I came across this hex-map drawing tool called Hexographer and quickly tried it out. Then I thought I should share this find.
http://inkwellideas.com/?page_id=160
I think it's a real good tool for quick and dirty hex-maps that still look good. It is more suited for maps that need a lot of small hexes, as blowing up the image to create two-inch hexes results in a gritty image...
It loads as a java applet in the webpage and then creates it's own window to load/create/edit your maps.
Files can be saved as *.hxm (This small file-size (50 kB for quite some terrain => 36X32 hexes) makes it ideal to use this for play by e-mail purposes) to be opened/loaded with hexographer).
Files can be exported as *.png (1MB for the same 50 kB map mentioned above)
It's completely free.
Cheese!
