Capture And Join Multiple High Resolution Google Maps

Have you ever spend hours hitting the ‘print screen’ button on your keyboard followed by the ‘Ctrl + V’ button into Photoshop CS? Trying to stitch individual screen shots together is really time consuming. Try Google Maps Buddy – a downloader and joiner. Best of all, this tool is completely FREE and buggy, but it gets the job done, no complains.

• Capture your Google Maps offline and store them as images on your hard drive
• Print out maps of entire cities at zoom levels that would take hours to put together with the current Google facility

Click ‘Goto Google Maps’

Click ‘Select Area’, draw a rectangle on the map with the ‘hand’ icon, I know, this is kind of confusing, it should have been a marquee icon instead of the hand icon.

Select zoom detail 17 then hit ‘Create Map Image’. It will now start downloading the selected area from Google Maps.

A window will appear, again, this is kind of confusing, it should have been ’save’ instead of ‘open’. Type in the filename and hit ‘Open’ to save the map.

Volla! A detailed map which would take a very long time to create manually using Photoshop and ‘print screen’ is now possible in less than a minute.

Learn How to Write Like an Architect

Truth is, my handwriting sucks. If you happened to have shitty handwriting like mine, watch this video on how to write like an architect by Kung Fu Architect, article found in Architecture My Ninja Please. What’s up with all the oriental names? Food for thought:

Someone named Li Chieh, in 1103, wrote a book called ‘Methods and designs of Architecture’. This was remarkable because it was the first substantial book in an architect’s office library anywhere. Believe it or not, it established the modular system of planning of building components. It contained large catalogue of lattice designs. It provided a table of spans and spacing for columns and beams. – David Standen.

Method 01

The old saying goes, “Practice make perfect”. According to Kung Fu Architect, the secret to good handwriting is non other than to practice your lettering.

Remember, hand lettering takes years of practice to get good so if that’s your goal find a forum to practice your lettering and keep it up…. the most important thing to remember about hand lettering is that your letters need to seem animated while still appearing orderly and neat. – Patt

Source: Kung Fu Architect.

Method 02

Forget about method 1, purchase ‘architect’ fonts.