Making Maps With Computers

The focus of this project is on exploring and developing techniques for writing computer programs which can generate paper maps. It also looks at programs which can use map backgrounds over which the users can display their data. At present, there does not seem to be any extensive documentation relating to developing this type of computer program. While there are a large number of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) programs, which use map backgrounds, they tend to be overly complicated for the non-GIS layman. Additionally, these programs tend to provide little support for a variety of capabilities which are needed when producing presentation maps.

The programming language used in this project is Java. However, this is not a "Java solution". Where possible, the more advanced features of the language and supporting classes have been avoided and downplayed. The goal here is to make the example code somewhat language independent. This will, I hope, make it easier for non-Java programmers to understand the code and to convert the code to other languages. While there is a large amount of Java code in this project, the real work is being done in English. The code is mainly used to verify that what is said in English actually works and to create a useful end product.

After clicking on Download Making Maps With Computers files  please download read either 000 Introduction to Making Maps with Computers.pdf or 000 Introduction to Making Maps with Computers.doc for additional information and details about this project.
 

    Separate projects which support, and are an integral part of, this one include:

    Java Map Projection Library (JMPL)

    Micro World Data Bank 2 (MWDB2)

    FWP Graphics Utilities

    ICONs - GIFs and PNGs

    Java Code Speed Test

With few exceptions, all of the materials in this project have been placed in the public domain so that they can be used and adapted without restriction. The remaining materials are released under one or more of the popular open source licenses.

Fred Pospeschil

Visit the author's page at: http://fredposp.users.sourceforge.net

This is free and unencumbered software released into the public domain.  For more information, please refer to <http://unlicense.org/>

Fred Pospeschil