Writing Forum

I write sci-fi, not fantasy, but if I ever visit a planet that doesn't exist, making a map might be a good idea. In my FB groups, these two map generators are well thought of, especially Inkarnate - the maps look terrific.

https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/
https://inkarnate.com/

As for my current WIP, NASA provided some raw map data for Mars, NASA/JPL provided MOLA maps (colour coded for elevation and highly detailed), and US Geological Survey were very helpful in providing maps of Mars they made back in the 1970's.

As for the terrain itself, NASA released their entire catalogue of images into the public domain last year, so a large number of high-resolution satellite images and images from landers and rovers became available.

NASA spent millions of $ deciding where to put the InSight lander, and drew up a list of criteria to help them decide where would be best. Their list actually mirrored mine, so I was rather pleased when they ended up putting the lander down right next to my base. You don't get better validation of your research than that. Even better still, I now get daily weather reports from InSight. You can see the reports here http://philip-p-ide.uk/doku.php?id=blog:aardvaark:mars_weather, and if you follow the link to the NASA site, you can read wind speed too. Getting real weather reports at the same spot as my fictional base is priceless.

I now have 60 high-resolution A3-sized maps of mars - two for each quadrant - plus the ones from the USGS. Wikipedia is a great source of information for discovering what each area is like, and is usually accompanied by many more fine-detail images. NASA has been more than willing to help fill in the blanks. They are much more approachable than ESA.

I have plans to write some simple software that will allow me to visually place stars in a 3D map which I can then rotate to get a better feel for the separations, and also display an orrorory for each star system which is sensitive to dates, so I can tell which planets are in which positions at any given time. I'll begin this with a simple model to show the Earth/Moon system, so I can see which parts of the planet are in darkness when the Moon is in the night sky.