you can create a little Sphere game that draws the whole map to a Surface object, and then save that Surface out to an image file.

Any good tutorials for using surfaces with sphere 1.5?

Not seen a tutorial but they're easy enough, key functions for getting started with them:
1. image_object.createSurface() turns an existing image into a surface
2. Or you can use CreateSurface(width, height, color) to make a new rectangular surface filled with a colour
3.  surface_object.blitSurface(surface, x, y) draws one surface onto another, (the surface passed as a parameter is the one drawn, the one the function is called as a property of is the target)
4. surface_object.save(filename) saves the surface as an image file, you should specify a type by giving it an extension (I'd normally use ".png".

Now if you want to draw the map onto a surface I think you'll also need:
1. GetTile(x, y, layer) - should return the index of the tile at x, y, layer
2.GetTileSurface(tile_index) - should return a surface object for a given tile index
3. GetNumTiles() - should tell you how many tiles there are (should enable you to limit how many times you call GetTileSurface)

That should help me get started with the surfaces. The Original overworld map for ZeC I made using Gimp has alot of erronious data to it. I thought maybe I'd try @DaVince 's suggestion to try to eliminate the errors. Now, I have a clear description of how to begin.

So much more professional looking than what I originally created with Gimp. Much appreciated @Rhuan

So much more professional looking then what I originally created with Gimp. Much appreciated @Rhuan

Glad I could help.

One other note, if you wanted to show an in game mini-map you could use the code you've written and couple it with:
surface_object.rescale(w, h) to scale it down.

You can then do surface_object.createImage() to return a normal image ready for drawing with .blit().

That will be useful when I code the map function in dungeon levels.