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kxmode
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08 Dec 2011, 1:03 pm

I wanted to learn how to make custom Google maps. http://www.kxmode.com/U7map/ are the results. This is progressive effort. I plan on adding more like map searching and marker bookmarks.

Worth noting. Cloudflare caches my www domain. Any new data I post probably won't appear for awhile. If you'd like to bypass the cache and see the latest and greatest please visit http://direct.kxmode.com/U7map/



nikki191
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11 Dec 2011, 7:54 am

That is so cool. :D well done. It reminds me I need to head over to Good old games and pick up Ultima 7



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13 Dec 2011, 3:31 pm

Very cool. Makes me nostalgic for U7. Makes me amazed how far graphics have come, and computing power has come, but also how little if any progress has been made on the gameplay/story-telling front (yes, I'm talking to you, Skyrim!)



nat4200
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14 Dec 2011, 11:21 pm

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Last edited by nat4200 on 19 Apr 2012, 5:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

nat4200
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15 Dec 2011, 2:18 am

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Last edited by nat4200 on 19 Apr 2012, 5:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

kxmode
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22 Dec 2011, 2:15 am

Thank you nat4200 and no problem about the double post.

The U7 map isn't my goal. My goal is to learn about custom Google maps. The U7 map is simply a fun and encouraging way to learn about it; plus I can share what I learn with people who can actually use the results. Eventually I would like to expand my knowledge for mobile app. The reason why I'm using 256x tiles is mostly because of mobile apps. I don't believe mobile devices can handle 1024x tiles and even if they could most mobile screens aren't large enough to handle resolutions that large. But I understand the suggestion and really appreciate you putting forth the effort to think it through, then share your findings. Thanks! :)

I really like the bit change savings and I tried this a couple weeks ago. As I was playing around with the two PNG bit options I encountered a problem with 8-bit. Because the 8-bit colors are indexed they're like gifs. Gifs and 8-bit PNGs do not scale well. If I were to use 8bit PNGs the only view that would look good would be the highest zoom. The map would look distorted in all other zooms. Perhaps the script I'm using to create the tiles distorts the map as the 8-bit PNG tile is created.

Basically what I need is an extremely aggressive compression app. I used PNGcrush but I'm not quite happy with the results. I'm still searching for others. I remember when I first became a web professional I used an app called DeBabelizer.

If you have any more cool ideas please share them! I'm open to any suggestions. :)

Brainstorm: What if I take the tiles that appear at the default view and test save those at 8bit? Maybe the distortion won't be present. Hmmm... *twin gray matter powers: ACTIVATE!*



nat4200
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22 Dec 2011, 4:28 am

Redacted



Last edited by nat4200 on 19 Apr 2012, 5:47 am, edited 1 time in total.

kxmode
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22 Dec 2011, 12:45 pm

nat4200 wrote:
I'm curious now to try what I suggested would be the "harder way"...

I see you've been busy too! The most detailed level is now using 8 bit colour and loading much faster! (on your production site and all!) 8O :D


So you're idea DOES work. Sweeeeeeet! :)

nat4200 wrote:
Regarding mobile development, I think larger images can still work pretty well (images used as CSS spritesheets can be fairly large for example, though you might see some really old articles discouraging their use for iOS, not because of the size but an old issue with memory use which affected images being reused multiple times on a page), it's more about optimising download and memory use (screensize is more of a an with UI/design for mobiles then what browsers can handle for rendering)


I don't know if the Google mapping engine does CSS spritesheets.