227 changes
6. background maps:
There are a lot of changes to this function.
The
bad news is that Templot can no longer capture and scale the NLS
Map Finder / Find by Place individual map sheets. The NLS have changed their web site, which now no longer works properly for those maps in the Windows embedded browser. They can still be captured manually in your own browser and used in Templot of course.
The NLS georeferenced slippy maps are not affected by this and can still be automatically captured and scaled as screenshot maps.
But you may no longer want to do that because the
good news is that the NLS 25" maps now cover most of the country, and can now be loaded as
tiled maps. Likewise some of the larger 50" maps.
Which means the scaling is much more accurate without any browser getting in on the act, and the map can be any size you like regardless of your screen size.
I need to write a proper companion topic and video on all this, or maybe do a live demo. But here's a very brief run through the tiled maps:
0. set your model scale/gauge. All bets are off if you don't do this first. It's easy to forget.
1. enter a name for the map. It can be anything you like.
2. choose a map series. For a typical country branch line it will probably be available only in the 25" County Series.
3. enter the location. The easy way to find it is to click the blue
NLS maps link.
Which will open the 1950s 25K map which covers the country, and shows the entire rail network pre-Beeching:
Drag and zoom to where you want to be, then
1. click the
Add Marker button at the bottom of the page.
2. click on the map at the desired location.
3. copy the entire URL from the address bar.
then back to
4. paste it into the box in Templot.
5. for the 25" County Series you now need to help Templot find the tiles by selecting the relevant county. These are the traditional steam-era counties, so you may need to refer back to the 25K map to know. You can enter a neighbouring county too if it's not clear exactly where the old boundaries run.
6. and finally click the button to load the tiled map.
But first Templot needs to know how many tiles to load and where to put them on the trackpad:
Don't start too large, the map can be easily extended later. These are the model sizes -- in 4mm/ft scale the 25" tiles scale to roughly 1200mm/4ft square.
This is the result, 6 tiles loaded (exceeding your specified area):
• Please note that these maps are copyright
© National Library of Scotland. Creative Commons permission for personal non-commercial use only, see:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ No commercial use or use for financial gain without an agreement with NLS. See:
https://maps.nls.uk/copyright.html
These are 6 ordinary picture shapes, but it's important you don't edit the name which Templot has given them. You can choose whether to have the borders round each one, and all the other usual settings in the background shapes dialog.
Now you can extend the map by clicking the buttons to add further rows and columns of tiles on all 4 sides. This way you can build a map as large as you like. Here I have added one row at the bottom and 2 columns on the right:
Zooming in you can see that the image is blocky and confusing in places. There are some new functions to help with this, click the
improve map clarity... button:
with this result:
which makes it much easier to align templates over the map. You can choose any colours you like, but using the same colours as the trackpad is a good option. There are several settings in the map clarity dialog for experiments with specific maps.
Having got all the tiles you need, you can if you wish use the
crop/combine function to convert the map to a single picture shape (which could then be rotated (twisted) if desired).
More about all this in due course.
And if you don't want to do any of that, the automated screenshot map option still works exactly as before.
cheers,
Martin.