1 reply to this topic

[Robbie]

Hi All,

I`m interested in making traditional globes (on a turned wooden base) but with a modern map, and wondered if anyone could advise me on which software is best for creating an attractively rendered map of Earth.

I thought of maybe using Tom Patterson's Natural Earth and then increasing the colour contrast between land and oceans in Photoshop, before converting to a 12 gore projection using the Flaming Pear Flexify 2 plugin.

It seems I also need ESRIArcGIS to open the Natural Earth files.

As I know nothing about cartography, it`d be great to hear your views on what software is best for this project, and if there is a better way to go about it before I buy and learn how to use Photoshop and ESRIArcGIS.

Many thanks!

Rob

[Hans van der Maarel]

I`m interested in making traditional globes (on a turned wooden base) but with a modern map, and wondered if anyone could advise me on which software is best for creating an attractively rendered map of Earth.

I thought of maybe using Tom Patterson's Natural Earth and then increasing the colour contrast between land and oceans in Photoshop, before converting to a 12 gore projection using the Flaming Pear Flexify 2 plugin.

It seems I also need ESRIArcGIS to open the Natural Earth files.

As I know nothing about cartography, it`d be great to hear your views on what software is best for this project, and if there is a better way to go about it before I buy and learn how to use Photoshop and ESRIArcGIS.

As it happens, I've made globes, using Tom's data... Beanbag ones that you can sit in:
http://www.redgeogra...o/oolaalaa.html as well as inflatable ones (no images of those I'm afraid) and as far as I know a furniture maker in Vermont is working very hard on a proper one made from wood.

Are you planning to use just the raster files, or also the vector ones? Either way, ArcGIS could be used, but there's other options that may be cheaper and/or easier to learn. I produced my globe gores in Adobe Illustrator using MAPublisher, importing vector data on top of the rasters that I've reprojected in Global Mapper.