SotAMapper - shows items of interest and tracks player location on map

LATEST UPDATE

• 2016.09.21 - Updated to v1.7

OVERVIEW

SotAMapper is a tool for SotA which uses a list of "items of interest" in a .csv file and renders them graphically along with the current player position (which is obtained from the SotA log files).

It is necessary to manually use the /loc command in game once each time the player enters a map for which there is a map data .csv file to sync.

Initially the set of map data files is pretty limited. The intent is that over time people will create maps and contribute them (send them to coder1024@gmail.com) and they will be included in a future release. So to see this in action without creating any additional data, you'll need to go into a map for which there is a map data file and type /loc while running the app.

The idea also is that it provides an easy way for you to record locations while playing on a map and see them graphically.

Spoiler: DOWNLOAD LINK

LATEST VERSION
SotAMapper v1.7

OLDER VERSIONS
SotAMapper v1.6
SotAMapper v1.5
SotAMapper v1.4
SotAMapper v1.3
SotAMapper v1.2
SotAMapper v1.1
SotAMapper v1.0

Spoiler: SCREENSHOT

Spoiler: CONTRIBUTORS - SotAMapper Team

Code:

Project Creator, Programmer

    coder1024 (coder1024@gmail.com)

Data Files (Maps, Icons, etc.)

    LiquidSky
    lollie
    moko

Testing Feedback, Suggestions, Bug Reports

    Berek
    Bom
    Bushmaster
    cartodude
    Frostll
    Kabalyero
    Link_of_Hyrule
    LiquidSky
    lollie
    moko
    Umuri
    Womby

Spoiler: KNOWN ISSUES

Code:

- one user reported running for a long time and eventually having SotAMapper
  appear to be "stuck" on a single map, but could not later reproduce this,
  and so this may or may not be an issue still out there -- UPDATE: It has also
  been reported that after running for awhile, SotA stops updating its log files
  which may explain this issue

Spoiler: FEATURE REQUESTS

Code:

- ability to create a new map file using the name reported by SotA, saving the
  need to manually create it with a matching filename
- add a background image which could represent the local area better than
  just the black background
- zoom function
- pre-canned Add functionality to save the need to type out common names for
  resource types, etc.
- edit item, change name, remove item for accidentally added items or typos
- add separate field in map .csv file for symbol, allowing independently setting
  the name and symbol to allow re-using a single symbol for multiple differently
  named items, for example towns
- support map files with the full name, area and map as reported by /loc, as
  currently all POTs have the same map name but different area names and this
  would allow having different maps (for player run quests for example) for
  different POTs built on the same template
- allow specifying text color for map items, and/or allow defining named colors
  in which case the name could be used instead of the color value
     Well, 242.239, 89.40163, -198.2776,0x0000FF
     or...
     Color,POI,0x0000FF
     Well, 242.239, 89.40163, -198.2776,POI
- layer support so you could toggle on/off items of a certain color/category

Spoiler: REVISION HISTORY

Code:

2016.09.21, v1.7
- relaxed map .csv parsing to account for Excel saving with extra empty fields

2016.09.20, v1.6
- added two additional coordinate systems, both rotated an additional 90 degs
  from the previous, now all 4 possible cases are covered

2016.09.19, v1.5
- added support for specifying one of two coordinate systems in a map file to
  address the issue of maps being incorrectly rotated

2016.09.19, v1.4
- data updates
- when using the Add button to add a new map item, the min/max extents of the
  data are re-computed so the rendering doesn't get wonky as you add items when
  building a new map
- empty map file is now tolerated and handled correctly, this allows running
  the app with an empty map file and adding all items using the Add button and
  now (for real this time!) never having to manually enter any coordinates
- fixed a bug with date/time parsing from log file entries which prevented
  it from working on a machine whose date/time locale was not compatible
  by default with the format used in the SotA log file

2016.09.11, v1.3
- added TopMost checkbox, checking it will attempt to keep the window on top
  of other windows
- added settings.ini file which is created when run (if it doesn't exist) and
  which will persist settings (like TopMost) between runs.  The settings.ini
  file is stored in "%APPDATA%\SotAMapper".  there is NO NEED to hand edit
  this file, there is only 1 setting so far (the TopMost setting) and its
  set from the UI.
- fixed string formatting bug with MapCoord and spaced out values
  for readability
- there is now an Add button which allows adding a map item at the current
  player location to the current map file.  no more need to type in coordinate
  values!
- when loading map .csv files, ignore lines with empty item names

