Chienworks* MapLiner 1.0

This program creates an animated path on a map to
illustrate a travel route. Most any map may be
used for a background. The resulting animation
will be stored in a series of still bitmap files
which can be imported as a sequence in video
editing programs such as SonicFoundry's Vegas.

Warning! This 1.0 release is very much a work in
progress. Consider this an alpha release with
very little inhouse testing. There are some
important shortcomings in this release, most
notable of which is the lack of any checking when
saving files. This release will overwrite any
existing file without any warning. USE AT YOUR
OWN RISK! Chienworks* assumes no responsibilty
for lost files.

This program copyright 2003 by Chienworks*, all
rights reserved. Permission is granted to install
and redistribute this 1.0 version as long as all
titles, copyrights, and this readme file remain
intact. http://www.chienworks.com/

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Quick feature review:

  -  Selectable NTSC or PAL formats
  -  Adjustable line width and color
  -  Up to 99 points in the route
  -  Adjustable circles at each point
  -  Adjustable time interval between points
  -  Project files may be saved for future editing

Operation:

  -  File / Image: select a background map. BMP,
JPG, TIF, and GIF files may be used. The image
will not be resized, so pre-editing the image to
654x480 (NTSC) or 786x576 (PAL) is desirable.
This image will not be altered.

  -  File / Open: loads a previous MapLiner
project.

  -  File / Save(As): saves a MapLiner project as
a .mlr file. This file is plain text and may be
manually editied in NotePad.

  -  NTSC / PAL buttons: switch between NTSC
frame size at 29.97fps and PAL frame size at
25fps.

  -  [+] Enables point adding mode. The cursor
becomes a + on the map. Click to add points. All
points are added to the end of the route, but may
be rearraged.

  -  [-] Enables poing deleting mode. The cursor
becomes a four-pointed arrow. Click on an
existing point to delete it.

  -  [o] Enables point selection mode. Click on a
point to select it for rearranging.

  -  [<] Moves the selected point back one step
in the route sequence.

  -  [>] Moves the selected point forwared one
step in the route sequence.

  -  Properties allows changing of five items
that affect the appearance of the animation:

     -  line thickness
     -  circle thinkness
     -  circle radius (reduce to 1 to eliminate)
     -  drawing color
     -  time interval between points (seconds)

     -  select color is for editing only

  -  Redraw refreshes the screen display

  -  Preview shows a near realtime display of the
route being drawn

  -  Render creates the animation output, one BMP
file per frame. You will be prompted for a
directory and base file name. Each frame will
have -0000.bmp, -0001.bmp, -0002.bmp ... etc.
appended.

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Critical needs:

  -  Debugging. This program is almost complete
untested. It generates an animation. I don't know
what else it may or may not do ;)

  -  File checking when saving/rendering. There
is no warning before overwriting files. There is
also no warning if the user exits before saving
the project.

Future updates:

  -  Ability to resize/stretch/crop the image
used for the background map.

  -  Moving points. Currently the only way to
move a point is to delete it, add a new one at
the end of the route, then rearrange this new
point back to the correct position. Eventually
points will be movable by dragging them with the
mouse.

  -  Additional output formats such as half-frame
and other frame rates.

  -  More control over interval timing, including
individual times for each section and constant
speed instead of constant intervals. Perhaps a
keyframe timeline would be useful.

  -  Direct output to AVI files as well as still
image sequences.