You can get Grid Cartographer 4 on Steam now:

Grid Cartographer 4 is now available on Steam with a 10% launch discount.

I've put years of work into this project and I hope you enjoy using it. If you have any questions or feature requests, please stop by the discussion forum.

Grid Cartographer 4 is a powerful map creation and design tool, with many features:

• Square, Hexagon and Tile-map Grid Types.
• Unlimited floor area with named floors and multiple tabbed 'regions'.
• Quick brush selection with a popup overlay.
• Standard editing tools such as undo, redo and cut, copy and paste.
• Range of selection tools including marquee, paint and wand.
• Simple text labelling and a quick note system.
• Fog-of-war overlays in several different styles.
• Map themes including blueprint, phosphor and parchment styles.
• Scripting system for exporting to proprietary data formats.
• 3D view mode for first-person visualisation.
• Avatar cursor to help track your movements as you explore a map.
• Export maps to PNG with powerful filtering options to create a 'player map'.
• Export maps to OBJ mesh or XML for use with Unity and Unreal Engine.
• Interactive wall levers and treasure chests.
• Custom marker and terrain tile art import.
• Flexible grid setup for limited areas or infinite planes.

Grid Cartographer is on sale (25%) until Monday noon to celebrate its 4 years anniversary.

While working on getting Grid Cartographer on Steam, a new release (version 4.0.4) has been made available, with the following highlights:

Fog-of-War

• Draw opaque hidden / fog tiles in several built-in styles.
• Export images with/without fog for players and Dungeon Master respectively.
• Works on both square and hex grid types.

Game Link

• New auto-tracking profiles for Wizardry IV and Wizardry VII.
• Notification that a game is detected for clearer operation.
• Option to quickly switch to split screen view and setup a new map.

Scripting (Preview)

• First giant step towards scripting support, powered by a customised version of Squirrel.
• Scripted data export. Built-in example provide exports tile maps to .CSV.
• Console window with a simple command line interface inspired by CP/M and DOS.
• 100+ pages of scripting documentation in PDF format. More scripting features will be added in future updates!
• Check out the new scripting forum for more scripts and help writing your own.

Enhanced Mesh Export

• Native support for Unity and Unreal Engine 4 via the .obj mesh format.
• Auto-scale to Unreal units.
• Material/sub-mesh splitting controls for more control.
• Meshes now include explicit Vertex Normals.

Streamlined theme selection

• Theme selection now has its own Setup menu page.
• Option to apply map theme (and fog) changes to all regions with one click.
• Automatically use the last selected theme and fog-style for new maps.

Grid Cartographer 4 now requires a 64-bit operating system

• 32-bit operating systems are no longer supported.
• This applies to both the Gamer and Pro editions.

Many bug fixes

• Greatly reduced CPU usage on Linux and macOS systems.
• Linux version now has partial support for HiDPI displays.
• Restored the clipboard preservation behaviour of older versions.
• Allow some keyboard shortcuts to work in the file menu (such as load and
• save).

Version 3.05 of the famous Grid Cartographer is out. This version has some interesting new features:

• Torches, wall levers, bars. Snow terrain and a tree marker.
• Switch Tool to toggle certain map elements on or off.
• Bulldozer mode for rapid block painting.
• New 'Game Link' feature
• Loads of bug fixes and tweaks.

Grid Cartographer is an RPG mapping tool

It's the perfect companion for table-top roleplaying dungeon design or for mapping classic games like Wizardry, Might & Magic, Eye of the Beholder and Dungeon Master.

Download the free edition using the link above and give it a try!

Feeling Creative?

If you're into designing your own role playing games for computer or tabletop and are looking for a great tool to draw out maps for your next campaign, why not give it a try and see what new adventures you can dream up!

The advanced editing features of Grid Cartographer Pro such as the cut and paste tools and border creation make blocking out and detailing maps incredibly easy. Then simply export the map to an image file for printing or sharing online!

Thanks!

Thanks to everyone for the numerous suggestions, kind words and support for this project.

David Walters the developer of Grid Cartographer notified me he released version three of his map program. Here are the new changes straight form the e-mail. 

Main highlights of this third major release: 

* Hexagons

* Completely rewritten Mark Tool and new Paint Selection tool. Add and remove multiple areas to make complex selections. (Watch this animation for a demo.) 

* More Colours and Coloured Labels 

* Constrained Drawing on square grids by holding down the key. 

* Optional "Ground Floor"

You may remember me mentioning a small program that allows gamers to make maps  for RPG games called Grid Cartographer. The developer David Walters sent news that version 2 is now available.

Here are the changes from version one.

Grid Cartographer 2 is an RPG map making tool

It's the perfect companion for table-top roleplaying dungeon design or for mapping classic games like Wizardry, Might & Magic, Eye of the Beholder and Dungeon Master. Why not download the free edition using the links above and give it a try?

The main new features in v2 are:

* Completely rewritten user interface with tabbed toolbars and a scrolling palette of brush types. The interface was built with touch screen in mind so the Android version will be practically identical.

* Improved custom tiles support. I've replaced the old tileset system with one that uses individual images. This is much more user friendly and also convenient in that it allows for individual tiles graphics to be updated and removed more easily.

* You can also make use of a simple two layer system to draw custom tiles as both ground and feature items.

* Added support for diagonal walls which will aid mapping games like System Shock.

* Finally I've added an option to automatically add matching pairs of stairs or ladders on the floor above or below where you place one. This makes it much easier to track the entry points into a new floor.

A new license costs $12 with an upgrade of $5 for existing customers and a special offer (until the end of April) where owners of both the Android and desktop versions can get a v2 key for free.

Grid Cartographer the program that allows you to make maps to go along with your RPG games now has a new android version for mobile users.

Grid Cartographer Touch is a map making tool for role-playing games.

The perfect companion for classic RPGs like Wizardry, Might & Magic, Eye of the Beholder, Captive, Lands of Lore and Dungeon Master.

Feature Packed!

Grid Cartographer Touch improves upon paper maps with a number of useful features such as unlimited map area and floors stored in one convenient file, undo / redo, clipboard functions, support for custom tiles and a notes feature.

The advanced editing features such as the quick move tool and area stroke and fill make blocking out maps incredibly easy. Then detail using the many icons included (or import your own) and simply export the map to an image file for printing or sharing online!

Traditional Role Playing?

It's a great tool for traditional pen and paper role playing games. Dungeon Masters can make maps with it to be revealed to the party at key moments, or the party could use it themselves as a tool for mapping out a dungeon as they explore. You could even role-play an actual cartographer!

Game Developer?

Grid Cartographer Touch supports exporting maps as XML or Binary data. It's fully documented in an easy to read reference manual. Check out this Flash demo game (with full source code) for a real-world example of using an exported map. All files are fully compatible between desktop and mobile versions.

If your like me you probably use to make maps for old school RPG's just to find your way through a tough dungeon. There is a new program called Grid Cartographer that can help you do it digitally now.

Grid Cartographer is a helpful companion program designed to assist you in playing classic grid based RPG series like Wizardry and Might & Magic.

It improves upon hand drawn paper maps with a number of useful features such as: unlimited map area and floors stored in one convenient place and unlimited notes per tile (pro only).

Grid Cartographer is available in two flavours. The free version provides a good taste. If you like it, why not upgrade to the pro version to experience the full range of features.