Welcome to Mobile Atlas Creator read-me file for end users.
Before January 2010 this project was known as "TrekBuddy Atlas Creator".
Mobile Atlas Creator is an open source project hosted on
SourceForge.net:
http://trekbuddyatlasc.sourceforge.net
Mobile Atlas Creator is under GNU General Public License Version 2 (GPL). For details on the GPL see the license file gpl.txt
This application creates atlases for the J2ME applications TrekBuddy and Mobile Trail Explorer (MTE), the Android applications AndNav, Maverick, BigPlanet-Maps, RMaps, the Pocket PC application Glopus and the commercial Windows application OziExplorer. The map image created for OziExplorer can also be used with any PNG capable image viewer (map image in one large PNG file).
This application requires that a Java Runtime Environment Version 6 Update 14 (v1.6.0_14) or higher is installed on the computer.
For reducing the color depth of downloaded tiles the library files of the "Java Advanced Imaging" (JAI) have to be present on the system respectively in the same directory as Mobile_Atlas_Creator.jar. Ready to use binary builds of the Java Advanced Imaging library can be obtained at https://jai.dev.java.net/binary-builds.html
Copy or move the unzipped files to a folder where you would like to have Mobile Atlas Creator installed.
The application is started by executing the Mobile Atlas Creator.exe in a Windows environment or the start.sh under a Linux / Unix environment (it may be necessary to set the executable bit for the script). At the first application start all necessary files and folders are automatically created by the application.
For creating atlases compatible with TrekBuddy you have to select TrekBuddy tared atlas or TrekBuddy untared atlas as format in section Atlas settings on the left side of the main window.
After defining the maps and layers for the atlas to be created start atlas download and creation via the button Create Atlas. Once atlas download and creation has completed all necessary files belonging to the atlas can be found in the directory atlases\[atlas name]_[current date and time].
The atlas itself consists of the atlas startup file cr.tar (tar format) or cr.tba (regular/untared format) and the subdirectories containing the different maps of the atlas. For using the atlas with TrekBuddy copy the whole directory onto your J2ME device. Then use the Load Atlas function of TrekBuddy and open cr.tar/cr.tba (in the atlas root directory).
For creating atlases compatible with Mobile Trail Explorer you
have to select Mobile Trail Explorer Cache as format in section Atlas
settings on the left side of the main window.
If a map source uses an image format different to PNG the tiles will be
automatically converted to the PNG format.
The output is one MTEFileCache file per atlas which contains
all maps. An existing cache file can not be updated. If you want to add
maps to an existing MTEFileCache please use the atlas format Mobile
Trail Explorer which creates a file structure identical to
JTileDownloader and then process the maps using MTE
CacheCreator.
As atlases for Mobile Trail Explorer does not support all features
provided by Mobile Atlas Creator the following settings are ignored when
creating atlases for Mobile Trail Explorer:
For creating atlases compatible with Maverick you have to select
Maverick atlas format as format in section Atlas settings
on the left side of the main window.
As atlases for Maverick do not support all features provided by Mobile
Atlas Creator the following settings are ignored when creating atlases
for AndNav:
For creating atlases compatible with AndNav you have to select AndNav
atlas format as format in section Atlas settings on the left side
of the main window.
As atlases for AndNav do not support all features provided by Mobile
Atlas Creator the following settings are ignored when creating atlases
for AndNav:
For creating atlases compatible with OSMTracker you have to
select OSMTracker tile storage as format in section Atlas
settings on the left side of the main window.
As atlases for OSMTracker do not support all features provided by Mobile
Atlas Creator the following settings are ignored when creating atlases
for OSMTracker:
For creating offline atlases compatible with BigPlanet-Maps and RMaps
(both Android applications) you have to select BigPlanet SQLite
as format in section Atlas settings on the left side of the main
window.
Please not that this atlas format requires additional libraries which
are not shipped with Mobile Atlas Creator. Read section SQLite library for details what libraries are
required and how to obtain them.
