I started making a 2x2 quadrant magnification of the star map for my own use during our game. All the copies I could find were pretty low res and pixelated badly when zooming in. This is just a quick rendition using good ole Microsoft Paint but turned out pretty well I thought. I have maybe 4 or 5 of them completed and plan to just follow the travels of my player group with upgraded maps as they move along.

Anyway, just posting here to see if anyone else has done something similar.

There are some PDFs I’ve found that let you zoom in a ways, but of course they have a limit to how far they can go.

I have yet to see a good all-in-one solution in this space. The fully resolution-independent solution that uses a geospatial database on the backend tends to get lost in the details and isn’t good at showing the higher level structures and relationships. See http://www.swgalaxymap.com/

The book (now Legends status) “The Essential Atlas” is a great print reference, but it only includes pages on a relative handful of planets (Alderaan to Zonoma Sekot in 75 pages), and the index in the back is 13 pages. The online update PDF version of the index is 80 pages with almost 4000 entries, but that’s still just a fraction of the planets in the galaxy. And only a fraction of those 4000 can appear on any printed map. See http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Essential_Atlas

A semi-representational map that uses a database as a backend but also tries to show you what the planets might look like when you zoom in, can only handle a small handful of planets. See http://www.starwarsgalaxy.co/

Each map is good at some things, and worse at others. I think that’s just the nature of mapping. There’s a good collection of links to various maps at http://geoawesomeness.com/top-galaxy-maps-ever-best-collection-star-wars-maps/

IMO, your more detailed maps are great, and I would love to see more of them. More of this sort would be very helpful to me.

Thanks very much. I can drop them in my box and post a link if you like. They will be coming slow, at the speed I need them for our game.v

Seconded, very neat job.

I’d encourage you to post them here in this thread, and/or post them through another online facility (e.g., DropBox or whatever), so that we have a centralized place where we can find these pieces of information from you on this subject.

This would also help centralize the discussion on these topics.

Thanks!

Thanks so much.

Ive posted the four completed maps so far in my Dropbox and your welcome to them. They aren't works of art and you will no doubt find glitches and errors in them but they are pretty accurate and should serve fine as a gaming reference. Im improving with each one so perhaps they will look better later on!

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/xbmrrcffiidmzi0/AADoJxy55iVhHwO9otzXUV-8a?dl=0

There are some PDFs I’ve found that let you zoom in a ways, but of course they have a limit to how far they can go.

I have yet to see a good all-in-one solution in this space. The fully resolution-independent solution that uses a geospatial database on the backend tends to get lost in the details and isn’t good at showing the higher level structures and relationships. See http://www.swgalaxymap.com/

Actually, the limitation of Geospatial systems is in the data put in. With the right kind/amount of data, everything from local structures (surface streets, individual buildings, etc...) to highway interconnections between cities can be represented. That's exactly how mapping systems like Google Maps work right now (based of Census TIGR data). So, if the map application isn't showing larger structures, like sector borders or what not, that is a problem with the data, not with the underlying system. And frankly, its not like we have a true, definitive system that really does place all of the planets in 3D space from even the primary source (LA/Disney). We've got various 2D representations of parts of the SW galaxy, but the secondary maps that we have seen at various times don't consistently keep all of the planets in a given position from one map to another.

Actually, the limitation of Geospatial systems is in the data put in. With the right kind/amount of data, everything from local structures (surface streets, individual buildings, etc...) to highway interconnections between cities can be represented.

In theory, that’s true enough. However, in practice, the one example we have so far (that I know of) has the issues as I described.

Granted, he’s only one guy, and he’s doing this in his spare time, and what he’s done already is a fairly Herculean task in and of itself. However, none of that changes the fact that he hasn’t added the other layers that could allow his map to beat all the rest of them put together.

So, in terms of the maps that we know of and have currently available to us, you have to decide what is most important for the particular task you’re looking at, and then choose a map that is more suitable for that task.

Actually, the limitation of Geospatial systems is in the data put in. With the right kind/amount of data, everything from local structures (surface streets, individual buildings, etc...) to highway interconnections between cities can be represented.

In theory, that’s true enough. However, in practice, the one example we have so far (that I know of) has the issues as I described.

Granted, he’s only one guy, and he’s doing this in his spare time, and what he’s done already is a fairly Herculean task in and of itself. However, none of that changes the fact that he hasn’t added the other layers that could allow his map to beat all the rest of them put together.

So, in terms of the maps that we know of and have currently available to us, you have to decide what is most important for the particular task you’re looking at, and then choose a map that is more suitable for that task.

I went to that map and it seems to do more than you've implied. Zooming out causes star names to go away from lesser systems and small hyperspace lanes to be filtered from the map. On top of that, the map is built up of 5 layers of data that can be toggled off individually and the map can be made full screen. Sector names show up when you mouse over them, etc...

I went to that map and it seems to do more than you've implied. Zooming out causes star names to go away from lesser systems and small hyperspace lanes to be filtered from the map. On top of that, the map is built up of 5 layers of data that can be toggled off individually and the map can be made full screen. Sector names show up when you mouse over them, etc...

There’s a lot of stuff he’s trying to do with that map. And there’s not enough granularity to the layers.

For hyperlanes, you just see a purple line, and you have to try to click on that line in order to see the name or any other information. Since it’s a line that is just one pixel wide no matter how far you zoom in, that’s pretty hard to do. Then there are the hyperlanes shown on the map that don’t have any names or other information about them, they’re just purple lines on the map. Or, you could try to perfectly hover the mouse over the one pixel wide purple line to pull up the name, but then the name in the pop up gets obscured.

The sector borders are black lines, single pixel width. You get a mouse over where part of the name is obscured, but you don’t get any labels on the map itself. So, if you’re looking for a particular sector, you had better have a good idea of what grid it is in or near, otherwise you’re screwed. And he has no search function.

The grid references are bright red on lighter or darker grey, which is really hard to read.

I appreciate everything that he’s trying to do, but I think some of what he’s doing is getting in the way of some of the other things he’s trying to do.

I'm really actually shocked that there's not One True Map site that does everything we want, given the enormous numbers and skill of our fandom. I know it's a monumental task, but there's passion here like no other.

This is great! I'd pay money for a fleshed out region, or entire galaxy! Very clear, and clean looking art.

Love it. Just waiting for more.

I would consider swapping your region border (blue with glow) with your hyperlane (green). If you make the border blue much smaller/thinner while retaining some glow, it matches the text of your hyperlane titles and just looks more like a hyperlane (imho). Then, use the thin green line (slightly thicker?) for the regional borders.

Good suggestion. This wasn't a planned project, it just sort of happened. I may just make that change.

Kind of considered dumping the region border altogether. It's on the big scale map. Not really needed here.

Hey, based on a suggestion above I changed the color of the Hyperspace Lane names to something that associates it with the lanes themselves. I also added a few minor lane names. Your welcome to whats there. The Hapes cluster is lacking most of the detail as I plan to map it out to a greater scale should my players ever go there.

Again, this was a project for my own use so I wasn't too worried about the quality of the finished product, but if you can use it... please be my guest! Its kind of fun so I may well start expanding from this point regardless of where my campaign leads. Just thinking about doing the whole galaxy makes my head hurt.

Oh, I named the files after a major system in each of them but there is probably a better way, such as by grid coordinate. (O8O9P8P9) or something like that so you know at a glance where in the galaxy you are looking at. Hmmm