Standalone StreetCreator Beta
StreetCreator (SC) is intended as a low cost mapping application for use in areas where detailed street maps are not available or prohibitively expensive. Existing streets can be captured from a GPS while driving thru the area to be mapped. It will be possible to combine multiple street maps captured in different areas to one street file thereby allowing multiple users to contribute to the effort. SC can also create raster .bmp files for use in other applications.
The standalone StreetCreator (SC) project is in the early Beta faze. The minimum requirements are Windows XP or later, NMEA capable GPS receiver, 1 serial port or USB to serial converter, approximately 20mb of disk space, a vehicle operator and the SC operator (capture is not totally automatic)..
SC can create files used to import detailed street maps created by the user into Precision Mapping Streets and Traveler 8.0 . The target area can be anywhere in the world. The resulting PMap 8.0 maps are fully zoomable and searchable (with limitations) within PMap or UiView/PMapServer7. You cannot edit or delete PMap streets, only add them. SC does not require PMap, or PMapServer7 for operation.
SC can also import other maps to be used as a frame
of reference while capturing detailed street segments with a GPS.
Map import capability:
PMap style underlays in .bmp format. Accompanying .sat file required.
UiView raster maps.
SRTM digital elevation files.
SHP files. Polyline and Polygon only at this time.
PMap style .STR files created by the user.
It will also be possible to save a created SC image as a .bmp file for use as a raster map in UiView. This raster image would include all map layers displayed by SC.
The following is an example of an SC map using a
USGS Topo .bmp file as and underlay and a user created .STR file. The red lines in
the center of the map are rendered from an .STR file.
The image below was obtained by zooming in with the mouse (click and
drag). The underlay .bmp file shows considerable pixellation. This can be
reduced by using a smaller scale .bmp file. The streets are now rendered as double
lined streets.
Shp file import can be useful to create a better frame of reference and to create more detailed raster .bmp files for use as UiView raster maps. SC presently only supports PolyLine (Streets, Railroads, rivers etc) and Polygons (Lakes, political subdivisions, coast lines etc). Future capability may include Points (City, Point of Interest etc). It will eventually allow importation of UiView raster maps, SRTM digital elevation files, radar images, etc.
The following examples show SC loading a bmp file
provided with Precision Mapping Streets and Traveler 8 as the basemap/Underlay and a shp
file containing the outlines of countries
The following example is SC zoomed in to the
British Isles using the same PMap 8 bmp file and the shp file containing country outlines.
Shp Files:
Shp files only describe the co-ordinates of Polyline, Polygon and Points used by SC to render the map. It is necessary to specify how the feature is to be rendered on the map. The default is to use a 1 pixel line width for Polylines and a 1 pixel width for Polygon borders. The default is fill all Polygons with white. SC provides the ability for the user to specify how and when each file is rendered.
The SC Shp Rendering form allows the user to specify
how the file is to be rendered. The examples below show how one shp file
(mjrivers.shp) containing coarse river co-ordinates is rendered when zoomed out past 20
miles to 200 miles. When zoomed in to 20 miles or less, a more detailed file
(rivers.shp) is used.
