Maps-Editable Vector Maps – How to Make Maps

Maps are so ubiquitous that we forget that we use maps on daily basis. The signage, the road mile stones, the directions that ask are basically maps in the making. Yes we make maps in our minds. Once you put these on paper or on electronic media, these become hard copy or soft copy maps.

Maps basically fall in two categories, the raster and the vector maps. Raster maps are images of paper maps, it can be said to be similar to photographs. Can you edit them, yes but very difficult to control each aspect of raster maps layout and designs.

Then how do we edit the maps and control all design and layout aspect? The answer is vector maps, these are intelligent maps which are basically made of three entities, points, lines and shapes. The points are symbols of hospitals, schools etc. The lines represent all entities which are denoted by paths like roads, railways, streams, contours etc. The area or shape comes in for parks, large water bodies, and even your home or office building if is a small scale map. Yes small scale map; smaller the scale larger is the detail on the map.

Mapping is an art and science. Art because it represents our piece of earth in an artistic way. And science because the representation has to meet exacting standards. Say for a map on a million scale, things lesser than a few hundred meters will be just points. So many small lakes may just disappear on a million map and similarly many small roads will just not show up. Just try zooming in and out on Google Maps to see how it behaves.

You want to see some maps just go over to www.mapsandlocations.com. It describes different types of maps. You can also ask for an editable PDF or Illustrator map from the site administrator to experiment with. And how would you edit the PDF or Illustrator map, well just download fully functional Illustrator CS3 from Adobe Website. You can also use Macromedia Freehand for editing vector maps.

Source by Anu Mohan

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