NZMS 260 Topo in MrSID

[Popsit & Sweets]

Has anyone any experience with this stuff? I have a BOP series that I am getting to grips with.. The viewer for this format is a free download from the MrSID site but the printing is lousy. I have found a pluin for Photoshop that gives much improved printing but I am struggling.. What I really need is a way to stich the individual 260 series maps for situations when the area of interest falls in a corner.. The viewer has accurate NZGD1949 grid. Currently the process is..

 

1. Convert WGS84 lat/long to NZGD49. To do this I use the converter on the LINZ website. However it doesnt do decimal minutes only dec secs or Dec degrees so I have to multiply out the dec minutes to find the seconds value. Another way is to eneter the WGS84 waypoint into the etrex then change units to NZGD and read the waypoint back in NZGD.

 

2. Locate the waypoint on the 260 series using the NZGD co-ordinates (or if I have no idea which map it might be on .. converting thru to a 260 series co ordinate which is only map no and 8 digit total co ordinate which isnt acurate enough but at least gives the map number) The viewer gives a good position indicator but doesnt allow the image to be marked so any print or cut and paste looses the mark!

 

Apart from the need to stitch the 260 series maps the images are excellent and as good as printed topos with better zoom.

 

Any comments ideas suggestions..

[+tgsnoopy]

Wow, good effort. I'm by no means an expert on the mapping side of things, but there are a couple lurking here. Sounds like you have a good grasp of the task at hand.

 

A lot of us have commercially produced mapping programs, personally I'm using NZMapped. If you can handle waiting a little while for my reply, and are interested in a cache or a few caches, I could e-mail the pictures to you if you e-mailed which ones you wanted. tgsnoopy at xtra dot co dot nz .

[+BigNick]

I suspect that Gavin (Rediguana) or Gary (Gazzanic) are going to be able to provide you with the best ideas as they are the geospacial experts, but assuming that your .sid files are georeferenced (have a .sdw header file) you could use something like Fugawi in order to view them - which has the advantage in that it will stitch the maps automatically - but the disadvantage of costing about $99USD (and for $99NZD you could buy TUMONZ)

 

Quick Photoshop Stitch Guide

(in this example, the point of interest is in the bottom left corner)

1. Open the map with the required point in the corner (Map1)

2. Open the image containing the map to the left of the current map (Map2)

3. Open the map below Map2 and Map1 (Map3 and Map4)

4. Decide on size of final map (x and y)

5. For each map image go to 'Canvas Size...' and enter your x and y values divided by 2 (x/2,y/2) into the canvas size boxes, selecting the correct anchor point (Map1=bottom left, Map2=bottom right, Map3=top right, Map4=top left)

6. Go to Map1 'Canvas Size...' again and enter the x and y size into map size and set the anchor point to the top right

7. Drag each of the other maps (Map2,Map3 and Map4) into their appropriate places on Map1 (Map2 top left, Map3 bottom left, Map4 bottom right), the edge of the maps should lock onto the outside edge of the Map1 canvas when you drag them close to the edge.

8. Flatten the layers

 

You should now have a stitched map (of course I am assuming that the maps are seamless). Vary the instructions for points of interest at other corners, and vary the 'divide by 2' as you see fit, depending on where the point of interest lies on relation to the corner and where you want your point to appear in the final map.

 

Links of interest:

(Stand alone NZ Mapping)

TUMONZ

NZMapped

TopoMapPro

(Online NZ Mapping)

WhereAreWe

(NZ Supplier of Fugawi + other mapping stuff)

Geosystems

(Stand alone unit conversion Software)

LINZ Download

 

Cheers

Nick.

[Popsit & Sweets]

Hmm... Thanks for the Photoshop stitch sequence Nick I will have a little play with that in a minute but I'm not holding my breath. I cannot open 4 .sid maps on my PC at once.. takes gegs of ram to do that!!(Cant even open one) I will try taking a piece at a time which is all I have ever been able to do.. Must get more ram Will let you know howe I get on..

 

I had a look at Tumonz... Interesting but I suspect it cant provide the detail I am looking for. I couldnt find any screen shots but I note that they polygon the contours instead of drawing them so right away i lost interest.. The entire NZ set fits on a 650mb disk??? It is obvious that they recreate the map from data as required rather than a 1:19,000 scan as my .sid maps are..

 

If I convert one 260 series map from .sid to .jpg it blows up to 144mb.. I dare not try and decompress it further.. my PC throws a hissy fit..I have 30 maps just to do the BOP!! All I can really do is take out pieces..

 

But if anyone is interested in a 30 map 260 series BOP set at 1:19K in MrSID with .tab and.sdw'slet me know.. I can burn off a copy as LINZ have no copyright on them anymore..

[Popsit & Sweets]

Oops .. A bit off on the scaling and file size in my previous post.

 

The sid files are actually 1:190 scale scans and each file (260 map) decompresses to approx 1Gb..

 

Now you understand my problem?

[+BigNick]

nally posted by Popsit & Sweets:

Hmm... Thanks for the Photoshop stitch sequence Nick I will have a little play with that in a minute but I'm not holding my breath. I cannot open 4 .sid maps on my PC at once.. takes gegs of ram to do that!!(Cant even open one) I will try taking a piece at a time which is all I have ever been able to do..

So the MrSid import filter will let you open a section rather than the entire thing? If it does you may be able to open the sections and do the joining as per the instructions...

quote:

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I had a look at Tumonz... Interesting but I suspect it cant provide the detail I am looking for. I couldnt find any screen shots but I note that they polygon the contours instead of drawing them so right away i lost interest.. The entire NZ set fits on a 650mb disk??? It is obvious that they recreate the map from data as required rather than a 1:19,000 scan as my .sid maps are..

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Yes the maps are generated on the fly from the vector data used to build the 1:50000 maps - but if you are a contour counter it is not as good as a topo It does have some nice things (eg the names on the roads) but quite a few negatives (eg not being able to import a file of waypoints)

quote:

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The sid files are actually 1:190 scale scans and each file (260 map) decompresses to approx 1Gb..

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Ah, I see the problem...

quote:

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But if anyone is interested in a 30 map 260 series BOP set at 1:19K in MrSID with .tab and.sdw'slet me know.. I can burn off a copy as LINZ have no copyright on them anymore..

---

Yes I would be quite interested - I have been playing with writing my own mapping software, so I might be able to adapt it for use with these maps. Just out of interest where did the maps come from and can you get the whole of NZ? I know that the Crown Copyright allows you to copy without royalty payments, but not being a lawyer, I wonder what copyright the person who actually does the scanning holds? (The reason I ask is that TopoMapPro has the maps copyright Terralink who do the scanning, even though they are Crown Maps... any lawyers out there?)

Email me on nick at automata dot co dot nz

Cheers

Nick

[Popsit & Sweets]

These maps were not commercially scanned .. this is raw (raster?)data from LINZ hence my problems stitching it... I have sent you an offline email on this subject..

 

In any event it is not illegally obtained or copyright and is probably useful to geocachers so I have put a copy in my first cache which went in today.. I have sent off the report and it will go on site as soon as it is approved I guess..