An Introduction to MapMarker

These pages are intended as an introduction to and a guide to using "MapMarker".

What Is MapMarker ?

MapMarker is an interactive mapping tool. It allows the user to load an image - currently *.xbm and *.rppm - onto a canvas widget, and by using the tools provided a variety of shapes can be "laid over" the image. This is done in a very similar format to many drawing packages.
The idea is to create a series of shapes over areas of the image that correspond to any hotspots, applying a piece of annotation text - a comment - to each object and an associated URL.
For example, if the image were that of a particular floor of a building, rectangles could be created covering the area of each room and some information about the room could be added in the annotation part (i.e. room-number).
Once all shapes have been created and annotated, the coordinates of the shapes can be read into a file - *.map - which can be used by the imagemap server.

An additional function is that the mapfile you create can be used to mark the image. This is particularly useful for informing users which parts of a particular image are relevant, and it involves no extra work by you.

MapMarker is based on John Ousterhout's tk package.
It is used to create ISMAP files for use with the imagemap mechanism. These files allow inline images to be inserted on web pages, that respond to user interactions. Depending where the user has clicked in the diagram, different documents can be called.
Click here for details on how to make image maps.

To run MapMarker you will need tcl7.3/tk3.6. If you wish to use colour images you will need them as rppm files and must have the photo widget as part of your "wish".

Mapmarker uses imfile to calculate image sizes. This is available from :

    ftp://sdsc.edu/pub/sdsc/graphics/imtools

also it uses a program written in C by Peter Murray-Rust, called editimage. This is included as part of the package.

About MapMarker.

MapMarker : A Tutorial.

Features of MapMarker.

An example screen (a gif file).

Recommmended method of working

Examples

A guide to making your first mapfile.

Thanks

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Gudge.

"In this span of time, we're just babies." DP-1993