Wyverns maps are now in the atlas. Thanks for the contribution. With these 10 in we have already passed 550 maps.

There is now a brand new Gallery link in the main menu. It will take you to a page showing all the users who have an image gallery, and their latest additions.

The list is sorted with most recent update on the top of the list, and each user is shown with their three most recent uploads (same as in the profile section)

You ask about text, but you also talk about things like political borders and stuff, so it seems like that should be taken into consideration.

Now, to start, I personally hate PhotoShop, I find it cumbersome, difficult and intuitive to use, and on top of that, expensive. But, there are other image editors out there so I'll not jump to the conclusion of using CC3+ just because I don't like the other option.

But, you obviously isn't skilled in PS yourself, given that you don't know the difficulty of working with text, which more or less brings me to a conclusion right away, use what you know. If you know how to do things in CC3+ there isn't really a good reason to use an image editor, unless you want to use it more as a training exercise to learn that software rather than use what would be most appropriate for you.

Considering that both options do allow a layered approach, both can be used for the task, but if you import the map to scale in CC3+ before drawing on top of it, you can also use various tools to do things like measuring length and area, including measuring length along a curved line, which I personally find extremely nice when working with maps, so I would probably pick CC3+ for that option alone.

The only reason where I feel the image editor may be a bit stronger is making the things you draw on top of the scanned image appear better "integrated" into the image. But this is something that takes skill with the image editor, it doesn't come for free, and you can get a long way in the same direction by using sheet effects.

This is a bit of a tricky problem.

The issues you see in figure 3 is because multipolies based what their display on the number of overlapping entities. And while a single ellipse on top of a white background will be exactly two entities, so it will generate a hole in the circle, wherever two ellipses overlap, you will have three entities which results in a solid surface at those locations.

Now, as you discovered, cutting and trimming isn't really a solution here. This is because the way CC3+ handles curves. The nodes of a curve does not lie along the curve itself, and arcs do not have nodes at all, they are a result of pure math. If you try to work with wide lines instead, you get other issues because you can't trim to the actual width of a line since that is just a property, the trim hits the center of the line.

I think the attached version should be what you are asking for though. I started from your figure 2 and converted those arcs to smooth lines. It takes a few steps per line to do this, but basically, split it open so it turns into an arch, use line to path on it, split it open again because the last command closes it, and then use straight to smooth on it. This needs to be done on all six lines individually.

Once that is done, you can start trimming them. It can be advantageous to split them in the middle of the intersections before trimming, and after that you can trim using trim to entity, trim to intersection, or just trim and targeting the endpoint of the other line. Generally, if trim to intersection fails (sometimes it does), a simple trim to the endpoint works instead.

These tools use a raster image for their fill, which is just a 1-pixel image with either a black and white pixel. This image is set up with built-in transparency. You'll find these fills in the fills list as Solid 10, Solid 20, ... Solid 90 and Solid White 10, ... Solid White 90, where the number indicates the opacity (10 is almost fully transparent, 90 is almost fully opaque).

When overlaid other elements in the map, the pixels below are mixed with that fill according to the transparency level of the fill, thereby serving to lighten or darken whatever they overlay.

Sorry about your job. Hope this situation normalizes soon so people can get back to their jobs, or at least have an easier time finding a new one when not everyone is trying to hunt in the same limited pool.

At least the time isn't wasted when you spend it mapping :)

Note that the next update (the one currently in public beta) have an improved version of the text along a curve command that handles this issue.

Unless you need to spend a lot of that on a graphics card (which won't do anything for CC3+, but if you plan to use the computer for gaming, you may want one), the 13th generation Intel i5's are pretty good, both in actual performance, and value for money. If you can get an i5-13600K, I would go for it.

Recommend getting 16GB of RAM. CC3+ itself can't use more than 4, but your OS and other programs want their chunk of it, so 16 allows CC3+ to get it's fill. Probably best to go with DDR5 these days for the future, but if the budget constrains you, you are better off going for DDR4 ram instead of scaling back the CPU.

I also recommend having a NVMe system drive, and make sure it is big enough to install CC3+ on it. Personally, I recommend 512GB+. CC3+ do use RAM caching, so it won't be terrible on a slower drive, but getting the extra speed is good.

For the rest of the components, get what you can. You don't need a huge PSU (unless you are also getting a powerful graphics card)

Extra storage, more ram is always good.

Today I am adding Pappy's Pub by @Shessar:

There isn't any restore to default feature except reinstalling. When you change the symbol catalogs, you do changes to the actual catalog and configuration files, and these are persistent. There are no "default settings" for most things in CC3+, other than to replace the various files with clean versions.

If it is just the map settings in a single map that is messed up, causing it to load wrong catalogs and tools, you need to hit :CC2PRESETS: and set the map style back to the correct style for that map type, and if you have changed the OnOpenMacro map note, revert it back to the original settings by just copying the macro commands from a fresh map in the same style.