TrekBuddy

[la_ouiche]

Is that a question or you've submitted to fast may be?
Excuse me but I don't understand what you mean, can you be more precise please?

[ME]

Sorry if i was a bit unclear...

google send out tiles that are 256 pixel by 256 pixel.

If you a size that is not evenly divedable by 256 (both x and y axel)
then you get a border around the visable area. , am i right...

When you get the gif from google you get the exact size for example 2000*2000 but if you take the tiles (256*256) then you get 2048*2048 pixels

And if i understand it right the coordinates are on the visible area ? then if you start to make lagre maps by taking sevrial 2000*2000 and add them together, don't that give you some error in the calibation. this bacuse the part aren't 2000*2000 but 2048*2048.

hope you understand what i mean...

[yaworski]

ME you are 100% right . I used different method using mapexplore. I installed extension to Firefox that allows to dump the WHOLE page as a PNG or JPEG (JPEG only in FF2.0). I tested it with 2048x2048 map and then I cropped the page in photoshop to get the map itself. The dump is what you see is what you get so it doesn't contain hidden tiles' parts. I'll try to modify mapexplore a little to make this easier (so it doesn't require cropping in photoshop).

The extention's name is Page Saver (there are 2 versions, pro and basic. Basic is enough). You can find it HERE.

Next step is to calibrate the map, for example in MapCalibrator, and then cut it into slices by TB Cutter .

[temptrekbuddy]

if this is true the closest you could get with the 2000px limit is 1024+512+256 = 1792px

[yaworski]

I don't know what limit do you write about. I made a map of Warsaw (well, not the whole Warsaw, but the part I was going to drive and test the map) which is 2048x2048 in size. I cut it into 240x240 pieces with TB Cutter. Calibration was made in MapCalibrator. This is calibration gmi file:

Map Calibration data file v3.0
D:\wawamapa.jpeg
2048
2048
0;0;20.9023905;52.2541833333333
2047;0;20.9902811050415;52.2541833834888
0;2047;20.9023904800415;52.200347662217
2047;2047;20.9902811050415;52.200347662217
Border and Scale
52.2541833834888;20.9023904800415;52.2003213624143;20.9903240413459
23290.3137555328;38023.0988862991

----edit----

In attachment is a written from the beginning clone of mapexplore (I named it temporarily mapexplore2, but I can change the name if author of mapexplore wants). I give this code as is. It is not finished (it has less functionality than original mapexplore). Panel with options can be hidden (to show it again one must move mouse to the top left corner of the map and the button Show Panel will appear). This version together with Page Saver (page screenshot extension for Firefox) allows to save the page as it is displayed in the browser (the whole map which is displayed). After saving the whole page there is no need to crop the map in photoshop.

I didn't implement showing boundary coordinates for now. If you want do it yourself - be my guest . If not then I'll do it myself in my free time.

It also has some bugs (for some reason changing zoom by entering zoom value in input field isn't working).

----edit----

Attachment removed due to misunderstanding . Sorry la_ouiche.

[temptrekbuddy]

[yaworski]

I tried to create map with size 15000x15000 but it slows down the browser a lot . I canceled operation (FF asks question to break JS if it doesn't response for too long). I was able to generate map with size of 8000x8000, but had some problem with saving it with the PageSaver extension (maybe because I didn't restart the browser after trying to generate 15000x15000 map ). With good picture merging software it could be possible to build good big maps from smaller chunks. The only problem then is to calibrate the map properly.

I'll try to fix my version of mapexplore and maybe I'll try to port these nice features that it has (generating different file types). But it needs to wait until evening.

[la_ouiche]

Ok yaworski,

I think you've a bit misunderstanding the use of the tool in its version 2.0.

In fact the image displayed in the window is just here to mark waypoints or to navigate to have the map you want to start.
I explain : If you only select 1 Horizontal and 1 vertical slice on the page, fine, then when you click on the .GIF button you will get a link to a gif image that is exactly the one you've currently displayed.
But if you select more than 1 for the slices (H and/or V), then you will get links to this image (which will be the first one (the _0_0.gif, that is the top-left image) of a square that have the number of images H and V that you have specified (each one will be of the size of the image currently displayed on the screen).
For example : Admitting you've searched for an image that is 2000x1000px. If you select 3 Horizontal slices and 4 Vertical slices then, you will noticed that the current image displayed will not change, but if you click on the ".MAP" button and on the ".GIF" button you will first get the calibration file for a map that is 8000x4000px. The ".GIF" button will give you the link to the 3x4=12 images of each 2000x1000px. So the calibration file and all the gif you can download are consistents.
And all this is updated "on the fly", if you navigate on the map (change zoom and/or position), or change the number of H or V slices, then you always get updated info when clicking on the buttons ".MAP" and ".GIF".

