I need to show the relative location of a couple of counties in Virginia. Can anyone point me to an online source of free maps?

The age of the map can be anywhere from the 1860s on, though a Civil War era map would be perfect. USGS topo maps are not right for my project.

Ross Hunter
Orange, VA

Perhaps the Open StreetMap project may be of assistance?

See OpenStreetMap (http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=7/36.787/-78.964)

Andrew

Try archive.org or the smithsonian

Andrew, Darrel,

Sorry to be so tardy in thanking you for your suggestion. I thought I'd set up my question to alert me to replies...apparently I didn't.

The Library of Congress also has an online map collection; however, they have a page about "Copyright and Other Restrictions" Map Collections Copyright (http://www.memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdres.html)

Wading though the legal aspects if fair use or other permissions is a bit of a pain and they say the responsibility rests with the person who wants to use the item.

Surprisingly, iMovie has some "map" items, for example a picture of a globe, that I think is available for free use. There is the capability to name a city and it will show up on the globe. Haven't explored it any further. There may be maps available for your type of use. It seems to be designed for preparation of vacation videos.

Hey Ross,

How is it going with your map needs thus far?

Andrew

I just found your replies last night and haven't had a chance to dig in yet. The person heading up the project had earlier found some map candidates in local historical society archives and at the National Park Service.

Andrew,

We found the perfect map in the Library of Congress collection.

Ross

Awesome!

Post a short sample clip if you can. Quite curious about it now.

Andrew

Andrew,

Here's a link to an 11 second YouTube clip <http://youtu.be/Yr_kfSfpPbw?list=UUEBccXSXzhzA6jl-xciaatQ>.

This is a rough first try. I'm waiting for the script and editing to be more finalized before I can workout the timing and/or make changes the director wants. He's just given broad instructions thus far. The intent is to show the relationship between Orange County, Virginia and Washington, DC.

If I'm reading the fine print on the map correctly, it dates from 1861.

The clip says it can't be shared. Did you press the share button and copy the code? As this code does not look like a youtube share code,either. I would like to see your work, too!

Thanx Tim

YouTube says that the video is unavailable.

Andrew

I thought there was no longer interest and took the clip off YouTube. I'll try to remember to put it back. Sorry.

The map is back on YouTube. http://youtu.be/BEI4Oc1rHa4

Only seven seconds?

Andrew

Yep, that's all the producer wanted. Sigh.

Ive found a roundabout way to create a vector map with the OpenStreetMap project and some other tools pretty much anywhere in the world. The problem that Ive had with open street maps is it only renders a small area of a time to output into a illustrator file.
Ive written an article on my blog about it
Freebee: After Effects Vector Map of Oklahoma City - Peter Friedlander (http://peterfriedlander.org/freebee-after-effects-vector-map-of-oklahoma-city/)

Cool animation Peter!