Software for scanning/converting physical hex maps

[Joseph R]

I would like some advice on how to digitise physical hex maps.

History? I have a collection of hand-drawn B&W geomorph cave battlemats 7 hexes across. Not particularly fancy, but I have a heap of them. I started years ago, initially in frustration that the "promised" Skeleton Key Games' Hex Caves set never arrived (I suspect that the only other set produced, Hex Wilderness, never sold enough compared to the 1" square crowd).

Anyhoo, geography now separates my gaming group, and I would like to be able to use these geomorphs in MapTool.

I think that in some ways, they would be even more useful in MapTool; FoW and LoS controls, plus a much larger "playing surface", mean I could lay out more elaborate sprawls than were possible on our little table.

Downside will be, that they might look a bit plain in 24/32bit high-colour. More importantly, being hand-drawn they won't always tessellate perfectly; small margin of error is fine for physical maps stuck together with post-its, but could play havoc with a super-imposed grid. I'd still like to try, though.

EDIT: Oh, this is the sort of thing I mean

[Anaraxes]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "how". I'm tempted to say "buy a scanner and have at it", but that seems unhelpful enough that it probably isn't what you meant. What part of the "how" concerns you, exactly?

A program like GIMP or Photoshop will probably come in handy. You could use this to drive the scanner. Also, you could scale the images if need be, and also paste together those large sprawls before you put the image in MapTool, so less worries about accumulated placement errors. You could also colorize the maps by painting colors over the scanned B&W outlines. (You can do this with partially transparent "layers" or other tricks of the programs to paint less than opaque colors and still have the lines show through.)

[Blind Mapmaker]

I guess you're looking for an easy way to store and recombine those. I don't see an easier than putting them on different layers in a graphics programme that supports layers, like Anaraxes said. You could try to import them directly into MapTool as objects, but that would likely result in weird placement. Also you're not supposed to use objects for the background map, only for overlays and creatures. Anyway, the end result may look weird.

May I ask why you really want to use these in an online game? They look kind of plain and while they're probably great for tabletop gaming you can easily do better with simple graphics programmes like Gimp, Inkscape or AutoREALM. It doesn't really take that much effort to map a cave system and you can just save it in a single image file. You can also use colours and most MapTool counters would look better on a coloured map than a black & white one. Buying Campaign Cartographer would probably be overkill just for making a couple of caves, but I've had good experiences with using CC maps in MapTool. Even quick and dirty ones work great.

[Joseph R]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "how". I'm tempted to say "buy a scanner and have at it", but that seems unhelpful enough that it probably isn't what you meant. What part of the "how" concerns you, exactly?

A program like GIMP or Photoshop will probably come in handy. You could use this to drive the scanner. Also, you could scale the images if need be, and also paste together those large sprawls before you put the image in MapTool, so less worries about accumulated placement errors. You could also colorize the maps by painting colors over the scanned B&W outlines. (You can do this with partially transparent "layers" or other tricks of the programs to paint less than opaque colors and still have the lines show through.)

Well, I've played with GIMP a tiny bit, but wasn't really sure if it would do what I want. From what you say, it will. I didn't what to buy a scanner unless I was sure.

Originally Posted by Blind Mapmaker

I guess you're looking for an easy way to store and recombine those. I don't see an easier than putting them on different layers in a graphics programme that supports layers, like Anaraxes said. You could try to import them directly into MapTool as objects, but that would likely result in weird placement. Also you're not supposed to use objects for the background map, only for overlays and creatures. Anyway, the end result may look weird.

May I ask why you really want to use these in an online game? They look kind of plain and while they're probably great for tabletop gaming you can easily do better with simple graphics programmes like Gimp, Inkscape or AutoREALM. It doesn't really take that much effort to map a cave system and you can just save it in a single image file. You can also use colours and most MapTool counters would look better on a coloured map than a black & white one. Buying Campaign Cartographer would probably be overkill just for making a couple of caves, but I've had good experiences with using CC maps in MapTool. Even quick and dirty ones work great.

Yeah, they are kind of plain; at the time it was what I could do by hand without being expert with a graphics program, while being cheaper on ink too. Call my desire to reuse them more a case of nostalgia than practicality :-)

Thank you both for the replies. I'm realising that for all the time scanning, sizing/stretching, making the borders transparent etc, it would probably more efficient to start from scratch; especially if I've got to learn a new bit of s/w either way!

[Blind Mapmaker]

Whoa, I didn't quite get that those weren't a store-bought product. Thought "hand-drawn" was in reference to the style. They're really neat for something done by hand.

If you don't want to buy a scanner just for trying out the geomorphs, try to use your digital camera. Many of those have a document photography mode. For trying out the tiles in MapTool you don't need a high quality scan. Maybe it's easier to get them to align than I thought. I never really tried multi-part maps in there. It's likely that combining them in Gimp beforehand is still more efficient, though. Try to play around a bit. Gimp has good tutorials if you're stuck.

In any case, thanks for the kind words.

[mlangsdorf]

MapTools has adequate drawing tools. You'll probably produce new maps faster by learning to use MapTools itself than by trying to import a bunch of pngs/gifs.

I used to try to make beautiful maps in Maptools, and it's possible, but I've since decided that it's better to make simple, easy to understand maps. Simple colors, no shadows or funky effects - just let people play on the map instead of asking whether that particular blob of pixels is just there for beauty or is a meaningful obstacle.

[roguebfl]

to get a drawn image onto a computer, you will need a scanner of some type

before scanning make sure there is some scale marker on the marker so that it doesn't matter what dpi you scan it at.

Then load the scaned image into GIMP (becuase it's free and almost as good as Photoshop or other pro tool but if you have the pro tools use them by all means)

also get a image of a grid (hex for gurps of cource) easiest to look for one that being avertises ans sutible for printing your own blank sheet.
Load the grid into GIMP.

Make a working copy of your map, and copy the grid image into it as a new layer. make the grid layer transparent.

Shift the layer around so the grid lines up with scale marker. work our a percentage than you woul have to scale the map to fit the grid. delete the grid layer then scale you working copy of the map by that percentage, then re copy the grid into a new layer and agasin make it trasparent. Check the scale if you got the calculation right just move the layers so the grid and the map line up.

Now either print your new map or save the image in the format used by your your online tool

[Bruno]

I would actually suggest skip putting a grid on it - Maptools can already do that, and caverns hardly have to follow gridlines exactly, so save yourself the heartache.

But if you want to put nice hexgrids on things in GIMP, don't use a scanned one. Generate one in GIMP directly. It's much MUCH tidier and more controllable.

[Ts_]

Before you go out and buy a scanner, you should consider using a digital camera to take a picture of the entire map at once.

Compared to a scanner:
Pros:
* You probably have a digicam.
* You can take a single picture of the entire map and don't have to do stitching.
* It can be quite fast.

Cons:
* Instead of stitching, you probably have to correct the perspective (which is doable in GIMP by tugging on the perspective tool until it looks okay).
* Even after correcting the perspective, the digital copy might be distorted due to the physical map not being pressed flat as in a scanner.
* Unless you find some bright and even light, you also have to compensate for lighting.
* Overall quality is a lot lower than a high-res scanner. On the other hand, it might be good enough for online play depending on how large your map was to begin with.

Just a suggestion. A scanner is probably better, but you might not need it that often. (Though having one can be nice.)
Ts

[Ts_]

Oh, I should have looked at the linked picture ... Anyway, a scanner would give you a better and more consistent quality for these tiles.

Ts