Printer friendly map printing (Full Version)

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ectizen -> Printer friendly map printing (3/10/2001 9:17:00 PM)

Hi all! While procrastinating and working up the courage to play the next scenario (it's a little intimidating - there's a giant white smear across the strategic map - I've got to have at least a couple of hundred units, and the intro text suggests that the enemy has 4 times that! It's just a little overwhelming [img]http://www.matrixgames.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img] ), I have been giving some thought to task of printing maps. When I started with SPWAW, I searched the forum for ways to print maps, and came up with the following: [list]
  • stitch together screenshots, and print that
  • use Fred's WAW_Map (sorry, no link - search the forum for "print map") to produce a contour map, and print that [/list] Both of these have a major drawback: they're excessively colourful - laser printed looks terrible and full page saturated colour is not economical for inkjets. One idea I had was to process the contour map in PhotoPaint, performing a colour edge-detect on a white background. This gave something that would print easily, but was very abstract and pretty difficult to read. And so I am now in the process of creating a map printing tool. This will take the output of Fred's WAW_Map (copy to clipboard or copy to file) and produce a PDF of a basic map, containing contour lines, roads, rivers and other basic features. The types of features will probably be selectable, as will colour. This will enable plain black on white for laser printers, and colour on white for inkjets (gotta have those orange contour lines [img]http://www.matrixgames.com/ubb/smile.gif[/img] ). Which brings me to my first question: is anyone else doing this? I ask because I don't want to unnecessarily duplicate someone else's efforts. Honest. It's not because I'm lazy. Really. And my second question: is anybody else interested in using something like this? Final question: does anyone have any info on reading scenario.dat files directly? Sadly, WAW_Map doesn't give things like victory hexes, which I'd really like to include. ectizen.



    • RobertMc -> (3/11/2001 1:21:00 AM)

    I think this utility would be great! I'd use it to store maps for easy reference.



    Warhorse -> (3/11/2001 1:49:00 AM)

    Excellent idea!! Hope all works out for you, this would be a great addition to the 'tools' folder! [img]http://www.matrixgames.com/ubb/wink.gif[/img] ------------------ Mike Amos Meine Ehre Heisst Treue



    BruceAZ -> (3/11/2001 2:42:00 AM)

    Great idea! Wish I had thought of that... [img]http://www.matrixgames.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif[/img] Bruce Semper Fi ------------------ "The most important element in war is man. And there are no tougher men than my China Marines." Major Gen. Archer 'Archy' Vandegrift, 1st Marine Division



    ectizen -> (3/12/2001 1:40:00 PM)

    (urgh... i've finally managed to fight my way back in through the misdirecting redirector...) An update for those of you interested: it looks like this is going to happen! I've managed to decode enough info from Fred's WAWMap export/clipboard thingy for basic maps. I have also built the foundation of the map renderer. The random test maps are looking pretty good - the roads are looking very sexy (is it really so wrong to admit that? :)). In the next day or so, I'll post a link to a sample pdf for the interested. I should also have a prototype working version up for downloading in the next few days. Basic stuff only at first - I'm beginning to realise the extent of the challenge of producing decent contour lines...



    ectizen -> (3/13/2001 3:12:00 AM)

    A couple of sample pdfs are available for downloading. They're both zipped since I am yet to tackle building compressed pdfs. The first is a small 20 x 16 map with each hex containing a random number of connecting primary roads. Nothing else is shown, just the roads. A printout of this adorns my workspace - I find looking at it oddly satisfying... This zipped pdf is about 17kB. The second is a large 100 x 80 map. Randomly scattered across the map are water hexes, forests and buildings. There is a primary road running along the top edge, and a secondary road along the left edge. Note that every feature can be en/disabled, and the light/darkness of each feature can also be specified. The values used in this sample work well with my inkjet printer in draft mode. This zipped pdf is about 270kB. The page size of the pdfs are a little smaller than both A4 and US Letter, so they should fit on most printers without too much trouble. Any comments so far?



    ectizen -> (3/13/2001 5:55:00 AM)

    Woohoo! 2 more downloads available! The first is a new pdf containing a real map! The map is 100 x 40, and comes from scenario 25. This zipped pdf is about 157kB. The second is the program that produced the above map! It's slow, it's horribly inefficient, it's very basic, but it is working! Currently, it requires the Copy to file output from Fred's WAWMap (reading the data directly from the clipboard is coming soon). It comes with no documentation (of course :)), but it should be pretty easy to figure out how to use it. If you can't, post here, or email me at [email]ectizen@ectopia.net[/email] . This zipped exe is about 127kB. That's all for today - gotta go to work...



    rtr -> (3/13/2001 7:04:00 AM)

    Hi, Looks very promising, less hassle than building BMPs to print:-)



    ectizen -> (3/15/2001 4:59:00 PM)

    *bump* we can't have this thread falling off the front page just yet ;) ectizen's SPWAW Map Thing Vers 0.2 is now available! New features include: [list]
  • Contour lines! They're kind of odd, but they show at a glance where the hills are, and also that 5 foot hole in the ground you didn't see!
  • Tracks and paths!
  • Ditches and streams!
  • Bridges!
  • Railway tracks!
  • Customisable map titles!
  • slower than ever! With not one, but two progress indicators!
  • No documentation again! [/list] Map Thing 0.2 is about a 132kB download. For your previewing pleasure, a new sample map is ready. This is the map for scenario 004, The Moment of Truth, showing most of the new features. This will require about 191kB of downloading. I am now ready for your suggestions! What will improve this? Please make any suggestions, no matter how obvious. Thanks!



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