The atlas format BigPlanet SQLite does not support all features provided
by Mobile Atlas Creator the following settings are ignored when creating
atlases using this output format:
The BigPlanet atlas format uses a SQLite database for storing the tiles. For creating SQLite database an additional native library is required. The correspondent Java classes are already part of Mobile Atlas Creator - only the platform dependent native library of JavaSQLite wrapper by Christian Werner is missing. For installing the SQLite wrapper copy the file sqlite_jni.dll (Windows) respectively sqlite_jni.so (Linux/Unix) into the program directory of Mobile Atlas Creator (where the Mobile_Atlas_Creator.jar is located).
For Windows and Linux (32bit and 64bit) there are pre-compiled binaries available Other operating systems systems have to compile the wrapper using the sources:
wget http://www.ch-werner.de/javasqlite/javasqlite-20090430.tar.gz tar xzvf javasqlite-20090430.tar.gz cd javasqlite-20090430/ ./configure make cp .lib/lib* /[MOBAC installation path]
For creating atlases compatible with OziExplorer you have to select OziExplorer (PNG & MAP) as format in section Atlas settings on the left side of the main window.
As OziExplorer does not support tiled maps some features are ignored when creating atlases in this format:
The output format of an "atlas" for OziExplorer is one subdirectory per layer and within this subdirectory one PNG image and one MAP file per defined map. For opening a map in OziExplorer select the menu File → Load from File → Load from MAP file, browse to the layer directory of the created atlas and select the MAP file.
If you are only interested in the map image you can safely delete the created map file.
Mobile Atlas Creator uses a highly sophisticated and optimized algorithm for creating the PNG files for OziExplorer use. This algorithm allows to create very large maps images at low memory usage. OziExplorer and most image viewers do not use such sophisticated algorithms which can lead to the situation that you can create very large map images - but OziExplorer and other image viewers are not able to open the image.
For creating atlases compatible with Touratech QV you have to select Touratech QV as format in section Atlas settings on the left side of the main window.
As Touratech QV does not support tiled maps some features are ignored when creating atlases in this format:
The output format of an "atlas" for Touratech QV is one subdirectory per layer and within this subdirectory one PNG image and one CAL file per defined map.
If you are only interested in the map image you can safely delete the created cal file.
Mobile Atlas Creator uses a highly sophisticated and optimized algorithm for creating the PNG files for Touratech QV use. This algorithm allows to create very large maps images at low memory usage. Touratech QV and most image viewers do not use such sophisticated algorithms which can lead to the situation that you can create very large map images - but Touratech QV and other image viewers are not able to open the image.
For creating atlases compatible with Glopus you have to select Glopus (PNG & KAL) as format in section Atlas settings on the left side of the main window.
Using this atlas output format the same restrictions and the warning as for the OziExplorer output format apply.
The output format of an "atlas" for Glopus is one subdirectory per layer and within this subdirectory one PNG image and one KAL file per defined map.
For creating atlases compatible with CacheWolf you have to select CacheWolf WFL as format in section Atlas settings on the left side of the main window.
Maps that have custom tile processing options set are saved as tiled images with one WFL calibration file for each tile. All processing options such as image format and tile size can be used.
In this mode automatic tiling is disabled and the same restrictions and the warning as for the OziExplorer output format apply.
The output format of an "atlas" for CacheWolf is one subdirectory per layer and within this subdirectory one PNG image and one WFL file per defined map.
For creating atlases of Creating Garmin Custom maps you have to select Garmin Custom Map (KMZ) as format in section Atlas settings on the left side of the main window. Details about the Garmin Custom Map format can be found in the Garmin Forums
Using this atlas output format the following features are ignored when creating atlases:
The output format of an "atlas" for Garmin Custom maps is one KMZ file per layer containing all maps (max 100) as seperate JPG image files. The JPEG compression rate can be specified for each map/image using image format selector in the custom tile processing section. The Garmin Custom Map format defines a maximum image size of 1024x1024 pixels. If a map is larger it will be automatically scaled down to fit into this size. You can prevent scaling when setting the max map size in the settings dialog to 1024.
