# Mapping Resources > Mapping Elements >  Carto brushes - caterpillar ridges and train tracks

## J.Edward

I was enjoying Vorropohaiah's thread - http://www.cartographersguild.com/re...as-elyden.html and the topic of doing caterpillar style ridges came up. Doing them by hand takes a long time so I thought I'd try to help out there and made some brushes for that. They simulate the look but time will tell if they are completely satisfactory. They were done in PS cs5 so probably not backward compatible, though I'm not sure on that one.

I was also viewing Ilanthar's thread on LA - http://www.cartographersguild.com/to...s-map-wip.html and noticed that the raillines could use some tracks.
So I made 2 sets of tracks.
Here's a sample page of what the brushes look like.

here's the brushes Brush set 1.zip

edit-new image for the caterpillar brushes


[only caveat - don't reupload or combine and distribute with other brushes]
Would love to see what people do with them. Enjoy.  :Wink: 

License info
These brushes can be used in personal and commercial maps. They are not to be distributed or rebundled with other brushes for distribution elsewhere. If they are used in a commercial map/work it would be nice to get a credit and/or a link back to this thread so others could access them.

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## Ilanthar

Awesome work and very generous! I just used a mesh pattern to do my railroads (and that's why it looks weird the line is not strictly horizontal or vertical), and this is really better. Could you do a GIMP version for those (like me) who doesn't have PS?

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## J.Edward

I don't use GIMP but I can download it and see if it is the same. 
That would probably be helpful as many Guild user are using GIMP. I'll try that a bit later today.  :Wink:

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## J.Edward

Ilanthar - I just checked online. It said that if you're using GIMP version 2.4 or later that you should be able to just install PS brushes with no conversion needed.
Give it a try and see if that works.
Here's what I found. http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/gim...op-brushes.htm

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## Diamond

Those are awesome!  I'm a big fan of caterpillar mountains.  Very generous of you to let us use 'em, too.  In fact I have a map I'll be starting this weekend that these would be perfect for...

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## J.Edward

Great. Let me know when you're done Diamond. I'd love to see what you were able to achieve with them.

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## vorropohaiah

these are great. what's the licence on them?

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## Ilanthar

> *By J. Edward*
> It said that if you're using GIMP version 2.4 or later that you should be able to just install PS brushes with no conversion needed.
> Give it a try and see if that works.


Great! I'll definitely will! You'll see the new railroads on my LA map if it works  :Smile:

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## J.Edward

Vorro - I edited the first post with a license info thing. As I created them to help you out initially you should feel free to use them freely.  :Very Happy: 
Same goes to you Ilanthar. I will check the LA map thread.  :Wink: 

Others are welcome too. I think the license info is clear enough. Enjoy.  :Very Happy:

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## Ilanthar

I confirm it works with GIMP... and that I'm a complete noob with that software! I'll have to tame the beast before being able to use your brush, I'm afraid. I'm just unable to do something close to your example right now.... But I'm working on it!

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## J.Edward

Ilanthar - That's excellent about GIMP. I'm glad they worked in there.  :Smile: 
These brushes have a setting for pen pressure. I use a pressure sensitive screen so that is why the sample shows the size variation.
If you are just using a mouse or having it follow a path it won't have that effect.

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## tuomo

Love the caterpillar hill brush, but I'm having trouble reproducing your examples in Gimp 2.6.12. How do you get the lines of the brush to remain perpendicular to the path? When I use the brush to draw a circle, say, all the lines have the same orientation (north-south, say).

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## J.Edward

Tuomo - It is a setting in PS under brush settings>shape dynamics>angle jitter>direction. I am not sure how that differs in GIMP. I will have to install it and check that to be able to give you a better answer. I assumed these PS settings would be the same in GIMP.

Edit - from some looking around it appears that GIMP, Krita and some of the other free software do not support all of the brush features/settings that are present in Photoshop.
It sounds like they are trying to implement some of them but with difficulty. I will keep checking to see if I can give you any more clarity on this issue.

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## allaykat

I am looking for similar lines but for illustrator has anyone built such a thing willing to pay real money or paypal!

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## J.Edward

Hey Allaykat. I don't know if anyone has made similar for Illustrator.
I have Illustrator but do not use it often so am not familiar with what it would take to turn these into something like that for Illustrator.
I have a number of commissions I am working on at the moment or I would attempt it.

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## allaykat

thanks for reply, I like the sound of commissions I come from the sign industry, and I usually call them pieces, but commissions do sound alot more like you love what you do and are getting paid to do i!

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## Wired

Hey J., these are indeed the ones I used for the moat for the town map of Seagard. Thank you for creating them, they really cut down the time I had to spend on that part of the map.  :Smile:

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## J.Edward

No problem Wired.  :Very Happy:  That's what they're here for my friend.  :Wink: 
I'm always glad to see them in use. And glad to know they're helpful.
Cheers.

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