Are there any services available that allow me to manipulate maps in an offline setting? I am working on a project that requires me to take a map and based on features on the map, generate a game world. I have looked at a few of the API's for different providers: Google, ms, etc. The API's I looked seem to be strictly showing a user a map. I am looking for something that allows me to create a derivative of a map (the Gameworld), that will never be seen by the public, and is only used by the game engine. However one caveat is that I would like to be able to link the derivative created for use by the game engine, with something I can show the user.
As an example. Think of a cross country racing sim. Users cannot control the vehicles directly in this game, they can only control the cars setup, driver, etc. I create a gameworld from a map. The gameworld data (driver position, etc) is overlayed onto a real map. A race might last several days. The only interaction users have with the real map is viewing their position on the map, and where they are in relation to the others.
I don't want to violate the terms of the API here. I read Googles API TOS, and it seems to me that creating the gameworld would violdate their TOS.
The features I really need are the following
- The ability to locate a specific place on the map by lat/long
- The ability/rights to grab those maps and save them as an image file temporarily for processing
- The ability/rights to store a gameworld that is based on the real map
- The ability to show a user a map with an overlay (this is optional. I can use googles API, or any other one that supports lat/long.)
Edit: The gameworld creation will only happen once intially, and partial updates may occur very infrequently. I will only need to generate the world in the beginning. This is also for a free game, so I am looking for something opensource
Edit: I only need maps of the US. I need maps that contain rivers and lakes.