So I don't really understand the use of what you're trying to do, but it seems not to have the same goal as mapexplore, so may be you can remove it and create a new category if you think it will be usefull to share

thx

[yaworski]

Hi.

I'm sorry, you are right. I misunderstood the way your mapexplore works. Thanks for explaining. I'll remove my version from download.

In this case I have a feature request . Could you please update values in form together with moving and zooming the map? And the second feature. Maybe you could add some parameters saving functionality? For example in cookies (or by generating link to the page which contains parameters set by the user earlier). This would be helpful when user wants to make some minor improvements to the previously generated map and doesn't want to set all values by hand.

----edit----

As I have not been much help earlier maybe I'll now give some tip . Using FlashGot + FlashGet tandem you need to rename files later as they have names mapdata.gif, mapdata(1).gif etc. There is a better solution. It is called DownThemAll! and it is a Firefox extension (to bo more precise it is a XUL Application - functional and really good file download manager for Firefox). It can be set to save files under the name of the text in the link (as mapexplore gives links to the images that are named in the way they should be on the disk, DTA! can do its job well). All you have to do is:
1. Generate links to slices as usual.
2. Click anywhere on the page and select DownThemAll! from context menu.
3. On the first tab (links or something like that, I have polish version) select all links that are pointing to map slices (they can be selected by using regexp field below or manually).
4. In rename mask put: *text* (this mask is replaced by the text inside the link).
5. Select folder to save images.
6. Download files .

----edit----

One more feature request. It would be great to have built-in calculator of slices number required to fetch the map from the current position to position given by coordinates by the user. It should be easy, current position long and lat, zoom and slice size are known, users pastes bottom right map corner coordinates into additional input fields and after pressing button script writes to vertical and horizontal slices number of slices that are required to include given coordinate on the map.
To make it more easy in use, the user could simply go to bottom right corner in the first place and press the button to copy current coords into calculator fields and then just go back to the first slice (top left corner).
Of course I know that in most cases user selected bottom right corner coords won't match final map bottom right corner coords, but they should at least be included, so the final coords will be more to the south-east than those selected.
What do you think about it?

[yaworski]

And another feature request .

It is sometimes better to have couple of smaller maps which are covering continuously some bigger area together (maybe with a little overlapping area). This is now hard to do this with mapexplore (it is possible, but hard).
In map explore we can set number of slices vertically and horizontally. It would be great if we could also set the number of maps vertically and horizontally. How would it work? I created a picture showing that.

The big yellow rectangle below is the whole area in which we want to create couple of maps. Smaller colored rectangles are the maps which are covering the whole area (picture is not accurate ). Those maps are made from slices as usually. Maps are overlapping (for example the overlapping can be of the size of one slice). Every map would require its own calibration file.
The workflow: user writes in number of maps vertically and horizontally and number of slices vertically and horizontally. Currently displayed position is the top left slice of the top left map. Now there are two possibilities:
1. Number of slices defines number of slices in each map (so if user will set 2 maps horizontally and 10 slices horizontally, then each of those maps will have 10 slices horizontally (1 slice will be shared, so the whole area will be cut into 19 slices in this case).
2. Number of slices defines the total number of slices that are distributed between the number of maps. So the user is setting 20 slices horizontally and 2 maps horizontally, then the whole area is sliced into 20 slices and then those slices are assigned more or less equally to 2 maps (for example the first map gets 11 = 10 + 1 shared; and the second gets 10 slices).
I don't know which method is better one.

Why do this? Because maps can be inaccurate. When creating one big area map there is a possibility that calibration is not inaccurate and in case of calibration points set in the corners of the map, the middle of the map can have a much more bigger error that the calibration points themselfs (more distance from calibration points = more error, if I'm wrong then correct me ).
So having smaller maps will result in smaller errors in calibration.

[Ranger]

[kruch]

[dodo]

Hi all.

When I try this on my location (Melbourne, Australia), I just get a white picture with no map in it (although Google Maps does work fine in this location).

Any suggestions how to fix?

eg. Lat 145.17 Lon -37.83

Rob.

[yaworski]

And how situation looks like with google maps? What datum and projection do they use?

----edit----

dodo you swapped both values. You switched lat and lon .

It should be:
Lon 145.17 Lat -37.83

[Ranger]