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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Redrobes" data-source="post: 3481891" data-attributes="member: 40793">I wasn't going to keep posting about my mapping program but alas I feel I must.Firstly there are a lot of mapping programs out there and they all have different styles and purposes so you have to get to know each one and decide which one fits the way you want to make maps. Some people like bitmap editors like Photoshop and they work extremely well for some people - particularly those who are artistic. Some other like a CAD like interface and vectored lines / art and these appeal to people who use CAD or are at least comfortable with that kind of map.For image editors you have ultimate freedom to change each pixel so you can blend add nice effects and draw anything. Its unlimited. Its also very slow and tedious. You need a large collection of art as brushes to use and you are going to have to scale and rotate all of them to place them down. If you want to change it then either you need to put massive amounts of layers down which chew through memory like anything or else you don't edit it. Photoshop is great for art. Useful maps are not art. Photoshop et al are not good for making useful maps.CAD programs are great for drawing man made stuff with perfect corners at specific dimensions etc. Its not good for trees. You can use pre-existing vector art but you cant create vector art easily.I think that image splatting / stamping or whatever you call it is the best answer. You can create art from photos or scans of your pen and paper maps.So onto your list.Firstly Dundjinni does all but the last item on that list so if your map is small then there is one option. It has been said that it is a bit of a resource hog. It runs in Java so there is a limit as to how fast it can go. However, many people like it and there are a lot of good maps made from it.I started writing ViewingDale long before Dundjinni was released and although Im obviously biassed, I think it fixes the problems inherent in it. Though not being written in Java it is not a portable program.ViewingDale uses graphics card hardware acceleration to make it extremely fast. Because its so fast it is real time and as such is a zoom browser which frees you from having fixed scale bitmap art. So it has all the best features of CAD scalability and ease of art creation. Because it works in any scale you can create battle maps and wilderness maps or continental maps. It supports png,jpg and bmp - gif is deliberately not supported due to Compuserve being such gits with the patent extortion. Though the patent has run out now I dont see that gifs offer anything that png cannot do. Gifs are history. Anyhoo - you can check out the results of its maps on the website.So is there a need for another utility. Well, No. I think its well covered. But I did not believe that it was done right when I started to write one so you may disagree.<a href="http://www.viewingdale.com" target="_blank">www.viewingdale.com</a>Free demo available - try it ! Is it fast and stable enough for you ?</blockquote>

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