ProFantasy Software has released City Designer 3, an add-on for the latest edition of the company’s Campaign Cartographer application. Campaign Cartographer is a professional-quality computer-aided-design package for drawing maps, particularly for use in roleplaying games. With City Designer to assist in the process of making local area maps, you can specify such fine level of detail as the direction of light and the size and shape of each house. Or you can let the program do the work for you, automatically orienting buildings to the street and laying out whole streets with as few as two clicks of the mouse. The symbol library provided with City Designer includes features in a variety of styles (e.g., Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Present-day, Gothic, Orcish, Elvish and Classical) and can be exported for use with other software.

Campaign Cartographer really does make it possible for the general user to produce professional-looking maps. But there still is a learning curve. Most experienced users recommend the series of tutorials as the first step for new users. Another source of good information and ideas for map-making with any tool is the Cartographer’s Guild.