The example maps for OO Mapper now include a complete orienteering map. It is a sprint map showing the town center of the university town Garching bei München in Germany. The map has been completely drawn with OpenOrienteering Mapper, and the first race on it has already taken place. The file will come with the next Mapper release and is also available from here.
OpenOrienteering Mapper 0.5.1 was released today. This is a maintenance release which fixes a number of problems found in release 0.5.0. We recommend the update for all users of previous versions. We consider the program stable enough for productive work, though it is always advisable to make regular backups.
Program downloads
Language pack downloads
English, French, German, Latvian, Norwegian and Spanish translations are fully up to date. Additional translations will be released at files/Mapper/0.5.1/translations when they become available. Just download the desired translation and open the downloaded .ts file from the settings dialog.
Documentation and getting help
A basic English manual comes with the program. More resources:
Major changes in 0.5.1
Note for Mac users
Mac OS X 10.6 or newer is required.
For systems with activated Gatekeeper (10.8 Mountain Lion and partly also 10.7 Lion) the app has to be started once by right clinking on the file and choosing Open. This is because it is not code signed, which would require an annual license fee.
Reporting bugs
The Bug tracker is the right place to lookup and report all kinds of issues with the program. You may also submit feature requests here.
Contributing
The user wiki is pre-filled with the program manual. If you have hints to share with the mapper community or want to extend the program documentation, please create a SourceForge account and start editing it.
If you are interested in writing a translation, find more information in a developer wiki page. There are no programming skills required!
If you are a programmer with experience in C++ / Qt, or want to help in any other way, we would like to welcome you at our developer mailing list. Useful places with resources are:
After for the last time only releases have been presented on this blog, we hope to provide some information about Mapper’s development more often again from now on. This post starts with a description of some of the recent additions for what will become Mapper 0.6.0 later. For the closer future, a release of version 0.5.1 is planned which will fix a number of bugs in 0.5.0.
Mapper 0.5.1: Modified overprinting simulation method
Overprinting simulation in Mapper 0.5.0 brightened up mixed colors, e.g. ISOM symbol 527 Settlement’s 100% yellow, 50% green. Mapper 0.5.1 comes with an improved method which prevents this issue and works much faster.
A comparison of selected results from the different methods can be seen in the picture. Mapper 0.5.1 will use method 2. For a technical description, see here.
Object tagging
This feature of Mapper 0.6.0 allows to add arbitrary key-value pairs to objects, just like in OpenStreetMap. This way, additional information can be stored, for example the height of certain features (for control descriptions). OSM and DXF file import have been updated to import the tags, respectively the layer names from those files. At the moment the functionality is still quite rough, but will be polished until the release. An object selection method based on tags is also planned.
Distributing points along paths
In Mapper 0.6.0 there will be a tool which creates evenly spaced point objects along the selected path(s). This can be e.g. used to draw alleys, or point grids with a set of lines. It can also be used to find the midpoint of a line.
Spot color separations and Registration Black
In addition to overprinting simulation (for desktop printers), Mapper 0.6.0 will be able to output spot color separations. A special color Registration Black was added which will print black in all spot color separations. This color is used by registration marks.
As usual we are glad about your feedback on how our implementation meets your expectations.
Apart from these points (as a note for programmers), the doxygen comments in Mapper’s C++ source code have been extended very much recently in the git master branch to make it easier to understand the code.
A problem in Mapper 0.5.0 has been discovered which leads to missing parts of area symbol patterns when printing maps directly to a Windows or Mac OS X printer. As a workaround, for printing please export the map as PDF first using the program’s PDF exporter (not an external PDF printer!) and then print the PDF file. This should be equivalent to direct printing, apart from not being affected by the bug.
The issue is solved in the upcoming 0.5.1 release.
Version 0.5.0 marks the next step in the development of the free mapmaking program. Again many new features made it into the release – see the list of highlights below.
Download
You can always find the latest binary and source release on
http://sourceforge.net/projects/oorienteering/files/Mapper/
Translations
Currently, English, German, Norwegian and Polish translations are fully up to date.
Additional translations will be released on http://sourceforge.net/projects/oorienteering/files/Mapper/0.5.0/translations/ when they become available. You can simply open a downloaded translation file in the settings dialog.
If you are interested in writing a translation, find more information here.
Documentation links
Highlights in this version
Example maps
This version of Mapper comes with three example files:
You can open them from the second Tip of the Day, or find them directly in the examples folder of your Mapper installation directory, e.g. C:/Program Files/OpenOrienteering Mapper 0.5.0/examples.
Editing tools
Import & Export
Display
Other
Note about overprinting
For existing OpenOrienteering maps, you need to update the symbol set to benefit from the new overprint feature. To do so, choose Symbols -> Replace symbol set… from the menu and choose the new symbol set from the location where Mapper is installed, for example C:/Program Files/OpenOrienteering Mapper 0.5.0/symbol sets/5000/ISSOM_5000.xmap. Then check if all symbols are replaced correctly and confirm with Ok. Now you can activate overprinting by clicking View -> Overprinting simulation.
Note for Mac users
Mapper requires Mac OS X 10.6 or newer.
On systems with activated Gatekeeper (10.8 Mountain Lion and partly also 10.7 Lion) the app has to be started once by right clinking on the file and choosing Open. This is because it is not code signed, which would require an annual license fee.
