Printing maps from NZ Topo Map - topomap.co.nz
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Lots of people have asked for it so I've just finished added some print support functionality to NZ Topo Map - http://www.topomap.co.nz
You can select an area you would like to print and a high resolution version of the selected area is generated ready for sending to the printer. The print view tends not to look so good on-screen, but produces much higher quality print resolution when actually printed.
The print functionality is still in its initial beta so is a little rough around the edges, but it should still help you print sections of the official LINZ topo maps to take tramping. Very handy for those of us without the nice digital toys to play with and need to stick to the old skool printed map version!
I welcome any feedback and especially would like to hear of any problems encountered with the new functionality.
For any problems please can you include details of your OS with version (Windows XP, Windows 7, Mac, Linux, etc.) and the web browser and version (Firefox 5, IE 8, Safari, Opera, Chrome, etc.).
If you encounter any bizarre print results. The print outs would be very useful to me in trying to determine the problem. If you don't mind, please could you post them to me along with the details of printer make and model:
Gavin Harriss
19 Maling Street
Avonside
Christchurch 8061
I hope you find the new print functionality useful.
Cheers,
Gavin
BTW: NZ Topo Map is fully up to date with the latest LINZ Topo50 maps released 28th June 2011.
A few initial issues I am aware of which I hope to fix next Monday...
IE7 - Sometimes there isn't a space between the print and search tabs.
Resizing print area - sometimes looses it's shape when dragging.
Hi Gavin. Thanks, that's a great idea. If you're still busy working on it, two thoughts I've had that I think would be very useful for the future are:
* A print-out that's guaranteed to be at a specified scale once on paper, as long as the printer's correctly configured for the computer of course. So it'd be possible to print at a standard 1:50,000 scale or 1:25,000 scale or 1:25,0000 scale. That would work with a heap of existing tools like measurement scales on the edge of compasses, for instance.
* Guaranteed grid reference numbers printed on the margins of the map. Printing maps for specialised regions is handy, but something that's disturbed me now that it's become more popular with the data more available is that there are more than a few people out there with maps that have no grid references. The grids are usually there if someone's cut their map from an official LINZ map, but the numbers on the LINZ margins often get removed. That means that a really good way of specifying or locating a position, if it's needed, suddenly isn't available.
Anyway, that's all that comes to mind.
Oh and if you can add an option for appending the LINZ map key to go with the printout, and maybe the little blurbs about how to construct grid references, I bet that'd be handy too.
Thanks for the feedback izogi. Much appreciated! I'm hoping to put some reference around the sides and also add a scale. I just need to get the basic functionality working 100% first as it's not playing nice all of the time in everyones browsers at present. Also the math logic has been frazzling my brain a little so I'll take a little break before the next round of scary logic to figure out! :P
Interesting regarding printing to exact scale. I hadn't thought of this one. I'll have a play, but this one might be quite difficult as different operating systems, web browsers and printers are likely to have a bit of influence on the final printout - skewing the output due to margins set, stretching to fit page, other user settings, etc. There's very limited control a web page has over the output unfortunately.
Thanks again!
Gavin
@izogi - an option for appending the map legend should be a little easier so expect to see this when I get a little extra time to throw at it.
"Interesting regarding printing to exact scale. I hadn't thought of this one. I'll have a play, but this one might be quite difficult as different operating systems, web browsers and printers are likely to have a bit of influence on the final printout"
Yeah, when I wrote that I was actually thinking of PDFs which might be easier to control just because of how PDF's and their viewing software are designed around being able to control page layouts more strictly. Then I looked again and it occurred you're doing it directly inside a browser for other reasons, and I appreciate that measurements and scales are likely to be harder to control.
They were just some thoughts in any case. Having consistently predictible scales with printed maps is a really useful tool, imho.
Interesting - hadn't thought of pdf's - might be an option! Will have to experiment. Cheers ;)
Neat. If it helps with inspiring grid references for margins and/or elsewhere in the longer term, I don't know if you realise that LINZ has the formulas available on its website to go between lat/long and the map grid references.
The current relevant conversions would be this page http://www.linz.govt.nz/geodetic/conversion-coordinates/projection-conversions/transverse-mercator-preliminary-computations/index.aspx which describes how to get between lat/long expressed with the NZGD2000 datum into the NZTM2000 map grid. The NZGD2000 datum is essentially the same as the WGS84 datum that Google's probably using for its latitudes/longitudes, unless you care about accuracy higher than half a metre or so, which seems very unlikely. (I think the NZ datum is basically the standard global one with some adjustments to allow for local tectonic plate movements over a very long time.)
I have a feeling there are some code examples floating around on the LINZ site, too, but I can't find it with a quick search. Maybe I'm confusing my memory with the downloadable software.
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| Started by | gavinharriss |
| On | 19 July 2011 |
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