[APP] TrekBuddy & JTrustN - Maps on the A1200

[kiwiguy]

Maps on the A1200

I started off this morning by trying to put a NYC subway map on my A1200 so I could find the nearest entrance while out walking, and that lead to several hours of trying to figure out how to store and view large maps - so thought I would share what I learnt. This is not about using GPS, but if you want to create maps (or any large diagram for that matter) so you can view them on your phone then read on...

Viewer

First off, by far the easiest way to view small maps on the A1200 is simply to find a good detailed map in adobe *.pdf; *.png; *.gif, etc format. Copy it to your phone and use the inbuilt pixel Viewer to view it. With the zoom option (side buttons) it is very quick to find the section of the map you want to look at and then zoom in to read the street names. Attachment 1 and 2 are examples of a NYC subway map and a Madrid street map in these formats that work very well.

However, if you have a very large map, then Viewer does not handle them very well - it either runs out of memory or the map is poorly displayed (Try out the Florence map in attachment 3 for example - looks good on PC, but blurry in Viewer). So I searched for a program that would allow me to read large maps and found TrekBuddy does the trick. The latest version can be downloaded from www.trekbuddy.net. The catch is that the map has to be cut up into small 400 x 400 pixel pieces and the program stitches them all together - but there is a utility, tbcutter, that you can download to your PC that will do this for you in seconds.

April 18th UPDATE: After writing everything below on Trekbuddy, I came across a much better program called JTrustN StreetMaps. It is is much faster, simpler to use and has built-in zoom. The home page is jtrustn.byethost12.com. See post further down this for instructions on how to use it and examples.

Note - both Trekbuddy and JTrustN StreetMaps simply allows you to view a map on the phone. They do not allow you to search for Streets or anything else.

TrekBuddy - How to Install

1. Download the jar file and install it on your phone.
2. Once you have installed it, you need to edit its registry.txt file to allow it to read and write files. (See this thread for how to do this).
3. Run the app - by default it comes with a world map.
4. To get full screen, go to settings and select "Full Screen". I also unchecked the OS boxes to turn off the Latitude/Longitude bar at the top (see screen shot). You have to press on bottom menu and select "Save" to save your changes.

This program needs 3 sets of files to work (I will use Florence as an example. See Attachment 4 for the complete set of Florence files for reference and to get you started)

• Florence.map - file that contains the size of the map; plus its coordinates. (see code example below)
• Florence.set - file that contains a list of the names of all the files containing the cut up pieces
• set\ - directory that contains the cut up map files eg Florence_0_0.png, Florence_0_400.png,... etc.

Map Projection,Latitude/Longitude
Point01,xy,0,0,in,deg,90,0,N,180,0,W,grid,,,,N
Point02,xy,639,0,in,deg,90,0,N,180,0,E,grid,,,,N
IWH,Map Image Width/Height,1220,3300

Steps for creating a new Map:

1. Download the map you want to use to your PC. It can pretty much be in any format (bmp, tif, gif, jpeg, png, etc).
   
2. Cut the map into pieces using tbcutter - see the section below for instructions. This tool creates both the xxx.set file and the set\ directory with all the small piece files.
   
3. Create the xxx.map file. I found the easiest way is to copy an existing map file and rename it to same name as your new map. eg if you have a Florence.set, call the map file Florence.map.
   
   Now if you really want to be accurate (or if you want to use this file with gps to locate where you are) then you would need to calibrate the map and change the latitude and longitude points so that they are accurate - but as I am using these just as maps then having the wrong coordinates does not impact using the map in any way.
   
   The only thing you have to change is the last line - which indicates the size of the file in pixels. You can get this by looking at the cut up map. If the largest size piece is called "Rome_1200_3200.png" - then edit the file (using Wordpad not Notepad) and change the last line to "IWH,Map Image Width/Height,1200,3200".
   
   [The map will actually be slightly bigger than this - so you will notice you may not be able to see the last little part of the map. You can always experiment and increase the numbers slightly until you are close (For the Florence map it ended up at 1220,3300). If you set them bigger than the map, then when you scroll to the edge of the map you will get a error msg when the app scrolls off the edge. ]
   
4. Copy the 2 files and the directory to a directory on your SD card eg Maps\ so they are all together.
   
5. Run TrekBuddy and open the Florence.map file and you will see the map.

Notes on Use:

1. There is only limited touch screen enabled. You have to use the joystick to scroll around the map which can be slow.
2. There is no zoom capability
3. If running in Full screen mode, you have to click on the red "end call" button two times to force bottom menu to be displayed.
4. If you touch very bottom left of screen with stylus, causes a Waypoint menu to be displayed where you can enter "markers" on the map. I was able to enter Waypoints - but with the hardkeys missing, was not able to jump to them so not much use.
5. If you touch very bottom right of screen it displays a Geo-caching screen - which is only useful if you have GPS. Return to map by touching in same spot.

If you want to know more there is a full user guide available for download in the TrekBuddy forum.


How to Cut a Map into Pieces

1. Cutting a map into pieces is surprisingly easy. Download the utility tbcutter tool from here and run it on your PC (No need to install it).
2. Select the map you want to cut in the "Source bitmap" dropdown.
3. Leave the Calibration File field blank
4. Select the Tile width and Height - I found 400 x 400 works well.
5. Leave everything else the same
6. Press Start.

The program will chop up the map and create a set directory and write all the piece files to it; then will create the xxxx.set file.

Thats it - now all the files are ready to copy to your phone. Once you have got the hang of it the whole process only takes about 5 min to create a new map.

[smokyhaze]

yeah i attempted to do the same thing, only a little differently.

i resized the map (which was a jpg) to fit on the mings screen.
then i sliced up the resized image of the map into little squares. then i used html to link each of those little squares (slices) to a page where a large version of that square is shown. so when u click on a slice it looks like zoom-in.
then i used javascript to display the locations within each slice as you mouse over (or joystick-over) the slice.
also provided a jump-to menu containing all locations.

here it is... for MUMBAI CITY.

[ranaonline]

Hey thanks feroze..
The map works beautifully! I am trying to create one for Delhi now and will post asap! I really needed one for Mumbai as I often travel there.

[deliciousj]

I'm on a Mac and I don't think there are any tools to do this, so can someone create a map for the Los Angeles area? THANKS!

[Shigeru]

This software is very good , but it lefts of course the main function .


Note - this program simply allows you to view a map on the phone. It does not allow you to search for Streets or anything else.

[Alpha43]

This is a very nice app. I will have to look futher into it.. having those nyc maps would be very nice for me when i take the train once in a while. I hate driving to the city. haha

~Alpha~

[antares_requiem]

LOL same thing here, im going to work by train... so... Anyway im using my app for Buenos Aires map its really usefull, good work guys with that app.

[kiwiguy]

A couple more large maps (Madrid, Paris, Barcelona) for use with Trekbuddy!!

The others are png or pdf files that will work with Viewer.

[kiwiguy]

Just found another map program, JTrustN StreetMaps, which is even better than Trekbuddy!!

It is is much faster, simpler to use and has built-in zoom - and you do not have to mess around trying to figure out the maximum size of the map. The home page is jtrustn.byethost12.com.

I have attached an example map of Manhattan NYC at the bottom so you can try it out.

[Note: Viewer is still the best way to view small maps as it is fast, is touch enabled and the zoom feature very good, but Viewer has problems with very large gifs or pngs - so a good map splitter program is still required for very large maps.]

Instructions on Making Your own Maps Using JTrustN

1. Find a map that you want to use
   Try using Google image search, select "Advanced Image Search" - set the size to large and image type to gif or png.
2. Download the two files attached to this thread - ImageSplit.zip and NYC.zip
3. Use ImageSplit to split up your map into small 128 x 128 pixel pieces (see Instructions below)
4. Unzip NYC.zip to an empty folder
5. Delete all the image files (map pieces) in the folder and replace with your new map pieces
6. Edit the META-INF\MANIFEST.MF file (using Wordpad - NOT Notepad) and change the name of the map to how you want it to appear on your phone.
7. Zip all the files (the map pieces, the META-INF folder and the jtrustn folder) into a new zip file called map.zip where map is the name of your map.
8. Rename file to map.jar
9. Install as you would any other jar file.

You will get a new app called the name of your map (see screenshot 1)

• Very simple to use - use the joystick to navigate. Press down to bring up zoom menu (screenshot 2)
• It will remember the zoom level and where you where where in the map the next time you start it which is very handy.

Using ImageSplit

ImageSplit is a small piece of java code that cuts your map into 128 x 128 pixel sized pieces and calls them the correct names. (You need to have java installed on your PC before using the java program, it can be found here: http://java.com/en/download)

1. Unzip the file to an empty directory on your c: drive eg c:\maps
2. Copy the map that you want to split to that directory. The map must be in jpg or png format.
3. Go Start-->Run to bring up a DOS cmd session.
4. Type: c:\maps\ImageSplit c:\maps\mapname.jpg
5. You should see the program run and create 20-30 image piece files in the same directory each with the same 10001000.png, 10001001.png, etc. If it only creates one file, then you have typed something incorrectly.
6. These are now ready to copy to the jar file as explained above

[Width]

So i am trying to make a map for sydney, except i cant seem to find a map. Just wondering where everyone has found the maps with the road names and so on. Thanks. If anyone in sydney knows or has a copy please send it to me and i will split it and put it up here. Thanks