maps4cim
maps4cim is a map generator for the traffic simulation game Cities in Motion 2, which creates maps based on real parts of the world.
The required source data for relief and inscriptions can be downloaded on demand from free data sources. The elevations are directly integrated in the resulting map, all further data (roads, forests, rivers, buildings, ...) are painted on the ground texture, so they can be recreated in the map editor.
Core Features
- Create realistic maps based on real parts of the world, with data from these
free (as in free beer and in free speech) data sources:
- SRTM: Elevations of the earth's surface with a resolution of about 90x90 meters per data point. The data comes directly from the servers of the United States Geological Survey (many thanks!)
- OpenStreetMap: Free map data from which the ground textures are generated that will be shown on the resulting map. The required data for the selected map sections is downloaded from the Overpass-Servers (with best regards to the operators!)
- Generate elevations from grayscale heightmaps (with support for 16bit graphics)
- Project arbitrary pictues on the ground, e.g. historical maps, the colormap that belongs to your heightmap or some lolcats, just for the heck of it ;)
- Choose between the european and american building set on map creation and convert existing maps from european to american and vice versa.
Release / Downloads
You can get the latest binary release from one of the following mirrors:
Instructions
Prerequisites
- maps4cim runs on Windows, Mac, Linux and any other operating system for which a Java Runtime is available
- Make sure you have a Java Runtime version 6 or higher installed
(you can get the latest version from java.com).
Mac users: Don't use your built-in "Java app" or something like that, it will cause you trouble, even if maps4cim starts.
Installation
- Unzip the downloaded file
maps4cim.zip - If you are on Windows, start
maps4cim.exe. On other operating systems, launchmaps4cim.jar. If you run into memory issues, use the provided launch skriptmaps4cim.sh. - Profit!
If you want to remove all user data that was stored by maps4cim, open maps4cim's
settings (menu Tools → Settings) and hit the Uninstall-Button.
Quick Start
Launch maps4cim. You will be presented with the main window which looks like this:
First, make yourself familiar with the map; navigation works like any other map service on the web. Right click on the map to select a location.
You may use the settings panel on the right to adjust you configuration, but for
now, just leave everything as is and hit the Render-Button on the bottom
right. Select a location on your hard drive and off we go!
maps4cim will download all required source data on the fly and the map will be
rendered for you. After 1-2 minutes, the flashing progress bar turns solid green
and your map is ready. Move your map to
C:\Users\MYNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Colossal Order\Cities in Motion 2\Maps
(Windows) or /Users/MYNAME/Library/Application Support/Colossal Order/ (Mac)
and start Cities in Motion 2. You can now edit your map in the map editor.
Screenshot: View from the Brenner Pass on Innsbruck, map rendered in Cities in Motion 2, as generated by maps4cim.
There are a lot more features to explore, just have a look around. For more information on how to use maps4cim, use the built-in documentation and visit the forums (see links below). Have fun :)
Discussion & Support
For more information, usage guides, technical support, praise and criticism, please visit the forums:
- citiesskylines.de (german)
Unfortunately, the cimexchange.com forum was shut down for good, but you can post your questions in english language on citiesskylines.de as well.
Get involved
maps4cim is free software and you can get the source code from github
Please note that this is still an early source code release, with important parts of the code in an undocumented and sometimes rather dirty state, but it should be well enough to work with.
If you want to contribute new features, don't hesitate to do so! Fork the project and write your code, and if you like what you've done and think it may be useful for others, create a pull request.
Further information:
- Deveopers.md: for some hints on how to work with the code
- docs: more documentation and insights for developers
Changelog
1.0.1
- resolved an issue that prevented downloading heightmaps from USGS servers.
1.0.0
- New data sources:
- Grayscale heightmaps as source for elevations
- Arbitrary images as source for ground textures
- Custom OSM XML Files as source for ground textures
- Full Support for the European Cities DLC. The building style of existing maps can be changed in the Metadata-Editor
- Performance of OpenStreetMap-Downloads improved, the hard download limits were removed
- Windows-Executable (.exe-file) - note: Java is still required!
- Program Update Notifications
- Cache Janitor: removes deprecated and broken files from the cache
- Drastically improved error handling
- Useful new options in the settings menu (log file, updates, cache janitor, ...)
- Many small improvements and lots of bugfixes, see CHANGELOG.md
0.9.3.1 beta
- This is a bugfix release, it changes the default Overpass server to overpass-api.de, because the previous server caused trouble, and improves error handling for faulty OSM XML data
- Lots of awesome features are in the pipeline for the 1.0 release!
0.9.3 beta
- Map header format analyzed: Can now write correct file name, preview image and creation date
- Metadata-Editor introduced: Change the preview picture and some other hidden information about your maps!
- Usability-Improvements in the GUI
for the full changelog, see CHANGELOG.md
License
maps4cim is free software, distributed under the terms of the Apache License, Version 2.0.
maps4cim - a real world map generator for CiM 2
Copyright 2014 Sebastian Straub
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.