Windows maps download tool for MapThis! by in7ane

[zsc]

@PSPLawyer, I'm guessing that you're running Windows Vista and you tried to "extract all", am I correct? I had the same problem, if in fact that is the case.

Instead of using the Vista's built-in support for zip files, I had to use WinRAR to extract the contents of the gmdl zip file, that solved that problem. It's weird, only In7ane's zip files gave me this problem, all others are fine.

@In7ane, how are you zipping the files? Are you running Mac OS X?

[ThaNerd]

The weird thing is, the sources seem compiled with Visual Studio 2005... However the directories all contain a ".DS_STORE file, that sounds like some OS X metadata...

Now for something completely different, i released my own version of Google Maps Download (actually, the GNU Public Licences doesn't ALLOW but FORCE me to...)

Release announce on my own website : http://www.thanerd.net/81/version-045b-tn/ (in french)

Download file : http://www.divshare.com/download/136806-81f


Be aware that my computer is quite buggy these days, so i *MIGHT* be victim of some virus... Which could have slipped inside this archive... Think about updating your antivirus definitions and scanning the whole set!

[Chrislim]

Pls help me out
I am a Macintosh user
Looking for a Mac base Map DL for PSP
pls advise
thanks a million

regards

Chris

[meme me]

Hi in7ane great work
i've got some maps ready been using 4.4b
now trying 4.5b i have found when you de-select some of the zoom level to download they are still downloaded.
is it just me?

[zsc]

@Chrislim, I'm sure you probably already know about it, but i'll ask anyway, have you tried using Virtual PC?

@in7ane, could you allow horizontal scrolling in the POI box? Also, how about an option for deleting repeated POIs (based on coordinates, maybe, or names).

@Everyone, I'm thinking about starting a database of POIs. First, individual businesses, like Starbucks, Shell Gas, etc. I'm thinking you can download the one you want and combine them into your own POI file. I'm going to start one for Los Angeles area, centered around downtown, with a Yahoo radius of about 100 miles, LA is big in case you're wondering why such a big radius. Well, maybe not that big...but the more the better.

Also, could someone suggest a way to host/manage the POI files? Since the data is taken from a public source, I don't think there's any legal problem with sharing such files. Maybe we could call this the "POI project".

[ThaNerd]

@in7ane, could you allow horizontal scrolling in the POI box? Also, how about an option for deleting repeated POIs (based on coordinates, maybe, or names).

@Everyone, I'm thinking about starting a database of POIs. First, individual businesses, like Starbucks, Shell Gas, etc. I'm thinking you can download the one you want and combine them into your own POI file. I'm going to start one for Los Angeles area, centered around downtown, with a Yahoo radius of about 100 miles, LA is big in case you're wondering why such a big radius. Well, maybe not that big...but the more the better.

Also, could someone suggest a way to host/manage the POI files? Since the data is taken from a public source, I don't think there's any legal problem with sharing such files. Maybe we could call this the "POI project".

I'll answer instead of in7ane, because -- apparently nobody noticed, but i started developping my own brew of GMD (as its licence lets me do it...)

Actually, some POI filtering routine shouldn't be too hard to create, and i could make it i think... However, if you want some advanced features to it, it'd probably be easier to split that thing into another piece of software...

And about some POI database, i already though of it. There are yet a few commercial POI databases available around the web, but i though of creating an open, end-user contributed database. Being European (Belgian indeed), i think i'd start with POIs from european countries at first.

About the legal issues, i don't really know. These are just some coordinates with some text. Some data that anyone could create easyly...

My mind would be to have people enter the coordinates of their local POIs... a million people giving 5 POI each makes yet a good database.

I don't know about the hosting, but the backend shouldn't be too hard to create. I already investigated the issues and it shouldn't be too hard to make a piece of software to handle everything, with some SQL database and a web 2.0 interface to it. I think i could hack a little thing together by the end of the coming week...

[Mystheryman]

Hi @ all,

It's me again.
Does anyone know, how to get geodata.dat for germany?

[ThaNerd]

Hi @ all,

It's me again.
Does anyone know, how to get geodata.dat for germany?

Simple answer : you can't... European Geodata is NOT available (at least not for free nor for a payable price, whatever how much money you have)...

And PLEASE avoid spamming. that won't help you at all...

[in7ane]

http://www.in7ane.com/psp/gmdl0.4.5b.zip

Mainly a bug-fix re-release.

(1)
deniska, directions are now back to what they should be for the next version of Map This!, I think - tell me if I need to make any changes (failing that legacy mode is there as an option).

(2)
More UK post code data, around 30K in total now (from 4 sources, so probably with overlap).

(3)
UK Topo (New Popular Ed.) now locks (on get numbers, preview and pull) the center of the map lon/lat for the northing/easting calculations, which seems to end-up producing lined up tiles, hopefully with not too much distortion (a bit hard to test since NPE is scanned in and not precisely lined up).


PSPLawyer, zsc, that is a bizarre Vista bug since the zip format is quite standard. Anyway I'll try and remember to zip while still in Windows (yes, I develop in a Parallels/Boot Camp environment on a mac, but no, a mac version is not planned any time soon, so do try VirtualPC if you are on a PPC or Parallels/Boot Camp on Intel, Chrislim - moving to Qt will take time).

zsc, I will take a look at removing duplicate POIs, if I enable horizontal scrolling do you want the part that's visible without scrolling to be the POI name or the coordinates? As for a database of POIs - Google, Microsoft, etc. are not a public sources (the Google community layer may be though - haven't read the terms), I would look around for open source POI databases - there may already be something there.

Mysteryman, most EU countries do not make available the source data that would be needed to create geodata.dat files (Denmark is an exception to this I think), see: http://www.publicgeodata.org

meme me, I can't seem to replicate that - could you post what you are doing step-by-step?

ThaNerd, I haven't used CVS before, so it will take some time for me to look at it properly - but I agree it would be a good idea to get the code hosted somewhere and enable contributions, in the meantime I've just taken the % done idea. I'll rename the app first (just looking to come up with something that still abbreviates to GMDL for update purposes


I'm going to have a go at hosting pre-made maps made from sources that are free to redistribute:
http://www.in7ane.com/psp/maps_usgs_parks/
http://www.in7ane.com/psp/maps_npe_parks/

[zsc]

@ThaNerd, for hosting, a simple bulletin board (ie, vBulletin, phpBB2, etc.) would do I think, just have people post their POIs with a description in the appropriate section organized by location/country/city, etc. Maybe we can ask if another thread can be added to this forum. There are a lot of file sharing host around already.

@in7ane, a simple button would do, I was thinking that if the user-created POI files database thing works out, ppl can just download the ones they want, add them one by one to a single POI file, click a button and all the duplicated POIs go away. Extracting from zip file isn't that big of a deal really, i used winrar, problem solved.


There are a lot of ppl still clueless about MapThis as well as GMDL from what I read about in the comments for the post about MapThis 0.47 on QJ.net. I'm still working on the FAQ/Tutorials for MapThis and GMDL. There's a wiki on it already, anyone know how I can update that thing?