Hey everyone,<br style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; background-color: rgb(248, 250, 252); ">I am working on my dissertation/ mapping project at the moment and i am about to start creating my neat copy geological map. Previously i have used powerpoint 2007 which basically did the job but had its limitations. ive heard that corel draw and adobe illustrator are pretty good but i wanted to get some feedback about any limitations the programs might have, so if you have any experience in either of the programs ive mentioned, or can recommend any other programs then i would appreciate it.<br style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; background-color: rgb(248, 250, 252); ">Thanks

Corel Draw is the best vector drawing software, especially if you are using Windows, because it's lighter than Adobe Illustrator,

Inkscape combined with Gimp should do whatever you need to get done and they're free.

Maybe something topographical from the freeware here...

 

http://softwaretopic.informer.com/free-contour-map-drawing-software/

 

...though I don't know any of the others listed above but CAD programs are also desinged around layer use, like I think I read about Corel, so I'd bet the CorelCAD hybrid is about as good as it gets and there'r always free trials.