MapUtils
========
Miscellaneous utilities for processing ASCII map data from
BatMUD in various interesting ways.

Programmed by Matti Hämäläinen (aka Ggr Pupunen @ BatMUD)
(C) Copyright 2006-2010 Tecnic Software productions (TNSP)


NOTICE!
=======
The raw ASCII map data included in this package originate directly
or indirectly from BatMUD(tm) <http://www.bat.org/> and are
(C) Copyright 2002-2010 Balanced Alternative Techniques Ry.

Those files are distributed here under the belief that since the
data is publicly available, it can be freely distributed under
"fair-use" paradigm when used non-commercially.


Requirements
============
The compilation and usage of these utilities requires following
software packages or functional equivalents installed:

 - GCC 3.x or later (preferably a non-broken version like 3.3.x or 4.3.2)
 - GNU Wget
 - ImageMagick or GraphicsMagick
 - GNU diff, patch, make and sed
 - Some bash/zsh compatible shell

 - Stuff under www/ obviously requires PHP5, but it's not really even
   meant for public consumption, this repository just works as a
   storage medium for it.

Usage
=====
 1) Verify that your system fulfills the requirements stated above.

 2) Edit Makefile, if needed

 3) In the main directory, type 'make' or 'gmake' to compile.
    If compilation succeeds, you can move to item 3.

    If compilation fails, you are on your own. If you don't know what
    the problem is, then please DON'T ask me (Ggr). I am not interested.

 4) cd maps/ and run 'make' or 'gmake' again.


Included utilities
==================

* mkloc
  Perhaps the most important tool in this package, a multi-purpose
  utility for converting, manipulating and updating location files.

  Can also combine an ASCII map with location data to produce output
  with location information (which can be further converted to different
  formats via 'colormap').

* colormap
  Transforms given input BatMUD ASCII maps (also some sub-area maps)
  into various formats, including coloured XHTML+CSS, HTML and ANSI
  text.

* diffmap
  Computes a 'diff' between two ASCII maps of equivalent size. Output
  is a specially formatted binary file, which can be converted to
  bitmap images via 'map2ppm', or used as patches for 'patchmap'.

* patchmap
  Patches a given ASCII map with a patch produced by diffmap.

* map2ppm
  Similar to 'colormap', converts ASCII map to a PPM format image
  file, which can be then further converted/manipulated with
  ImageMagick or netpbm utils, or other image processing software.
  Can also use output of 'diffmap' to create images with differences
  highlighted.

* combine
  Combines several ASCII maps into a bigger one, based on coordinate
  offsets.

* mkspecial
  Given an input with "map pieces" (generated with help of TF scripts)
  and sufficient parameters for interpreting, this utility stitches
  together a bigger ASCII map from the pieces.

* mapstats
  Generate simple statistics about different "terrain" types used
  in a given ASCII map.


Miscellaneous information
=========================
maps/   map data and associated Makefiles for generating the output maps.

old/    subdirectory contains maps and data from the Old BatWorld,
        before the Age of Exiles and new continents. Also the HardCore
        BatMUD map / location data can be found here.

tf/     subdirectory has few utility scripts for mapping for TinyFugue
        MUD client.

www/    PHP-glue used in http://tnsp.org/maps/ site.