Lankarta™ is a concept of a bundle of software that allows users to easily create, edit and organize maps in any web browser. The main difference between the existing GIS software and Lankarta is that my project will be more adapted to creation of fictional or fantasy maps and will skip some of the more advanced features and plugins that are used in real life spatial work, so will be easy to use enough to create convincing maps, but would also be very convenient for drawing real life maps. The app will be a made in web technologies to be cross-platform and so can everyone put that app on any server and run the app localy or remotely.
My intention is to make it fully open source so everyone can use and modify it. Obviously there is no way in hell I would build all the features that I want by myself, but rather it will be build with various open source tools and libraries.
I would like to have more money as my baby dries my account so fastđź’¸, but this project is meant to be my way to learn programming and make all kinds of maps that I always wanted to do. And if I ever manage to develop it, and other people want use it too, it would be an honor!
As of right now, there is nothing to show here, not a single working snippet of code, those are just my boring notes.
? What do you want? - an app that I could make fictional maps with, easily
? How the interface should look like? - it should be as welcoming as SimCity4, as complex and powerful as Inkscape, and include strictly cartographic features.
? Inkscape already exist, what do you want more? - cartographic features, different styles while zooming, scale, projections, timelines of changes, pathfinding and so on and so forth.
? Why not real programs like QGIS or ArcGIS? - cause I'm too dumb and those are not designed to make fictional stuff out of the box.
? Is it a game? - no, more like a drawing app, but it would allow to make maps for games much faster, and those maps could be more interactive than just hand-drawn or saved as just digital image.
? Why this webpage is so long, how many more features do you want? - I want many stuff, and I want those simple stuff to have certain interface, I just wrote my wishes and ideas, and this document is constantly changing.
? Like what for example? - one of the key feature I want is to be able to make clickable network maps, that is not a geographical map with real distances but something like subway maps, with stations that acts as icons that can be clicked like a link to some other map or any kind of image, website etc.
? You said the app would be useful for games, how about some nice graphics, assets, templates etc. so making a game map would be as easy as draging and dropping some sprites on desired area? - yes, that's very important for me, I want that app to have collections of assets that can be easily put on the map, that look and act like proper geographical objects, not only assets, I want creators of the assets, the whole topic is just a giant wishlist for me and I'm not going into it, keep the Q&A simple.
? Will everything be a map, I mean just 2D and flat? - If I had a crew of coders and graphic designers with skills of at least Paradox Interactive for example then sure I might want it, otherwise the only thing is even remotely plausible for me to add is ability to place custom 3D rotating sprites on the map.
? Commercial or open source? - open source ftw
? Do you know how to do it, can you code well, do you need help - nope, I'm figuring out it by myself as of right now, and I'm struggling as usual.
I have many ideas but I struggle to organize them so this list will always be changing and rephrasing.
In my humble opinion the reason why worldbuilding projects based on maps aren't that popular is that while creating a map, everything have to be drawn by hand to get desired complexity. If OpenGeofiction or other similar projects had included in their browser-based map editors ploppable buildings and kits to generate complex buildings, those projects could potentially gain more casual mappers, and creation of convincing regions would be much, much faster.
Features almost useless in real life scenarios, procedural generation is the best way to speed up development of convincing ficitonal maps. Drawing everything by hand is time consuming and mostly not desirable as many people would rather focus on other aspects of map making than height map consistency, tectonic plates mechanics, realistic water bodies behavior etc. Also the procedural generation of settlements would be a great way to start off creating realistic history of a fictional city, you start with a bunch of natural looking autogenerated paths and villages, then expanding them or leaving as the regional context of the fully planned city.
It would be cool if there was a way to create a map in different points of time and be able to easily save and manage them. So for example the first map of certain area is from 1600, it's a fortress, then you can jump to 1800 and based on previous map, make changes, add or remove objects with the preview of the past.
Modules that can conduct simulations on maps will be the hardest one to make. I don't think I would ever be able to compete with professional GIS software in the field of real traffic simulations, so I think simplified simulations tailored to making games in fictional scenarios will already be a great achievement.
The whole Lankarta app will probably written as a web app, that can work on computers as offline servers. Anybody can launch and host its own online server to invite others to collaborate, create common maps and simulations.
Fully 3D view of a map maker is way too complex and tedious to make, if Paradox Interactive is struggling to make it, I have no chance. What I see as a great idea is to use some lightweight AI image generator model to generate sattelite images out of regular maps. It doesn't have to be some ultra full AI, the whole process needs basic steps like putting textures on vectors and using AI generator to add some random details and mesh repeating textures.
The app's UI would be basically a blend of iD Editor (in-browser editor of Openstreetmap.org), Cities Skylines (many people are familiar with its interface) and some elements of SimCity4 (I know that is silly but that's my favourite city builder when it comes to user experience). I want it to be simple enough to use for non-nerds of GIS software like QGIS or ArcGIS and be more better suited for creating fictional and fantasy maps.
Recently I tried out drawing some tiny maps in OpenGeoFiction.org, but although the map editor is quite nice, it's a bit tedious to make large scale maps. One of the key differences between iD Editor and my idea is that I would like to be able to have built-in collection of ploppable buildings, interchanges, compounds etc. that in iD everything must be drawn separately. Maybe JOSM (Java OpenStreetMap Editor) have better feautures but it's even more convoluted than QGIS (or I'm just dumb which is likely).
I've tried to at least draw vector mock-ups of the Lankarta's UI but the details in the concept changes so often that it's not feasible without write down concrete functionalities. I'm wrapping my head around the ways to differenciate the tools for creating either real world maps or fictional worlds.
Keep trying to be focused and just coding once in a while.
In the meantime, updating this silly webpage to experiment with CSS and organizing my thoughts.
Not so great to be frank, I've tried everything, but I'm not completely fluent in any of those technologies, but with enough time, commitment and perhaps pestering AI chatbots with programming questions I might get a hand on some nice languages and apps.
As of right now it's just an idea and my childhood dream and probably it will stay that way, sadly I barely ever finish anything. I still got nothing other than the concept of a plan. I would probably eventually just settle on drawing maps in Inkscape if I find some extenstion to draw multi-lane roads with a single path, but I will always dream "slightly" bigger. Right now I have enough will power to polish this site rather than learning more complex web programming.
The other options are:
I am sure I missed a lot of good apps or games that could help me design some very detailed maps, but the point is, I would like to have something that would be as customizable for my ideas as possible.
I just like drawing maps, both real and fictional, on paper, but since I installed Google Earth for the first time (from DVD disc featured in Google apps book guide, long time ago, back when Google SketchUp was still maintained, good times!) I always wanted to be able to create my own zoomable, interactive maps. All the app that I tried were either too complicated (QGIS is just too much without proper study), not interactive enough (all graphic software, Inkscape is the closest to interactive maps but not that good) or too simplistic (Mapchart, Paint and other simplest approaches).
If this whole project ever get any good it might even contribute to my CV, which would be very surprising.
Yes, but no one can help me if I can't start it by myself. If anyone reach out to me right now "hey I know how to code, we can work together", that's not feasible as I can't really do much by myself and engage that much as the reality is more important.
The best way to possibly help me is to give me the step-by-step guide to learn how to make the bundle a bunch of open-source web apps.
AS a sidenote, if anyone actually started to make the app that would allow me to make interactive fictional maps easily, that's awesome, I want that thing to happen!
If you want to contact me about what I've just written here you can e-mail me at unitedvolicafoundation@gmail.com.