PlotSwap Mapping now works
Submitted: Sunday, Jul 11, 2004 at 00:13
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ExplorOz Team - David
Hi all,
As some of you will know I have been saying that I was going to get the mapping output sorted in PlotSwap. Well I was inspired tonight and have spent about 6 hours on it and can now tell you that the PlotSwap system can now supply you a full OziExplorer geo-referenced map and image for any mapping data that we have in the PlotSwap system. What does this all mean I hear you asking.
Well for those of us that use OziExplorer, you know how you can load digital maps into Ozi and plan trips, load waypoints etc and in moving map mode you can see your car moving along the map etc. Well the ExplorOz system can now provide you with Geo-referenced maps on the fly. At the moment the system is linked into PlotSwap so you can download other peoples plots and get a fully blown map and georeferening .map file and it even works. The base map is built using Geo Science topo maps with the plot overlaid on the map. If you elect the map download you will get the map image 2000x2000 pixel (.gif), georeference file (.map), location index map (.gif) and the full plot file (.plt) in a single email.
If you are wanting to have a go:
Members can download any map that is currently in the system using PointPlace credits.
Non Members can upload your own plots and download a map of your own data to see how the system works, you will need to become a member to gain access to other peoples data (including the ExplorOz master data and soon to include the treknotes and integrated waypoints)
It is free to upload and download your own maps and plots you just need to be a member to download other data.
So why not upload a plot and have a look at the system. The email does not give great instructions yet however all you need to do is save the files that are emailed to you into your OziExplorer maps directories and like magic the ExplorOz PointPlace maps will be available for you to use.
We will be producing some documentation about this feature early in the week and it will be mentioned in the next newsletter. If you experience any problems please let me know.
PS - Members needing more point can get them from your
My Home page there is a link to get 200 or 500 credits for $5 or $10 respectively (or use MemberMoney).
Hope you enjoy this new very cool feature.
Reply By: Mad Dog (Victoria) - Sunday, Jul 11, 2004 at 00:45
Sunday, Jul 11, 2004 at 00:45
It worked ok David but the location index map I received with a gif extension was actually a png image
AnswerID:
67287
Follow Up By: Mad Dog (Victoria) - Sunday, Jul 11, 2004 at 00:56
Sunday, Jul 11, 2004 at 00:56
I dunno maybe it's too late for me but Irfanview tells me it has the wrong extension. Off to bed.
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Follow Up By: Michelle from ExplorOz - Sunday, Jul 11, 2004 at 11:38
Sunday, Jul 11, 2004 at 11:38
Ray,
Yes you are correct I need to adjust the internal mapping files to use the gif base image for the location files. The system reports the output as GIF however it is PNG. I just need to change one small line in the 116 files that are on the system. I will fix this tomorrow. It is only the location image and this will not stop the maps from working in OziExplorer
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Follow Up By: ExplorOz Team - David - Sunday, Jul 11, 2004 at 11:52
Sunday, Jul 11, 2004 at 11:52
Bugger I was logged on as Michelle again.
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Reply By: Richard Kovac - Sunday, Jul 11, 2004 at 02:35
Sunday, Jul 11, 2004 at 02:35
Very good job David works fine have all my PlotSwap files downloaded as maps now, and all work ok in OziExplorer it's a good addition to the site.
regards
Richard Kovac
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Follow Up By: ExplorOz Team - David - Sunday, Jul 11, 2004 at 11:43
Sunday, Jul 11, 2004 at 11:43
Richard,
You must have blown your server email storage limit as a load of the maps got rejected due to server storage issues. They were all yours so if you missed some you can download again.
Also thanks for the 500 credit order. I need a lot of credit orders to pay for this one. Thanks for using the system hope you enjoy it.
BTW: If you can see anything that I can do better in the regard I would welcome the
feedback. I already know that I want to change the algorithm that calculates the map extent to try to get the entire map on the page in a better fashion however this is really only cosmetic. I have tested a few images in moving map and they are dead accurate.
David
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Reply By: Big Kidz (Andrew & Jen) - Sunday, Jul 11, 2004 at 07:52
Sunday, Jul 11, 2004 at 07:52
Will be a really good resource for us but we are going to need some sort of indexing of them all as there are already 116 of them!
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Follow Up By: ExplorOz Team - David - Sunday, Jul 11, 2004 at 11:51
Sunday, Jul 11, 2004 at 11:51
Andrew,
Yes I understand exaclty. I am hoping to break them down by state and also have a mapping window to select them similar to the one in the
shop. It will make it heaps easier to find them this way.
I also want to convert the data into a real ESRI Shapefiles and this way we will be able to display all mapped roads on a single image. Also when you download you will get more purple lines than just the one you are looking at. If you get my meaning.
I am also looking at using the topo 250K base maps as the base instead of the topo 1M base. I have the licensing for it just need to look at the disk space requirement for the database over 10GB just for the mapping layers vs 450MB that I am using now. I also want to tidy up the layer data that we are showing to produce better looking maps that have better base layers displayed (such as national parks, evevation colours vs vegitation colours etc). Ah I could go on for ever. Maybe a mapping company will want to get involved in online map production and this may help pay for all this. Anyway lets enjoy and extend the system that we are building.
All good things take a little time and mapping projects take even more.
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