For creating atlases of Creating Garmin Custom Maps you have to select Magellan (RMP) as format in section Atlas settings on the left side of the main window. Additionally you have to set the maximum map size to 18000 (Settings dialog, tab "map size").
Using this atlas output format the following features are ignored when creating atlases:
Additionally some other limitations may apply, based on which device and firmware version you are using. Mobile Atlas Creator does not chek those limitations - therefore it may work or not if you are using:
The output format of an "atlas" for Magellan is one RMP file in the atlas directory. You can directly load this file in Magellan VantagePoint or transfer it onto your device.
If you are missing the map provider of your choice or have other enhancement ideas for Mobile Atlas Creator feel free to open an Feature Request Ticket at SourceForge.
If have a new online map which is not available in Mobile Atlas Creator there my be change to add it. Before opening a Feature Request please take a look into the list of map sources known to incompatible with Mobile Atlas Creator.
In case of unexpected errors while executing Mobile Atlas Creator you may get presented a exception dialog containing detailed information about the problem. In such a case please create a new ticket in the Bug Tracker at SourceForge. Please add the detailed exception information and a detailed description of your last performed actions.
By default Mobile Atlas Creator records all errors of the current session into it's error log file Mobile Atlas Creator.log. This log file is located on Windows system in the directory %APPDATA%\Mobile Atlas Creator\ and on Linux/Unix/OSX system in the directory ~/.mobac/
If the recorded errors in the error log do not indicate a problem
you can activate the overall message logging mechanism of Mobile Atlas
Creator:
Download the file log4j.xml
and save it in the directory where the jar file of Mobile Atlas Creator
is installed to.
The next start Mobile Atlas Creator will create a log file in the current directory (on Windows this is usually the directory where the JAR file is located on Linux usually the profile directory). Please note that the log file is erased on each program start. If you think you have found a bug please file it in the bug tracker at SourceForge.
Mobile Atlas Creator is limited to map sources that provide their
maps if form of map tiles. Each of that map tiles has to be of size
256x256 pixels. Additionally the map source has to use the spherical
Mercator projection and the number of tiles forming the world on each
zoom level has to be one of the following values: 20, 21,
22 ... 221, 222.
For more details see OpenStreetMap Wiki: Mercator, Height
and width of a map and Zoom levels
Due to bugs in Java you should not do the following:
Usually the tile store path where Mobile Atlas Creator saves all
downloaded images in is automatically determined.
In case you want to select a different directory perform the following
steps:
<settings> <tileStoreDirectory>E:/tiles</tileStoreDirectory> ... </settings>
This specified the windows directory E:\tiles as new
tile store directory. The previously used tile store will not be used
anymore.
Deleting the <tileStoreDirectory> tag restores the old
behavior (automatically tile store directory selection).
Custom map sources which uses a similar URL scheme as Google/OpenStreetMap can be added by editing the file settings.xml with an text editor.
Warning: You have to close Mobile Atlas Creator before editing settings.xml - otherwise you will lost all made changes when closing Mobile Atlas Creator!
The following example shows what have to be added for defining a custom map source. It defines an additional map Source named "Custom OSM Mapnik" which shows map tiles identical to the predefined map source "OpenStreetMap Mapnik".
<settings> <customMapSources> <customMapSource> <name>Custom OSM Mapnik</name> <minZoom>0</minZoom> <maxZoom>18</maxZoom> <tileType>png</tileType> <tileUpdate>None</tileUpdate> <url>http://tile.openstreetmap.org/{$z}/{$x}/{$y}.png</url> </customMapSource> </customMapSources> ... </settings>
The most important part of this definition is the url. It is a template containing specific placeholders which are encapsulated by curly brace: