High resolution PDF/Image Altis Map - free license

[mecharius 2]

I've found a few high resolution Altis maps around the internet, however the license of these files is a bit unclear. As I would like to distribute the map publicly with something open source I'm putting together, does anybody know of a freely licensed, very high resolution PDF/JPG Altis map?

Edited June 11, 2014 by mecharius

[whiztler 135]

Have a peek here: http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=12/39.9034/25.1405

OWM offers various options to download your map. Recommended

License info: http://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright

[mecharius 2]

Thanks Whiztler - openstreetmap is a LOT better than when I last looked, pretty impressive :) I'll have a bit more of a go at it but I think it may not be quite right as I need something that represents the game world pretty closely (i.e. the game buildings and markers)

Its for this:

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[kremator 1064]

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Really liking this!!

[mecharius 2]

Cheers Kremator. There are a bunch more features already completed in the newest version, I just want to sort out the map before I make anything public.

[bangabob 41]

Thanks Whiztler - openstreetmap is a LOT better than when I last looked, pretty impressive :) I'll have a bit more of a go at it but I think it may not be quite right as I need something that represents the game world pretty closely (i.e. the game buildings and markers)

Its for this:

.

Very nice. Using the Enemy Occupation System too. I'm flattered :D

[Edge 2]

Mecharius, you have PM. I will ask around what's the situation with our PDF maps, and let you (and everybody here) know - we will most likely add this to the Game Content Usage Rules and/or Licenses FAQ.

And BTW, it's a really nice mission generator you made. :)

[mecharius 2]

Bangabob - its a great script. I did have to modify a few lines so that I could send in an optional callback when the zone is captured but other than that its working perfectly!

Hi Edge, thanks for taking the time to reply and do some digging around! Hopefully we can get this sorted and I'll be able to release something soon!

[Tajin 348]

Looks interesting so far. I'm curious where you're going to take this.

Oh, have you considered using a ingame-script in combination with inidbi, to actually generate a map yourself?

It's probably a bit of a lengthy process but it should work. It would also allow you to align everything perfectly and enables the use of custom maps.

Ah damn... now I have the sudden urge to try it out myself. I'll take a closer look at that possibility when I have some time. ^^

[mecharius 2]

Hey Tajin, in theory it would be pretty easy to use a custom map - its just an image and some very basic maths to convert where you click on the image to in game coordinates. Currently the map information is not saved with mission data but it would be very easy to do so. Managing required addOns[] arrays in the mission.sqm would be a bit more complicated, but there is no reason it couldn't be set up for a number of community maps.

I haven't really looked into generating a map from in game but would be interested to know if it was possible! (I think I read on a forum somewhere that they used to be able to do it in the OFP days)

As far as where its going, well.... its a secret! OK that's a lie. However to prevent this going too far off topic, I'll direct you to the "release" notes on www.anvilproject.com/downloads/index.html which are pretty much up to date (or will be in about 5 minutes). When I get this map sorted I'll make an official release thread with a bit more room for discussion :)

[Edge 2]

Hello, Mecharius, I have the info regarding the use of PDF map of Altis and Stratis. As it's a product BI sells as part of Arma 3 Digital Deluxe Edition, publishing the map content on the internet is regarded illegal and we cannot allow you to use it. If you need a decent map of Altis and Stratis for your mission generator, the legally safe option is to use the map imagery obtained from the game (e.g. by print-screening), which would be considered fair use of game content according to the Game Content Usage Rules.

Please feel free to PM me if you'd have further questions, and keep up the great work! :)

[mecharius 2]

Hi Edge, no problem thats perfectly understandable. I'll get to work on some screen grabs. Thanks for looking into it for me!

[suiside 95]

for those who have the deluxe edition and thus the original map included in it, could we use it with this editor if the editor linked the original file in our own folder on our own computer to the gui ?

so that the editor does not come with the map but uses the owners map instead ?

[mecharius 2]

I aim to eventually allow you to to define your own custom maps in the GUI so you could use whatever file you legally have access to in PNG / JPG format. You would need to "calibrate" the image a little bit to tell the editor how to convert where you click on screen to game map coordinates. This only requires specifying the minimum and maximum x- and y-coordinates of the map image you are using.