2016.09.08, v1.2
- added status bar which shows name of map item on mouse over for items which
  render as images (due to the presence of a .PNG with matching name in the
  data/icons folder)
- added link to forum discussion thread in status bar
- data updates (maps, icons), added map for Highvale
- fixed upper/lower case bug when case of map file didn't match what was
  reported by SotA
- fixed crash when map data .csv file was empty (no items)
- added descriptive error messages which render in red when the "NO DATA"
  condition occurs to help in identifying why a map is not showing

2016.09.04, v1.1
- player position updates automatically on map while in a map for which there is
  a map data .csv file
- when first entering a map, it is necessary to do 1 manual /loc to sync

2016.09.03, v1.0
- initial release

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

• Windows 7 or later
• .NET 4.5.2 Framework
  
  Spoiler: .NET DOWNLOAD

  Download .NET 4.5.2
• SotAMapper is a C# .NET application created in Visual Studio 2015 (v14)
• Full source code for the application is included and is also posted on GitHub
  • GitHub Project Page
  • Project Commit Log

MAP DATA FILES

A separate .csv file is needed for each SotA map and should be in the "data/maps" directory having a name matching the SotA map name as reported in the /loc command.

The map data .csv file must be plain text format, make sure you're text editor isn't saving it as RTF or some other format.

For example, suppose the /loc command printed out the below. In this case, there should be a file "data/maps/Novia_R1_City_Soltown.csv" which contains a list of items for that map.

Code:

   Area: Soltown (Novia_R1_City_Soltown) Loc: (-15.7, 28.0, 23,2)

The map .csv file contains name and position for each item to be shown on the map. As you discover items on a map, you can add them to the .csv file and they will be shown on the map (although you need to exit and restart the application to show changes to the .csv file). Here are some examples of items in a map .csv file. An example file is provided also as a starting point.

Code:

   Name,X,Y,Z
   Cotton,-93.2,19.1,21.8
   Bear Cave,-88,18.8,-88.9
   Mandrake,-53.8,18.5,3.5

Note that this tool only uses the X and Z values, but all (X, Y, and Z) are expected in the file. This is done to avoid confusion between going from what is shown in game and what goes in the file. The middle value (Y) represents the elevation which, of course, is not used for a 2D map. Having it here for completeness may help if this data were to be used in other tools also.

When building a map .csv file, the /loctrack command can be helpful. This causes the location to be continually shown on screen.

You can also click the Add button in SotAMapper to add an item to the map at the current player location. With this feature, there's no need to type in coordinate values!

If you have Excel installed, you can double-click on the .csv files and edit them in that, just make sure to save them out as .csv if prompted.

MAP COORD SYS

Different maps in SotA have different coordinate systems. If things don't appear at the correct orientation in SotAMapper its possible the wrong coord sys is being used. To figure this out, turn on /loctrack and see which of the below applies. The letters on the below indicate positive direction. So you can walk north while watching the loc values and then do the same thing walking east and figure out which one it is. Here are the possible choices.

Code:

        //
        //       X
        //       |
        //       |
        //  Z----*
        //
        XZ_NorthWest,

        //
        //  Z
        //  |
        //  |
        //  *----X
        //
        ZX_NorthEast,

        //
        //  *----Z
        //  |
        //  |
        //  X
        //
        ZX_EastSouth,

        //
        //  X----*
        //       |
        //       |
        //       Z
        //
        ZX_SouthWest

Once you figure out which one is in use, add a line like the below somewhere in
the map .csv file. That will specify which coord sys to use for that map. The
default, if not specified, is XZ_NorthWest.

Code:

MapCoordSys,ZX_NorthEast

MAP ICONS

By default, map items are rendered as text labels with dots at the map location. If a .PNG file is present in the "data/icons" directory which matches the name of the item in the map data .csv file, then the image will be shown instead.

 

Awesome! You actually beat me to it, I was aiming for implementing a map + stored point reference list implementation for the HUD 0.3.0. So probably will be next month.
Using /loc to populate the player location is good, but really you should only need it once, as the player location is dumped to another file in the game directory every 2 seconds.

 

Just to be clear, so far I have only created 1 map file which is for the East Perennial Trail adventure zone near Soltown.

So the tool will only "work" for that map. You'll need to create other map files for other areas. If you do so and would like to send them to me for inclusion in an update, you can Email them to coder1024@gmail.com

 

ah, I didn't realize that. If you know where that gets written please let me know, otherwise I'll dig around and see if I can find it. I'll update the tool to use that instead, I didn't realize that was available.

 

@Umuri I see there's CurrentPlayerData.txt in the game install folder which appears to have the player position. It doesn't show the current map name though, but I guess I could use that for updates and then still rely on a manual /loc to get the map name when you switch maps, etc. I'll add that to the next version, thanks for the tip

 

No problem. You can also use the "Entering" message from the chatlog to have it know where you're going on the fly.
The only cave-at to these methods:
#1. CurrentPlayerdata.txt only works if one copy of the game client is open. If you have multiples, they both fight over it.
#2. Using Entering from the chatlog only works for every scenechange after the first login. First scene load (login) doesn't say what scene it is.

Still a great tool and great idea. In the interest of cross-compatibility, I may use a similar or same file format so tools can use the same map files in both of our apps. But again mine's at least a full version out (just now finishing up 0.2.0)

 

@Umuri interesting, thanks for the additional info. Cross compatibility sounds like a good idea. If you end up wanting the format to be a little different as you're working on it, let me know and we can coordinate so they match. I chose .csv because its a simple text format and you can double-click it and edit it in Excel easily. The file contains X, Y, and Z which is more than needed, but it makes it a direct match to what the user sees in the /loc info so I thought it best. Plus who knows if some other tool may end up using elevation info someday and could then pull it from existing files.

 

This is great! I was thinking about doing something like the old UO automap. I will give it a try this afternoon.

 

Just updated to v1.1. Player position now tracks automatically while in a map for which a map data .csv file exists. It is necessary to do /loc once each time on entering a scene to sync. - thanks to @Umuri for pointing out the current player data file which makes this possible!

 

How do you create the maps to begin with? Do you have to do that part by manually typing up a csv file?

 

Yes, you create map data .csv files in the "data/maps" directory inside the install directory (extracted from the downloaded .zip). You can see the OP for an example of how the info should be formatted, you can also look at the example map which is provided. When creating the map file, the name of the file should match the map name reported by SotA as described in the OP.

The idea is a tool which lets you record items of interest on adventure maps as you encounter them and which then renders them graphically for you along with your position. As the tool is brand new, it only has 1 example map provided so far. Over time, hopefully people will create and submit maps which can be included in future releases

 

I'm unable to create a .csv via /loc - what am I doing wrong? If I just empty the map that comes with the mapper and rename it it crashes. How can I make a valid .csv?

EDIT: solved it, had to add one point of interest manually

 

ah... good catch. I'll debug that and see what's going on when there are zero items in the file. Even once you add one or two the rendering will still look a bit funky since it scales to available data. once you get more data in there it should improve

EDIT: Found and fixed that crash, it'll be in the next version. Thanks for reporting it!

 

Just released v1.2!!! See below or the included readme for a summary of the changes.

• added status bar which shows name of map item on mouse over for items which render as images (due to the presence of a .PNG with matching name in the data/icons folder)
• added link to forum discussion thread in status bar
• data updates (maps, icons), added map for Highvale
• fixed upper/lower case bug when case of map file didn't match what was reported by SotA
• fixed crash when map data .csv file was empty (no items)
• added descriptive error messages which render in red when the "NO DATA" condition occurs to help in identifying why a map is not showing

 

Just released v1.3!!! See below or the included readme for a summary of the changes.

• added TopMost checkbox, checking it will attempt to keep the window on top of other windows
• added settings.ini file which is created when run (if it doesn't exist) and which will persist settings (like TopMost) between runs. The settings.ini file is stored in "%APPDATA%\SotAMapper". there is NO NEED to hand edit this file, there is only 1 setting so far (the TopMost setting) and its set from the UI.
• fixed string formatting bug with MapCoord and spaced out values for readability
• there is now an Add button which allows adding a map item at the current player location to the current map file. no more need to type in coordinate values!
• when loading map .csv files, ignore lines with empty item names

 

Is there any way that we could add locations that are not created by the client, ie exits, etc... ?
Or is that ability already there and I overlooked it...

 

A "map item" ?
Is that an item that we can create or does it depend on "items" that the game defines as worthy of having a spot on our compass ?

 

Looks like all you'd have to do is find a spot in-game, type /loc to get the coordinates, then add it to the map file with the description you wanted at thoose coordinates. For example a miner might make a map of node locations, a woodsman might node trees.

 

Roger.... Gonna give this a try for sure...
Looks promising...

 

Awesome work, thanks for making this it's exactly what we need