Starmap generation; freeware
- Thread starter stofsk
- Start date
There is always Heaven and Earth
Can I print off maps I make with H&E?
Sorry, I should have specified that as a requirement. I want a hardcopy of the maps I make on my computer, because drawing by hand every single goddamn world/belt/gasgiant/starport symbol etc would be too shit for a Domain sized campaign setting.
Sorry, I should have specified that as a requirement. I want a hardcopy of the maps I make on my computer, because drawing by hand every single goddamn world/belt/gasgiant/starport symbol etc would be too shit for a Domain sized campaign setting.
FlightCommanderSolitude
SOC-13
FlightCommanderSolitude
SOC-13
Ah, hmm, that's a little exercise left for the reader! The general idea here is to prepare a file in .sec format that describes your sector (there are examples on the same site), then run it through the sec2pdf script by invoking it from the command prompt in order to produce PDF output. Note that you'll need to also install the PDF::API2 module for the script to work. I think there are a few helpful hints at the site above for getting it to work under Win32.
stofsk,
H&E should be able to do anything you like.
Mr. Greely's sec2pdf will work fine, too ... assuming you can figure out how to use his script, which is functional, produces beautiful output, and has a rather steep learning curve.
Finally, my script will also do the trick, with fewer bells and whistles than Mr. Greely's, but it's also much easier to use -- no config file required.
The only catch is it produces a postscript file, rather than PDF. (It's always something, isn't it?) I started to work on a PDF version of my script, but haven't had time to get it working. My cup runneth over...
And I see on my website I only have the script-in-progress, rather than the old, completed, working one. If I remember, I'll post the old modules up, and you'll be able to grab them and run with it.
Greely's sec2pdf Usage Assuming you've got the script "sec2pdf" downloaded, and you've got a sectormap file (a standard .sec file), and you've downloaded Greely's map configuration file (maybe darkmap.txt??), then you run the script on your sector map file like so:
perl sec2pdf -abBch -tsector -p11x17 -d Yourmap.sec -o Outputfile.pdf
His website goes into some detail explaining what all those painful little parameters are for.
H&E should be able to do anything you like.
Mr. Greely's sec2pdf will work fine, too ... assuming you can figure out how to use his script, which is functional, produces beautiful output, and has a rather steep learning curve.
Finally, my script will also do the trick, with fewer bells and whistles than Mr. Greely's, but it's also much easier to use -- no config file required.
The only catch is it produces a postscript file, rather than PDF. (It's always something, isn't it?) I started to work on a PDF version of my script, but haven't had time to get it working. My cup runneth over...
And I see on my website I only have the script-in-progress, rather than the old, completed, working one. If I remember, I'll post the old modules up, and you'll be able to grab them and run with it.
Greely's sec2pdf Usage Assuming you've got the script "sec2pdf" downloaded, and you've got a sectormap file (a standard .sec file), and you've downloaded Greely's map configuration file (maybe darkmap.txt??), then you run the script on your sector map file like so:
perl sec2pdf -abBch -tsector -p11x17 -d Yourmap.sec -o Outputfile.pdf
His website goes into some detail explaining what all those painful little parameters are for.
postscript is a similar concept to PDF but never caught on to quite the same extent for file transfer. You need a viewer (which also allows printing or conversion to other formats including PDF).
Probably the best viewer is ghostscript/gsview which can be got from http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
Assuming you use a windows machine you need to grab the latest version of ghostscript (which understands the postscript) and gsview which provides a nice GUI to view it in.
Probably the best viewer is ghostscript/gsview which can be got from http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
Assuming you use a windows machine you need to grab the latest version of ghostscript (which understands the postscript) and gsview which provides a nice GUI to view it in.
stofsk - I've just played around with Greeley's script, and I think you can get it running without much effort. Here's what I did:
(1) I downloaded his script (sec2pdf.pl) and put it with my .sec files.
I ran it like this:
(2) perl sec2pdf.pl -d mysector.sec -a
This does the entire sector as a set of 16 pages in a PDF document.
On the other hand, if my file is just a subsector, then I run it without the -a option:
(3) perl sec2pdf.pl -d mysubsector.sec
With some extra effort you can add xboat routes, borders, shaded regions, and stuff like that by creating an 'msec' file for your starchart.
For example, if your sector is named "Mysector.sec", then you create a file called "Mysector.msec". Using the data in Greeley's sample Spinward Marches msec file, you can then figure out what kind of details to add to your sector.
For an example of what you can do with msec configurations, run the script using Greeley's data for spinward marches. Make sure that you've downloaded SpinwardMarches.sec and SpinwardMarches.msec into that same directory.
(4) perl sec2pdf.pl -d SpinwardMarches.sec -a
I think you'll be pleased with his work.
(1) I downloaded his script (sec2pdf.pl) and put it with my .sec files.
I ran it like this:
(2) perl sec2pdf.pl -d mysector.sec -a
This does the entire sector as a set of 16 pages in a PDF document.
On the other hand, if my file is just a subsector, then I run it without the -a option:
(3) perl sec2pdf.pl -d mysubsector.sec
With some extra effort you can add xboat routes, borders, shaded regions, and stuff like that by creating an 'msec' file for your starchart.
For example, if your sector is named "Mysector.sec", then you create a file called "Mysector.msec". Using the data in Greeley's sample Spinward Marches msec file, you can then figure out what kind of details to add to your sector.
For an example of what you can do with msec configurations, run the script using Greeley's data for spinward marches. Make sure that you've downloaded SpinwardMarches.sec and SpinwardMarches.msec into that same directory.
(4) perl sec2pdf.pl -d SpinwardMarches.sec -a
I think you'll be pleased with his work.
Maladominus
SOC-14 1K
the website http://dotclue.org/t20/ seems to be broken or offline. I've tried going to it all day long
hmmm.....
hmmm.....
Maladominus
SOC-14 1K
And I still cannot.
How weird. Mebbe I'll try to access it via a different computer...
ok, my problem appears to be that I can't download the sec2pdf.pl file. When I click on http://dotclue.org/t20/sec2pdf this link, it takes me to an html page with a lot of gobbledegook.
So I don't know how to get the file. Or how to make use of it.
So I don't know how to get the file. Or how to make use of it.
FlightCommanderSolitude
SOC-13
The gobbledegook is the piece of software. You want to save the gobbledegook to your computer. Try right-clicking the link and doing "save as" or whatever. Alternately, you might be able to just click the link and do "save" when you're looking at the gobbledegook.
Save it as "sec2pdf.pl", without the quotes of course.
Save it as "sec2pdf.pl", without the quotes of course.
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