[suiside 95]

that sounds great :D

[badluckburt 78]

I've done this for personal use by unpacking the pbo, converting the PAAs to PNGs and putting them together in an HTML page which I then saved as an image using a Firefox plugin. If I understand Edge's response correctly, this is allowed so if that's the case and if you'd like me to I can help you out with it.

[mecharius 2]

Hey BadLuckBurt - sounds like a good idea, I tried to find something this way a couple of days ago without much luck. Can you point me towards the right PBO path?

I've also seen on some threads that you can hit shift+numpad minus, then release and type "typography" to export the map in emf, although its without place names. I'll let you know if I have any luck with this approach.

[mecharius 2]

I couldn't get the "topography cheat" to work but I just exported Stratis section by section and stitched it together. The quality is not great, but it only took about 45 minutes. I also hacked in a user override of the map image. Here is the result:

Altis is going to be a LOT more work :)

[badluckburt 78]

My bad, I thought you wanted the textured map. Those you can get from the PBO, I don't think the untextured ones are image tiles. I'm testing something else for myself this weekend and if that works it can also be applied to get the maps from Arma, I'll let you know if it works out.

[mecharius 2]

Yeah thats fine. I think the untextured one is a bit easier to edit on. Yeah, let me know how you go. I've been scouring the wiki for "setMapPosition" commands but no luck so far :)

[mecharius 2]

Oh wow - just noticed this http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?178671-Tiled-maps-Google-maps-compatible-(WIP)

[badluckburt 78]

I couldn't get the "topography cheat" to work

I haven't had any luck trying my method yet, it turned out to be as much work as just screenshotting and stitching it together (tried to record video and extract frames from that). Anyway, I tried that topography thing and it actually works beautifully, it just gets saved in an unexpected place.

Checking on the biki: https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/ArmA:_Cheats

TOPOGRAPHY

Generates a map in EMF vector format. The file is (not) always created at the root directory of the C: drive (Windows 7 with UAC might put the file in Virtualstore, "C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Virtualstore" ). The output file is generated when the map is next viewed in game. German Users: Enter TOPOGRAPHZ instead.

So it may have worked for you but the almighty UAC hurled it into the Virtualstore. I have it turned off and it saved to the C:\

I tried it with my own map which doesn't have any names on it yet so I don't know if those show as well but I'm going to export Altis next and see what happens.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ok, I have Altis but no town-names or anything, you do see the town buildings and everything. You should be able to pull the names from the config.cpp (CfgNames), they come with coordinates and since you can already translate those, you should have no problem sticking them on there :)

Edited June 16, 2014 by BadLuckBurt

[mecharius 2]

Hey thanks Burt. Yeah I found the "cheats" page but wasn't having much luck getting anything out. I'll have another go when I get the time because the maps linked above are great for smaller islands but not ideal for Altis due to the huge scale. At a reasonable image size things get pretty pixellated when you zoom in.

Either way I'm now sharing the editor with a few people for them to test it and hope to make it available more widely soon even if the map isn't 100% perfect.

(EDIT) oh and for suiside, I've set it up so that you can start a new mission on any of the maps provided by 10T in the link above - Altis, Chernarus, Stratis, Takistan and Zargabad. If 10T provides any more maps I'll include them :)

[MoLoJack 10]

I see this is a closed BETA. Is there an ETA or general idea how long we need to wait for this? Or is there any way to join into the closed BETA. I would love to get ahold of this to fabricate some missions for my Community.

[mecharius 2]

Hey Jack. Thanks for your interest :) I'm not adding any new features to the current version (v 3.2) so from that perspective it's ready for release now. However I'd like to find and address any hidden critical bugs before subjecting everybody to it!

The main reason I've chosen closed testing is because I want to make sure people who use it know its "early access" and are willing to provide some feedback. I've done a fair bit of testing on my own but there is nothing like getting "real" users to break your software in new and exciting ways.

The ETA is "soon", or to be a bit more precise hopefully by the end of this week.