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Presenting this to see if this method is "basically functional" or whether I'm whacked out... (could be both, of course...)

Basically, have been scrounging for easy to use map making resources and didn't come up with what I needed. That is - a very easy to use reference of a good map that breaks everything down into 15 km hexes. It doesn't need to be perfect - just something "reasonably good".

So after about 3-4 days at this, I decided to experiment more with Google Earth. That at least takes care of the "decent map". It apparently has quite a few options, one of which is the "image overlay" (Under "ADD").

I don't have photoshop as I'm totally retarded when it comes to artwork. I found
http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/hexagonal/ which lets you create graph paper - in a pdf format. As big or small as you like, any color, all that...

I think the Google map scale is based on "per inch" - I ended up setting the graph to be .5 inch per hex (but as you can see below, the yellow line indicates it is not "exact"). I opened up the PDF file, made a screenshot, copied into MS Paint, cropped it, and saved it as a PNG file.

Then, I imported that file into Google Earth - and it let's you adjust the image transparency to whatever you need. So now - the attachment is the finished product. I think the hexagon graph needs a bit of refining - and the size of the finished image needs to be larger, but it looks like this can be a functional mapping method.

Is there anything I'm missing?

On the map I'm working on, Ben set up the original map parameters using (I believe) Bob's LatLong program. Would the above method cause any distortions? If so, how significant would they be?

Anyways... I've found someone else working in a similar direction, but there's significant glitches with what they've done - at http://ec2-46-137-6-196.eu-west-1.compute.amazonaws.com/

There appears to be options to create a code that could just tile the hexagon across the entire map (but could lead to distortions as above). I've also seen reference to where the "hexes" can be a fixed (vs relative) distance. This may be a secondary fall-back measure.

Again - not looking for perfect, just "close enough."

Thanks for any help/input!

Not real Google Earth literate. Only use it to check photos and fly over to see if I'm close with terrain.

Can you pick an area and have Google Earth make a copy of that area for you to work with?

I dunno... I've only used it a few times in the past, so I don't know everything that it can or can't do.  I know for example, I can take a screen shot with the map at a certain altitude and get "x km/inch" - and can manipulate that image in MS Paint or Photoshop on my wife's computer.  Looks like it also lets you save as .jpg.  I don't know how to put the transparent grid on top of it without GoogleEarth - except that it might be done via layers... but not quite sure how that works either.

It has lat/long and a pretty cool grid that goes with that; also can adjust the scale to miles/feet.  Mostly though, I learned about it being a possibility from all the google searches I did, but then a lot of the search results referenced coding, layers and other stuff beyond me.  I'm not a programmer, though if I have something to work from I can piece things together a lot of times - but takes a long time.  For something like this though, I'd even pay a programmer to do it if I exhaust what I can do. 

Using the hex link above, I did get a 40 inch square hex paper image - but think I need Photoshop to save that PDF file as a JPG or PNG with the same size. 

Why not using the ODD program from Kamerad Chambers?

Klink, Oberst

I've used David Clark's 'Hexthingy'. If you get into it, use 7.855 degrees 'orientation' to convert for TOAW.

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
've used David Clark's 'Hexthingy'. If you get into it, use 7.855 degrees 'orientation' to convert for TOAW.

[&o][&o][&o][&o][&o][&o][&o]

7.885 degrees it is!! Gave up after several attempts and fruitless web searches... Thanks .)

ORIGINAL: Oberst_Klink
Why not using the ODD program from Kamerad Chambers?

Klink, Oberst

[&o][&o][&o][&o][&o]


Ha... Ahem... [8|]
That's what I meant to say... I was looking all over the Internet and found the ODD Utility, loaded my .jpg - set the # of pixels per km and the number of km per hex and... [X(]

voila! [:)]

Actually, I thought ODD was specifically for events, not sure how I missed the map graphing function. Thank you!!!

After work I'll check out Hex Thingy again, too.

Feeling like a burro's buttocks about now... ha... livin' and learnin'

ORIGINAL: Telumar

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
've used David Clark's 'Hexthingy'. If you get into it, use 7.855 degrees 'orientation' to convert for TOAW.

[&o][&o][&o][&o][&o][&o][&o]

7.885 degrees it is!! Gave up after several attempts and fruitless web searches... Thanks .)

Yes, that was a pain, so I'm happy to pass on the info.

Once you have the grid layed over the map, note that there is a date line for historical maps in one of the view drop downs. That way you can regress to the 1940's.