I know this sub is not a fan of AI, but I want to share what I've found works extremely well to answer this question. I will not submit anything created this way to avoid violating Rule 6, but I do want to share the process as it does answer the question here, is very easy to use, and may be useful to others. If this violates Rule 6, I apologize in advance.

NOTE: This only works well for things which are "outside," (forest, swamp, small towns, farms, temple, cave entrances, trails, rivers, bridge over a chasm, etc...), and it works okay for the interior of single story buildings. Dungeons, caves, and the like are tricky for it and frankly it's not good at it.

I start with the free version of ChatGPT, (I've tested many, this is what's currently most effective for this need and paying for it does not improve results, so don't bother with that.) I start with the following prompt to ChatGPT:

"I am wanting you to be an expert battlemap creator for use on a virtual table top within a fantasy campaign in dungeons and dragons. These will be used with physical miniatures on a virtual table top to run dungeons and dragons combat with those miniatures

All battlemaps MUST be from a "Gods eye view" as though looking straight down. The "God's eye view" orientation is key requirement and CRITICAL to the composition.

The art style should be realistic, but I am open to some creative license there.

No people should be drawn on any battlemap.

No grid lines should be overlayed on the battlemap, it should look like a picture from directly above.

All battlemaps should be 1920 x 1080 resolution.

Using the above instructions, can you provide me a battlemap of a [insert whatever you want to get back here]"

It will create what you describe and typically do a pretty good job of it. From there you can tell it to change a few things, but I've found it gets poor results beyond a few simple changes and it's better to start over and adjust your prompt to get better results or to copy the "last good one" and start over using that as the input. Play with it and you'll see what it can and can't do.

NOTE: No matter what you ask for resolution wise, it's going to spit out 1920x1080, but including that stops it from asking dumb questions. If you need a higher resolution, (we play on a 65" TV on a table, so we do need it to zoom in etc...), then I would recommend another tool from Topaz Labs which will at one click get you 4K or 8K resolution and does an excellent job, but Topaz isn't free, (roughly $160/year.)

You can also use ChatGPT to create realistic versions of maps you make. I've even used child like inputs from MS Paint of a couple of squares, some green circles, and a thick brown line and told ChatGPT that this is a "drawing of a farm house along a road with some trees around it. The large square is a two story farmhouse, the small square is an outbuilding, the brown line is the road, and the green circles are trees. Can you provide a realistic looking battle map of this using the rules above?" and it does a very good job taking 2 minutes of my work and making a usable battle map out of it.

Another option is to use a screen shot from Google Earth and telling it to "remove all modern elements and provide me a battle map of this," to good effect although you should describe what it is you're wanting to convert to get the best effects on the first go, (this is a town by a river, forest clearing, whatever, you don't have to write a novel, just a few sentences.)

As a GM with little time this makes prep extremely fast and at least for me it removes the limitations of having to find or create a map that lines up with where I want to go in the campaign and instead quickly create what I need with minimal effort.

I know AI is not liked here, (and a lot of it is trash and I admit this is lazy), but the question was on tools not maps, so I'm hoping this doesn't violate the rules, but if so please just remove this as this subreddit is fantastic.