I've noticed there aren't very many good Minecraft map utilities out there. They don't run/compile/function correctly, require additional software, or simply out of date. I slapped together a simple program in Visual Basic 6 to render Minecraft maps and it seems to work nicely. To download it go to mcamap.web44.net/.
Edit: if the download download page above does not work, MCAMap is also available at http://50.45.226.31/
It just doesn't work with windows 7-64 apparently. I followed your instructions to a T and even installed visual basic 6. It just does not work.
Visual Basic 6 is ancient, dating 1999 and quite possibly last had support around 2003. It was made to work on Win XP and before, so yeah it won't work on Win 7.
MCAMap seems to have difficulty running on Windows 7 64-bit since it's a 32-bit program and runs in WOW on Windows 7 x64. I've been able to get it to run in compatibility mode for Windows XP SP3.
Right click MCAMap.exe and select Properties, click the Compatibility tab, check the Compatibility mode checkbox and select Windows XP (Service Pack 3) from the dropdown list, then click Apply.
I've noticed that MCAMap can crash with "Runtime Error 6: Overflow" while rendering on 64 bit versions of Windows. This seems to happen mostly on Windows 7 x64. I have installed Windows 7 x64 on a test box (I refuse to run any version of Windows later than XP on my own systems) and have gotten MCAMap to run in Compatibility mode for Windows XP SP3. Since I can't reproduce the error myself, I've decided to try and migrate the code for MCAMap from Visual Basic 6 (I have grown to love it's power despite it's simplicity and limitations) to Visual Basic.NET (Which I am rapidly starting to loathe) in order to allow MCAMap to run properly in Windows Vista/7 x64. This will be released as MCAMap.NET alongside the VB6 version of MCAMap.
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The mapper does it's job and what I want from a mapper. Top down and flat. Isometric is quite hard when you need to measure distances.
The only thing I can suggest is perhaps adding features which allow custom blocks (IE thouse added in by mods) or to customise which blocks are what color.
I know it's been a couple months since the last update, but MCAMap 1.0.9 is available. This update hopefully addresses the overflow error that has popped up a few times. Also MCAMap now supports Minecraft 1.7 snapshot 13w38c!
In reply to KojiKamori, there is a tool included in MCAMapSource (available on the website) called MCAMapColor.exe which will allow you to edit the color values in the MCAMap.dat file. You can then swap the edited file out for the one in the MCAMap directory if you want to use different colors. The program was meant for demonstration purposes, so it's not the most user friendly program in the world (color have to be entered in 6 character hexadecimal codes in the format BBGGRR, so 00FF00 for green for example). I might make a better version eventually though.
As the ONLY mapper I have found for the 1.7 snapshots, I'll give you a try.
Tip of the hat for your industriousness.
UPDATE / review:
MCAMap didn't self-find my .../saves folder to render maps; and since "AppData/..." stuff is hidden from browsing (at least with my config), I couldn't direct it to my saves. I put a copy of my save folder into a directory I COULD browse-direct the MCAMap pgm to and it worked fine from there.
Only the non-MOB block type seen from the top-down view is displayed. There's no graphic variation to portray altitude, so cliffs and ravines are only detectable if the block type changes (snow or exposed stone).
Great job making a simple map-rendering program, mintxor. Thanks for keeping up with the snapshots!
UPDATE2: As reflected by the strikethrough text above, there IS a slight color shift to indicate elevation. It's so subtle I didn't notice it until my exploration (and therefore my map) extended farther. Then when the map was zoomed out far enough, the shade differences became more noticable.
As stated by FCCSteve, I have found this utility to be the only viable option.
However, I'm hurting for one particular piece of functionality:
All I'm looking for right now is something that will give me a greyscale height map of the world. All I want is the height map. Can I get a height map option, please? No need of biome colors or foliage; the only colors required are white, black, and shades of gray, and the only determinant for shade being the altitude of the block sampled.
Is this hard to do? If so, I apologize, please disregard.
I'm just hoping that it's easy for you to do.
I would have used your MCAMapColor.exe utility already to set all block colors to a uniform grey or black, but unfortunately I cannot run it.
Attempting to run MCAMapColor.exe pops an error message window: "MCAMapColor / Component 'comctl32.ocx' or one of its dependencies not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid."
UPDATE / review:
MCAMap didn't self-find my .../saves folder to render maps; and since "AppData/..." stuff is hidden from browsing (at least with my config), I couldn't direct it to my saves. I put a copy of my save folder into a directory I COULD browse-direct the MCAMap pgm to and it worked fine from there.
This happened to me too. I copied my saves to my desktop and it worked fine from there.
MCAMap has been updated and now supports Minecraft 1.8 snapshot 14w11b and runs on Linux! I noticed the height map idea mentioned and will add it as a feature in the next release.
Just updated MCAMap. A gray scale height map feature is now available (super easy to implement - a single if..then to cause the color encoding to be skipped). Sorry about taking so long to get around to posting an update.
Edit: if the download download page above does not work, MCAMap is also available at http://50.45.226.31/
bummer.
Visual Basic 6 is ancient, dating 1999 and quite possibly last had support around 2003. It was made to work on Win XP and before, so yeah it won't work on Win 7.
Running Windows 7 - 64, considering how many people use a 64 bit system it sad that this does not follow.
Right click MCAMap.exe and select Properties, click the Compatibility tab, check the Compatibility mode checkbox and select Windows XP (Service Pack 3) from the dropdown list, then click Apply.
The only thing I can suggest is perhaps adding features which allow custom blocks (IE thouse added in by mods) or to customise which blocks are what color.
Tip of the hat for your industriousness.
UPDATE / review:
MCAMap didn't self-find my .../saves folder to render maps; and since "AppData/..." stuff is hidden from browsing (at least with my config), I couldn't direct it to my saves. I put a copy of my save folder into a directory I COULD browse-direct the MCAMap pgm to and it worked fine from there.
Only the non-MOB block type seen from the top-down view is displayed.
There's no graphic variation to portray altitude, socliffs and ravines areonlydetectable if the block type changes (snow or exposed stone).Great job making a simple map-rendering program, mintxor. Thanks for keeping up with the snapshots!
UPDATE2: As reflected by the strikethrough text above, there IS a slight color shift to indicate elevation. It's so subtle I didn't notice it until my exploration (and therefore my map) extended farther. Then when the map was zoomed out far enough, the shade differences became more noticable.
However, I'm hurting for one particular piece of functionality:
All I'm looking for right now is something that will give me a greyscale height map of the world. All I want is the height map. Can I get a height map option, please? No need of biome colors or foliage; the only colors required are white, black, and shades of gray, and the only determinant for shade being the altitude of the block sampled.
Is this hard to do? If so, I apologize, please disregard.
I'm just hoping that it's easy for you to do.
I would have used your MCAMapColor.exe utility already to set all block colors to a uniform grey or black, but unfortunately I cannot run it.
Attempting to run MCAMapColor.exe pops an error message window: "MCAMapColor / Component 'comctl32.ocx' or one of its dependencies not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid."
The pictures is at the site.
My WIP Minecraft Map: Electric Cities
This happened to me too. I copied my saves to my desktop and it worked fine from there.