[Ashus]

This tool was developed by Mem. I upgraded it with some GUI changes and added a new variable. WMS is basically an internet browser designed to grab maps to images. It supports all maps, that offer drag-and-drop moving. The only thing I must ask you, is to verify, that the grabbing is allowed in the terms.

WebMapSaver.rar Size: 190,7 KB  Downloads: 964

How to use WMS:

1. Execute WMS.
   
2. Paste or browse to your on-line map, find your area and choose the zoom you need.
   
3. Calibrate the area by clicking Position and size, checking the Show checkbox, and resizing the blinking crop rectangle, so no controls could be seen inside. You may want to make the rectangle a bit more smaller, than the actual map size - to make sure it doesn't interfere with controls.
   
4. Remember, that the WMS uses the rect to identify where to grab for dragging and where to drop. If it interferes, some of the test buttons (U D L R) won't work. In that case, smallen the area.
   
5. Time settings always depends on three things: your computer CPU/mem/GPU speed, your internet connection latency, the map server you choose to grab from. To test the chosen settings, grab 2x2 images and join them. If the result image is OK, you can grab larger areas.
   
6. Set your Capture area. For example 5x5 makes 5 images horizontally, then returns, moves one row below and does the same thing again. If you need area to the left and up of your current position, change the Move left and Move up variables. Eg. to grab area 5x5 with current position exactly in the middle, choose Move left 2 and move up 2. The indicator below tells you, how large the final image file will be.
   
7. Click Start saving. The indicator changes the color to red and you must not move your mouse until the work is done. To cancel the procedure, hold your Shift button for a while.
   
8. When the grabbing is done, use the BitmapCombine tool (requires .NET Framework installed). Remember to enter the same values of X and Y as you entered in WMS. You can choose any of the buttons, that you find the fastest. BMP format is uncompressed - they can make a very large file. PNG needs the whole image to be loaded into memory, it is smaller, much better for vector graphics.

Now you have one big map image. You can either use MS Excel to effectively print separate images to A4 format (you decide how many pages horizontally and vertically it will split into). Or you can upload the image into your PDA / GPS. Before you do so, there's just one more thing to do. You need to calibrate the map, to make the GPS program know, what coordinates correspond to what part of image. I like to use the GPS Tuner tool, if you need guide for calibrating to other programs, just google them.

GPS Tuner uses Map Calibrator, available to download for free:

1. Execute Map Calibrator.
   
2. Click Open Map. Find our big image file (it isn't the default - JPG format afaik). You may need to wait for a while, it has to load into memory.
   
3. Move to the left top corner of the map file. Find a precise spot easy to remember, right-click it and choose Add Calibration point.
   
4. Switch back to the WMS and find the exact same spot. Find a function to display its exact GPS coordinates. Type them back to the calibrator dialog.
   
5. Repeat previous two steps with bottom right corner of the map.
   
6. From the Save icon menu, choose Save multiscale map slices. Any other save is fine as well, but multiscale format makes it load very fast at all map scales. The map name should be chosen to describe the area and map type, so you can differ between them later.

Now just copy the output images and calibration files (the whole directory) to the GPS device / memory card. Open it up in GPS Tuner and you're ready to go hiking or geocaching.