Loaf, map stuff

scheherazade

Rear Admiral
I wrote an XML generator that can read your maps (https://www.wcnews.com/maps/) and understand the relationships between places.

a sample run xml can be found here
http://mason.gmu.edu/~mbanach/

the results are in vegastrike format.
I intend to use it for wc:universe so that you can go and trade everywhere :) not just the privateer areas.

in any case,
on to why i post this.

aside from finding about 2 places where you forgot to label the map items :) (i can look up where i found these if you'd like, if you haven't noticed yet yourself, i used a couple month old set of images when i sat down to write this program)

i would like any info you have about specific systems.

i can look through the game walk-throughs to find coordinates of nav points, names, etc.
BUT
i'm sure your vast knowledge includes things you remember from books, playing etc, that can aide me.
namely, if you know how many/what kind of planets/locations are in which systems, beyond those mentioned in the mission walk-throughs.

so if you (or anyone else reading this) can be of any assistance in tracking down what goes where, than i'd be _very_ appreciative. I want to have everything in the right place :)

-scheherazade
(scheherazade at strategyplanet.com)

note, i have no internet, i check in at school. so if you email me i may not respond unless its tues/wed/thurs.
 
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oh yah, i have to mention, the info on number of planets, gas giants, etc, is just random numbers.

only 'system-names', 'coordinates', and 'links-to' are actually meant to mean anything so far.

but i'd like to fix that as much as possible :)

-scheherazade
 
sorry, yet another thing i forgot

if anyone would be willing to take screen shots of as many places in WC as possible (places = onboard ship between missions, on planets in privateer, etc...) that'd be a big help. I am working on 3d interfaces for the landed areas, and I wanna get them to match the actual palces as best as possible. I haven't ever taken any screens or figured out how, so either screens or instructions on how to would be good, so that I can work on the 3d models and look at the screens at the same time.

-scheherazade
 
what is up with the blue lines and the layers?

nephilim jumps and armada stuff?

hmm

ok, i'll have to touch up the reader

its written in matlab and that means it has a 512 meg cap on all variables put together...

needless to say the full screen maps took a poo before they got 5% of the way (maxxed the memory limit).

so it works with the smaller maps and uses appending-links to join the results.

i COULD prolly get it working on the whole thing, but it'd have to recalculate a lot for each place (currently it calculated everything once, and saves every intermediate result for fast access later, meanind lots of data space)

I also listed off the names and match the places by order (left-right numbered, ties broken top/down).
BUT
I could OCR them. The only thing was that a lot of the characters collide, so I can't character match, I'd have to do a complete convolution and match the best-fit areas. This means it will time-to-time give mis matches and misspell things. But I could work on it. If i did that I could make the reader 100% generic about your map-style.

how are you making these? photoshop? if you're using photoshop and layers, try to keep the jump-lines above the sector/quadrant lines. The linking mechanism finds 'line endpoints' at each place, and then samples that endpoint to all other endpoints. If it gets a hit (3/5 samples succeed), it resamples with 20. if 19/20 make it, then its a valid link and is added to the links-list.
This also means that it only works for straight lines (walking a curve takes lots more power and some goofy methods, AND requires the line to not be broken). but the link-audit facility can take care of any extra needed links.

anyways, i'll see about modifying it for a giant image so it can do the whole thing at once without breaking it up in to little maps.



As for system info, i think the priorities should be on the 'unique' places.

where the famous battles were, or temples, etc. that sorta stuff. Get the special systems done as accurate as possible. I think prolly any mentioned as historic first.

I'm sure there are tons of random places that are just mentioned on drawings but nothing has ever spoken of them.

actually, where are you getting your locations from? the map is REALLY robust. so robust i can't imagine where all of it came from :)

anyways, i'll check in with details some other time. i'm just passing through the lab atm and i got a few things to take care of.

but yah, i'll get this thing working on the entire image i think.

anyways, thanks for agreeing to help me out. This'll be good stuff :)

-scheherazade
 
oh yah, i'll check at home on those missing labels.
i know both were in 'numbered' systems
i.e. Name # (#)
where you skipped count.

-scheherazade
 
just to mention, i'm still working on things. just spread thin across stuff. school and various projects.

anyways, thought i should ask, you wouldn't happen to have 'depth' values for those systems would you?

-scheherazade
 
I don't believe those exist. It should also be noted that the WCP map (from which LOAF's WCU map is derived) is based on "Akwende Projection" - which means, simply, that it is not an accurate indicator of distance. The only truly to-scale map I can think of is the WC1 one of Vega.

BTW, would you be interested in joining a resource pooling agreement with the Reckoning? Contact me at CaptainObvious@mail2breakfast.com .
 
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