Help needed about QGIS

[exsonic01]

Ok, I downloaded and played a bit with QGIS. Looks like a great software, but it has a bit steep learning curve. Gonna take a while to get used to it, but hopefully, I wish I could make a good result.

1) Can I get general work flow of QGIS map making?
It doesn't need to be detailed, but wish I could have a vague idea of step-by-step process.

2) Which plugins are recommended?
I learned that MMQGIS is a plugin for the hex grid. What else plugins are essential for roads and contour-height expression? OpenStreetMap in OpenLayers seems great but not sure how can I use them for the map-making.

3) How can I put elements?
Do I need to prepare image of road/woods/city blocks/water/etc... for the map? Or should I need to draw in QGIS?

4) About contour and height level
I really wish to know about this part... Even OCM landscape provides good topo-info and contours, but how can I use them in the map-making? Is there any way to get the contour from the plugin, and use them in the map directly?

Sorry for so many questions but I found that map-making itself is fun I wish I could contribute to this game and community by some maps and more...

Thank you

Best,

[harry_vdk]

Dive into qgis is on my bucketlist and when I am familiar I will share the result.

But first I am dealing some real life issues.

[exsonic01]

I'm answering myself for convenience.

1. One can import/export vector data using OpenStreetMap. But OSM data is quite inaccurate, so it is inevitable to draw the roads, woods, and building sections by hand. This would takes some time.
2. I found 2 ways to get the topo data so far. One is GMTED tif files (http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/), and the other is SRTM3 hgt files (https://dds.cr.usgs.gov/srtm/version2_1/SRTM3/) After download, add the file as raster layer, than clip and get contour. DEM could help to fill the colors between contour lines.

Question:
Everytime when I attempt to clip the tif or hgt raster layer, the clipping takes eons of time, and the result file takes crazy amount of hard disk drive. Need to escape from this situation. Anyone could share idea regarding this issue?

ps) Thanks Harry, wow, we replied the post at the almost same time. [:)]

[harry_vdk]

If you searching for german (current) maps ant topo data take a look at:
http://www.geodatenzentrum.de/geodaten/ ... _user_id=0

[exsonic01]

Thank you but my area of interest is not in Germany.

[harry_vdk]

A lot of data can downloaded from this place, but where are your interest?
http://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/

[exsonic01]

Thank you, I'm already using GMTED data (I wrote in self-answer post). I have a plan for a Korean war mod, which covers several areas of North Korea.

I was following this (http://www.qgistutorials.com/en/docs/wo ... rrain.html) tutorial. But during step 10 and 11, clipping the area of interest takes too long time, and the result file is ridiculously huge (more than 100gb). I couldn't find how to escape from this issue...

[exsonic01]

I find the way to prevent "ages long" clipping. Before clipping, uncheck "On the fly" form CRS. "On the fly" causes that long time, huge clipping process. After clipping, turn on "On the fly" again.

Funny thing is, this solution is not 100% guaranteed. Sometimes the symptom still occurs regardless of "On the fly" checkbox. In that case, just save and reload, retry again.

upload image online
My progress so far. Now I need to draw the roads, woods, and buildings.

[exsonic01]

Found some hints about wargame-map-making:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRaxI7EnX-k
This is a great tutorial series to follow. You can learn how to create a world with photoshop.

https://youtu.be/jf23Teu0bfU
Similar but more simple approach using GIMP. But I'm not familiar with GIMP...

https://youtu.be/T7SgJKgaWw4
This shows great hints about how to draw river and mountains in hex-map-environment using photoshop. This helped me a lot. Some of his other tutorials are also useful for us.

http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/ ... es-in-qgis
QGIS can also "curve fit" the spiky road/river spatialite layers in great quality. Name of the plugin is "Generalizer", which categorized as deprecated so you need to select the experimental / deprecated plugin option on. But this works nicely. GRASS can do the same work, but I couldn't find it from plugin depository for some reason. You can render roads and water from the photoshop as well.

Overall, I found GIMP, Photoshop, and Paintnet have great potential to make and decorate map with excellent detail. With the QGIS, all those tools would greatly improve the quality of any hex-based wargame maps.

[BeirutDude]

I'm about where you are Wi11am provided a lot of help to me but now I'm stuck again.

[exsonic01]

ORIGINAL: Beachinnole

I'm about where you are Wi11am provided a lot of help to me but now I'm stuck again.

Which point you stucked? I'm drawing liens - roads and streams - in QGIS now. Maybe I could help

[BeirutDude]

I assume we're creating shape files for the features as the scanner just cares about the RGB but what RGB colors are we using? I noted new road colors in the new maps etc...