEM home page and download pages:

http://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/microdem/microdem.htm
http://www.usna.edu/Users/oceano/pguth/website/microdem/microdemdown.htm

Sources of free digital data for use with MICRODEM are listed in the help file for MICRODEM, but SRTM data is about the best available for elevations.

There are three sets of SRTM data: SRTM1, SRTM3 and SRTM30
SRTM1: United States, resolution ~30 m, 1 arc-sec
SRTM3: Global, resolution ~90 m, 3 arc-sec
SRTM30: Global, resolution ~900 m, 30 arc-sec

More information on the SRTM data set can be found here:

http://dds.cr.usgs.gov/srtm/version2_1/Documentation/SRTM_Topo.pdf

You can go to the following site and interactively find the appropriate SRTM file without an intermediate step to google to find lat/lon

http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/

To preview the SRTM data, go to Data sets, Digital Elevation, then click SRTM or SRTM void filled

SRTM data file names refer to the latitude and longitude of the lower left corner of the tile - e.g. N37W105 has its lower left corner at 37 degrees north latitude and 105 degrees west longitude

one degree longitude = 111 km * cos(lat)
one degree latitude = 111 km
So the SRTM maps cover a LOT or territory

You can go to this site and click on the colored region to pull up a complete list of downloadable SRTM data files

http://www.webgis.com/srtm3.html

Files are anywhere from 300kb to 1.5 megs ZIPPED

PS: In addition to Google Earth, here are some handy online sites:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/
http://www.maps-for-free.com/
http://mapper.acme.com/
http://www.bing.com/maps/

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/map_collection_guide.html
(Huge collection of downloadable maps)

Soviet-military-topographic-map (!) FREE downloads - GREAT site
http://maps.vlasenko.net/soviet-military-topographic-map/

[wulfir]

Some links to detailed Scandinavian map sites. Works well with the Venhola program:

Norway:

http://norgeskart.no/#!?project=seeiendom&layers=1002,1015&zoom=4&lat=7197864.00&lon=396722.00

Sweden:

https://kso.etjanster.lantmateriet.se/

Finland:

https://asiointi.maanmittauslaitos.fi/karttapaikka/?lang=en

[DRG]

Those ARE nice maps

[wulfir]

France:

https://www.geoportail.gouv.fr/donnees/limites-administratives


Switzerland:

https://map.geo.admin.ch/?lang=en&topic=ech&bgLayer=ch.swisstopo.pixelkarte-farbe&layers=ch.swisstopo.zeitreihen,ch.bfs.gebaeude_woh nungs_register,ch.bav.haltestellen-oev,ch.swisstopo.swisstlm3d-wanderwege&layers_visibility=false,false,false,false&layers_timestamp=18641231,,,&E=2608333.48&N=1240468.82&zoom=2

[wulfir]

WWII focus, but useful for 1950s scenarios...

British maps for most of mainland Europe. Zoom in...

http://gigapan.com/gigapans/155132