I've developed a CAD-like program called MapViewer for the creation, editing and analysis of maps for robotic simulators. It currently supports Saphira, Player/Stage, Carmen, Beesoft and Rossum simulators.
MapViewer has a number of very useful features. As well as being able to open/edit maps from a number of simulators (using both vector-type maps as well as bitmap-like maps), it can:
1) Randomly generate maps of any size, containing obstacles and robots. Any number of maps can be generated with just a single click of a button.
2) Perform a number of analytical measures on maps, to evaluate their similarity to each other. This is useful for those interested in the quality of their map building algorithms.
3) Generate Voronoi diagrams of any grid or vector map. Voronoi diagrams
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are a useful tool in analysing maps, as well as in path planning.4) Convert bitmap-like maps to vector maps using three different line fitting algorithms. This is very useful if you want to quickly turn a bitmap image (such as an architectural drawing) into a vector map for your simulator, rather than laboriously tracing over it by hand or even (crazy though it may seem) figuring out the numbers in your head and writing the file in notepad.
5) Build maps from Sonar data. Given a file in the specified format containing odometry and sonar range readings, MapViewer will build a grid map for you.
6) Generate paths in a map using a paramaterised A-Star path planning algorithm.
There are many more features in MapViewer, and it's completely free, so download and use it all you like. I hope you find it useful. Please give me feedback on things you feel could be improved, or bugs you've found.
Thanks
Shane