Found out hand drawn maps can actually be more accurate than digital for certain terrains

I read this article from a cartography blog about how satellite data can miss small elevation changes in dense forests, but hand-drawn contour lines from ground surveys catch them better. Now I'm rethinking my whole workflow for my fantasy world map since the river systems I plotted by hand feel way more natural than my digital attempts.

2 comments

2 Comments

emmafisher17h ago

Hmm, I'm not totally sold on this being some huge game changer. Sure, hand drawn maps have their charm and maybe some niche accuracy in one specific tiny area like dense forest contours. But for a whole fantasy world map, digital tools let you zoom, undo mistakes, and check measurements way faster than drawing by hand ever could. Plus, satellite data isn't the only digital option you know, you can still use those ground surveys to tweak your digital rivers instead of going full analog. Calling hand drawn maps "more accurate" feels like a stretch when they also have human error baked in from the start. Seems like a lot of fuss over a fairly small edge case.

jana_davis9016h ago

Tried going full digital on my last campaign map and honestly ended up frustrated with the software lag and the wonky river tools. Went back to tracing paper and a lightbox for the terrain bits, then scanned it to add labels digitally later. Way less headache lol.