Street Map Making Software

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yamahauler

Active member
I am wondering if anyone in here is a cartographer or has experience making maps.

If so, what are some map making software that is good but not crazy expensive.

I am looking for software to just make street maps for our FD.

Thanks.
 
F

frnash

Active member
What, with some of the amazing maps available today, you have to make your own?
I would guess that's cuz you have to maintain up-to-date maps, including very recent construction, etc.
Where do other FD'sget their mapping software? (I have seen a few that include even interior details of commercial buildings, hi-rise buildings as well.)

Check out what DeLorme has to offer. I have used their Street Atlas and Topo maps for eons, but haven't done any mapping myself, other than adding a few navigable roads.

Check out their Xmap 7 GIS application, it may be exactly what you're looking for.
 
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rocky367

Member
I've been using www.OpenStreetMaps.org to make maps for the snowmobile trail this year. Also, using the data in the gps to help create maps.
In combination with openstreets data, I use Quantam GIS to manipulate the data, i.e. remove stuff I don't want and add tags. Take a look at the site and see if it meets what you want to do.

Delorme's stuff is great, I have a Delorme gps and the data is great!
 
Y

yamahauler

Active member
The company we've been using is going under. And with the never ending changes that we seem to encounter, we want to be able to add those more than once a year and not have to deal with an outside company.

Thanks for the info thus far, I'll look into it.
 
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rocky367

Member
If you truly want to be on your own and are a fire department, why not ask the local planning/surveyor for the data? We did that originally for our trail map for a couple years and he was more than happy to provide the data.
OpenStreet is basically the same data you get from the planning dept. just put out by people that want to make their own maps for free.
 
lofsfire

lofsfire

Well-known member
A lot of good options here, I was lucky to get free air photos of our area then traced the roads in AutoCad but I use CAD everyday for work. We have a map book the basically looks like Google earth. It's divide it up in to Grids and each page is a grid section on our full wall map. The wall map is 7'x7' One minor problem our area with the most roads is near the top. Fine for me not so good for the short guys. Looks great on the wall! The map book is 17"x11" each page is 24lb Paper laminated with 5mil front and back makes it durable in the trucks. I had everything approved last August then right before we printed all 20 books for each truck guys wanted to add stuff so now the data is a year old. Not the worst thing, b/c there are no new subdivisions going in right now and it can easily be changed.

But really with the price of GPS units being so low I'm now pushing for us to just buy some GPS units and be done with it. The books cost $105 to print plus my time to up date etc. Which is free to the Dept. but I'm running out of free time myself. Also our area is fairly big with some area heavy with subdivisions and other being mostly farm fields.

PM me and give me your email and I can send you some PDF of what ours looks like if you want.

Also if you can get the info from you local GIS departmental get it. Our Survey runs the County GIS and is a major pain in the you know what! Plus our area splits two county so that presents its own challenges too.
 
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