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Coverting physical to digital?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Levryl, Jan 15, 2011.

  1. Levryl

    Levryl New Member

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    I recently purchased the Red Box starter set and was planning on using its Twisting Halls adventure to kick off my campaign. Being some what familiar with the "create map" function of d20Pro and owning a digital camera I was feeling fairly confident about the prospect. After a few hours of playing with the digital image I realized there has to be an easier way. My scanner is way to small to accommodate this large map.

    My preferred method of editing digital pictures is with Paint.net. I am fairly proficient with cropping, resizing and "straightening" of images yet it seams the photos I take are never square enough to the original map, for example the camera may be closer to the map on the left side as opposed to the right side. While this may seam like an insignificant amount at the time of the picture taking when I transfer that photo to Paint.net I can never seam to get a square clean battle map suitable for use.

    So the question is what is the best method of converting the preprinted battle maps to a digital format?
     
    #1 Levryl, Jan 15, 2011
  2. MadCartographer

    MadCartographer New Member

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    Try going to: http://www.cartographersguild.com/
    Its a digital mapping comunity called "The Cartographers Guild". They make digital maps for anything you can think of.

    Or

    Try looking around on the net for a digital map of what you want.
     
    #2 MadCartographer, Jan 15, 2011
  3. Daeruin

    Daeruin New Member

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    I had a map that was too big for my scanner. I ended up just scanning it in pieces and reassembling them in Photoshop. If you have want to use the camera pictures, you can use Photoshop to fix the problem of having the left side slightly larger or smaller than the right. It might distort things a little bit, but if you scan it at a high enough resolution, it might not even be noticeable. I know this won't help you much if you don't have Photoshop, but it's the only image editing software I have and use.
     
    #3 Daeruin, Jan 15, 2011
  4. neofax

    neofax New Member

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    You could also see if a local Kinko's or Staples has a large enough scanner. If not, like the previous poster said you can use your scanner and there is software that will take multiple images and stitch them back together.
     
    #4 neofax, Jan 19, 2011
  5. edwardcd

    edwardcd Administrator
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    A free alternative is GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) found here

    It has many of the same features of Photoshop for free. :)
     
    #5 edwardcd, Jan 19, 2011
  6. Levryl

    Levryl New Member

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    Thanks for all the suggestions. I did indeed contact my local Staples, they could scan sections of 11" X 17" wich would have resulted in a total of 8 scans to do both sides of the battlemap, at a cost of $5.95 a scan plus tax, I rejected this option.

    Instead i struggled thru to scan the maps on my smaller home scanner, it took eight scans per side. I used paint.net to past them in layers with a litle tweaking I was able to get a map that is functional in d20pro. I could not get the image true enough to enable the grid overlay but the squares printed on the map are true enough to use as a reference.
     
    #6 Levryl, Jan 20, 2011
  7. tifanny357

    tifanny357 New Member

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    I think the best method is to use an image converting control.
     
    #7 tifanny357, Mar 10, 2014
  8. Caraldur

    Caraldur Member

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    Before I import a map with a grid into D20pro, I'll usually open it in Photoshop, but any photo editing software will work, and I will use the selection to outline 10 blocks of the map grid. Then I will find out how many pixels are in my selection, then divide that number into 500, if I want a 50px grid. For example your selection is 350 px for 10 blocks, divide 500 by 350 and you get 1.43. Resizing your image to 143% will give you roughly 50px per square and now when you create your map in d20pro the grids should line up or at least line up enough that is will not cause any problems.

    I hope this helps.

    -Car
     
    #8 Caraldur, Mar 10, 2014
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