Documentation
In addition to the user forum, there is now also a user wiki. It is pre-filled with the program manual. If you have hints to share with the mapper community or want to extend the program documentation, please create a SourceForge account and start editing it!
A presentation “Mapmaking with OpenOrienteering Mapper: first steps for beginners” is now available to get you started quickly.
Contributing
If you want to work on a translation for Mapper, are a programmer with experience in C++ / Qt, or want to help in any other way, we would like to welcome you at our developer mailing list. Other useful places with resources are:
After two maintenance releases in the 0.3.x series, the OpenOrienteering team is happy to release a new major version of its free mapping program, containing many new features and improvements.
Download
You can always find the latest binary and source release on
http://sourceforge.net/projects/oorienteering/files/Mapper/
Important notice
For ISSOM maps created with the 0.3.x versions of Mapper, the symbol set should be updated to correct some serious problems that have been found with it. See the bottom of this post for instructions.
Highlights
Apart from many minor improvements, we would like to point out the following changes:
Editing tools
Templates
Display
Other
Screenshots (Examples)
The ring-shaped context menu allows for quick access to tools.
Existing objects can be traced by Shift-clicking them and dragging the mouse along them.
Map grid and constrained angle drawing (by holding Ctrl).
User forum
For all questions regarding the use of OpenOrienteering Mapper, we created a brand new user forum which can be found here. This is separate from discussions about its development, which are done on the mailing list as before.
Contributing
If you want to work on a translation for Mapper, are a programmer with experience in C++ / Qt, or want to help in any other way, we would like to welcome you at our developer mailing list. Other useful places with resources are:
How to: update the ISSOM symbol set
This procedure corrects among other things some wrong or duplicate symbol numbers, improves color priorities and most importantly fixes the problem that some symbols were incorrectly marked as “helper symbols”, which makes them disappear when the map is printed.
In case you run into problems with this, contact puzzlepaint at ymail.com for support.
We are glad to release a Mac OS X package again, thanks to great support from Oskar Karlin. Bringing the Mac OS X version on par with Windows and Ubuntu took a number of changes to the code and to the build system, collected in release 0.3.2.
Note that we still have no permanent package maintainer for Mac OS X, i.e. someone who will do the next release packages.
Downloads
You can always find the latest binary and source release on
http://sourceforge.net/projects/oorienteering/files/Mapper/
Contributing
If you want to work on a translation for Mapper, are a programmer with experience in C++ / Qt, or want to help in any other way, we would like to welcome you at our developer mailing list. Other useful places with resources are:
We are glad to announce an updated alpha version, OpenOrienteering Mapper release 0.3.1.
Downloads
You can always find the latest binary and source release on
http://sourceforge.net/projects/oorienteering/files/Mapper/
Release Notes
This a snapshot release intended for review and testing. It is not recommended for productive use unless you know what you are doing. We are looking forward to your feedback on bugs, missing features or annoyances.
In addition to bugfixes, this release contains improvements over 0.3.0 especially for Windows users:
Contributing
If you want to work on a translation for Mapper, are a programmer with experience in C++ / Qt, or want to help in any other way, we would like to welcome you at our developer mailing list. Other useful places with resources are:
The OpenOrienteering team is happy to release the third alpha version 0.3.0 of its free orienteering mapping program today, containing numerous new features and improvements.
Download
For Windows:
openorienteering-mapper_0.3.0-win-x86.zip
For Ubuntu Linux 12.04 (Precise), 64 bit:
openorienteering-mapper_0.3.0-precise_amd64.deb
For Ubuntu Linux 12.04 (Precise), 32 bit:
openorienteering-mapper_0.3.0-precise_i386.deb
To view the integrated manual, the help file viewer “Qt Assistant” is required in addition. For Linux it should be installed by the package manager, for Windows it is provided as a separate download because of the file size. To download it (or the program sources), go to the SourceForge downloads directory.
Highlights
Apart from many minor improvements, we would like to point out the following changes:
Templates, data import and export
Symbol sets
Editing tools
User interface
Translations and localization
Other new features
Note
This is a snapshot release intended for review and testing. Although the ocd export functionality gives the possibility to continue work on maps with other programs in case this should be necessary, this version is not recommended for productive use unless you know what you are doing. We are looking forward to your feedback on bugs, missing features or annoyances.
Screenshots (Examples)
Drawing a rectangular object:
Redesigned text symbol options:
Contributing
If you want to work on a translation for Mapper, are a programmer with experience in C++ / Qt, or want to help in any other way, we would like to welcome you at our developer mailing list. Other useful places with resources are:
Developers
Following is an alphabetically sorted list of all people involved in developing this version of Mapper (apologies in case anyone has been forgotten). Thanks to all who helped to make this release possible!
Peter Curtis
Jan Dalheimer
Eugeniy Fedirets
Peter Hoban
Henrik Johansson
Tojo Masaya
Kai Pastor
Thomas Schöps
An online betting system for orienteering competitions developed by Thomas Schöps is now publicly available, after it has been successfully tested at the Bavarian Long Distance Championships. It is only available in German for now.
The web application uses PHP and MySQL. It works together with the SportSoftware programs OE2003 and OE2010, relay races are not supported. Creating a new betting contest and calculating the results is as easy as generating and uploading a CSV export file from the SportSoftware application.
Screenshots:
Entering a new bet
Bet display
Results display