Global Mapper v25.0

Map Catalog

Doe
Doe Global Mapper UserTrusted User
edited September 2012 in Technical Support
Mike,

I have a project that has a lot of heavy map images. I've read that the map catalog might improve the program performance and speed. Creating the map catalog seems straight forward but I find using the catalog it is cumbersome. I may be missing something here. Can you direct me to a tutorial or additional instructions beyond what the "Help" files provide? So far I have found that the Map Catalog is cumbersome and very slow. I am unable to isolate the maps that I want and spend a lot of time waiting for the program to plot the various layers. For my work I a am frequently jumping from very small scale to regional scale. As far as I can tell, the Map Catalog is sort of set up to limit what maps show but the process apparently requires constant rendering of images.

One thing that the Map Catalog seems close to being able to do is copy projects. What I mean by this is that I am using large .SID files as well as JPG, and BMP format images. Let's say that I want to burn a copy of the entire project to a DVD as a back-up or as a deliverable. I would like to copy all of the image files to that single directory even though the images on my computer might be scattered in various directories on my computer. (I also use Oziexplorer and keep some of the images there.) Currently, I would have to manually find all of the figures and move them to the new directory. I am not sure if I would have to reload the files to the project or if GM would let me point to the new file locations. Currently, the closest way to do this is to create a .gmp file but GM wants to convert the .SID files to JPG format (I think it is a licensing issue with .SID formats). Having a way to simply copy the files (to include the relative reference files (i.e. .SDW, .JPW, etc.)) should take care of that issue. The Map Catalog seems to have most of the problem solved by locating and cataloging the file locations. You simply need to build a project transfer algorithm to allow a user to copy a project, in its native entirety, to a new location.

Any help would be great.

Mike

Comments

  • global_mapper
    global_mapper Administrator
    edited July 2012
    Mike,

    How do you have your map catalog setup in terms of at what zoom scale to display the maps? The map catalog should allow you to work with very large numbers of files (note much more for large numbers of files than just a few large files) without running out of memory, so long as you have it setup so that the actual map data doesn't display until you zoom in sufficiently far on the maps. The map catalog will only load the maps when needed for display and export, so you can for example have a catalog with 10,000 small images making a very large mosaic, but not have to load all 10,000 of those images to load the data set. The map catalog will automatically load what is needed when you zoom in on an area or when you export from an area. This reduces memory usage and for many formats, like GeoTIFF in particular, allows better caching and much better performance.

    While the map catalog does contain a list of maps, just like a workspace might, there isn't a way to copy the actual raw data files referenced in it to some other location. This is on our todo list though. It is complicated by the fact that many data files don't stand alone. So if for example you reference a .jpg file in your catalog, there are often other support files accompanying that .jpg that might also be needed to load it, like world files and PRJ files. For that case it is somewhat simple as the filenames are the same and just the extensions are different, but some types like a large VPF or RPF data set, may have hundreds of files of all kinds of names associated with a single root 'dht' or 'a.toc' file that you load, so it's not at all simple to determine what actually needs copied.

    The GMP option is typically what we recommend for packaging up data, but it does have to change the file format as it can't export to a new SID file or embed the existing one directly. The GMP format stores any terrain as GMG (Global Mapper Grid), images as GeoTIFF (some with JPG-in-TIFF compression, but still much bigger than SID), and vector data as a special Global Mapper binary format that maintains all information and compresses pretty well. Everything in a GMP is repacked into those formats when building the GMP.

    Thanks,

    Mike
    Global Mapper Guru
    gmsupport@bluemarblegeo.com
    http://www.globalmapper.com
  • Doe
    Doe Global Mapper User Trusted User
    edited July 2012
    I think the my project is not conducive to using the Map Catalog. I work with a wide range of scales. I commonly have many maps and images that overlay each other. The Map Catalog would work for tiled images that represent a single layer. I may be asking too much of the Map Catalog. Apparently, each Map Catalog needs to represent a specific layer. Most of my maps won't fit the template that would be ideal for the Map Catalog. For example I used several counties of NAIP .SID format image files. The images are rectangular in native format - not actual shape of the counties. The space between the image and rectangular border is black. I'll have to think more carefully about how I might exploit the Map Catalog.
  • ryan.guthridge
    ryan.guthridge Global Mapper User
    edited September 2012
    I also am interested in copying raw files to a central directory. I work with Global Mapper files that read GeoTIFF images from a server, however I use Global Mapper in the field disconnected from the network. Currently I have to pull each GeoTIFF from the server and save the file on to my local machine in order to access them in the field. Needless to say, this is a lengthy process.

    I understand that this feature is in the works, but is there a way I can embed this function into a script to export all loaded TIFF images into a directory on my local drive?

    Thanks in advance!

    Ryan
  • global_mapper
    global_mapper Administrator
    edited September 2012
    Ryan,

    The same complications still exist in terms of determining what accompanying files are needed. Do you need just the .tif files themselves or any other accompanying files?

    Thanks,

    Mike
    Global Mapper Guru
    gmsupport@bluemarblegeo.com
    http://www.globalmapper.com
  • ryan.guthridge
    ryan.guthridge Global Mapper User
    edited September 2012
    Mike,

    My .gmw workspaces reference only TIFs and CSV files. The bulk of my time is spent retrieving the TIFs and CSVs from their respective directories on the server. I would only need the TIFs and CSVs, with no accompanying reference files required.

    Ryan
  • global_mapper
    global_mapper Administrator
    edited September 2012
    Ryan,

    Ok I'll add a script command to copy those files to some location locally. I'll let you know when it's ready.

    Thanks,

    Mike
    Global Mapper Guru
    gmsupport@bluemarblegeo.com
    http://www.globalmapper.com
  • global_mapper
    global_mapper Administrator
    edited September 2012
    I have completed adding a new COPY_LAYER_FILES script command for easily copying the files for loaded layers (and accompanying files with the same base name) to a new folder. See http://www.globalmapper.com/helpv14/ScriptReference.html#cmd_copy_layer_files for details. I have placed a new build at http://www.globalmapper.com/global_mapper14.zip with the latest changes for you to try. Simply download that file and extract the contents into your existing v14.xx installation folder to give it a try. If you are using the 64-bit v14 version there is a new build at http://www.globalmapper.com/global_mapper14_64bit.zip .

    Thanks,

    Mike
    Global Mapper Guru
    gmsupport@bluemarblegeo.com
    http://www.globalmapper.com
  • ryan.guthridge
    ryan.guthridge Global Mapper User
    edited September 2012
    Mike,

    Many thanks for this script command. I am running Global Mapper v12 and am getting this warning:

    WARNING: Unknown command <COPY_LAYER_FILES> ignored.

    Is there a way to get the patch for v12 or do I need to be running v14?

    Thanks,
    Ryan
  • global_mapper
    global_mapper Administrator
    edited September 2012
    Ryan,

    You would need to upgrade to v14 to make use of the new feature. You can contact our sales team at gmorders@bluemarblegeo.com and they can help you upgrade to v14.

    Thanks,

    Mike
    Global Mapper Guru
    gmsupport@bluemarblegeo.com
    http://www.globalmapper.com