Treasures of Gaia

[stravingo]

Nickname: Stravingo
Project Name: Treasures of Gaia
Division: NDS APP
Original enter : YES
In last NEO Compo this project won in the top 10 : NO

 

Project description:

Treasures of Gaia allows you to browse on your DS an extremely detailed map of the entire world thanks to Google Maps (a Wifi connection is mandatory). The whole world is now in your DS!
You can scroll the map with the pad or the stylus. Use the L/R buttons for zooming in and out. Up to twenty zoom levels are available, depending on the area.

 

The purpose of Treasures of Gaia is to let you appreciate the beauty of our world
You can freely travel where you want, but special places locations are also provided: the list of the 851 places inscribed by the UNESCO on the World Heritage List for their outstanding universal value to humanity. These places are indicated on the map, but are only shown at zoom levels greater than 5 for legibility. To obtain information about a place, you only have to touch its location with the stylus. The information are displayed on the upper screen, where you can switch between a picture of the place, a description, or its location on a global map.

 

You can also browse the whole list sorted by countries by pressing the Y button. When you click on a place in the list, the same information are displayed on the upper screen, and you can directly go to this location by touching the "Go!" button.

 

  (07/08/20) New! Treasures of Gaia v0.2 is available.
It is now possible to switch between a satellite view and a map on the lower screen! Thus, it is much more easier to find a precise location. Among other improvements, you can now select English or French. More pictures and information are available on
my blog.

 

Controls

• A : switch between satellite/map view on the lower screen.
• X/B : scroll up/down information on the upper screen.
• Y : chose a place in the World Heritage list.
• Select : switch between Map/Picture/Text on the upper screen.
• Start : help.
• L/R : zoom out/zoom in.
• Pad : scroll the world map, scroll information on the lower screen.
• Stylus : scroll the world map, select a place on the map.

Installation notes

• patch the ROM with DLDI
• put the file tog_cities.dat at the root of your linker!!!
• Wifi is mandatory!

Download

The file is too big to be uploaded on the forum. It is available there:
treasures_of_gaia_v0.2.zip (2.12MB)

[freemaan]

Very nice ^^
It would be even better if you could add a cache (maybe using original google earth's cache files?)

[pasc]

This App is great ! It works really stable. But there is one thing I miss:

A way to search for your own Hometown via Textinput.

Will you perhaps include this in your next build ?

[laos]

This totally is what i've been looking for, if you make 2 more changes then its perfect'

Actually 3, no 4

1. Offer the option of making and saving points that you want to see in the list so fast access

2. Allow you to save images ( or set markers to save your image. so for example, 4 box sizes of the DS, just on the map place 4 markers to make that box to save the image as)

3. allow to highlight roads to use to find directions.

finally,
hybrid so you can see nearby roads etc. turn this into both a leisure and tool!

Dude, I swear by this. THANK YOU FOR MAKING THIS. I've been waiting for that leap where someone takes google earth and puts it on the DS. The zoom levels are great. you can see the whole planet, or go down to the view of roads at a birds eye view. with 20 zoom levels. Dude you didnt leave out all the basics too this. All ya gotta do is take that next step to provide offline usage (saving images) and make it a tool for road maps (highlighting direction/showing local roads)

AND THANK YOU FOR THE SLEEP MODE SUPPORT.

P.S. If you wanna jump furthur, also offer a roads only version with no satalite imaging.

[stravingo]

freemann: there is already a memory cache, that can store up to 10 map blocs. You can check this by returning on an area previously viewed, it will be immediately displayed without download. However, a cache on the linker to store much more blocs as files is a very good idea. Actually, I am working on this. As blocs are in JPEG format, storing something like 100 blocs (each bloc is 256x256 pixels) only takes about 2MB. It will greatly speed up the display and you can expect in a future version the possibility to use this cache offline.


pasc: I will think about it, but maybe not for Treasures of Gaia, probably for another project that will be more Google Maps - like. I add it on my todo list.
 

laos: what a great list of ideas! It will be difficult to implement all of this in the final version for the Neoflash compo, but expect these ideas in future versions.
However, one of your suggestions is already implemented in version 0.2 that will be released today. Stay tuned!
 

[laos]

Patience is a virtue, If I can wait a year for updates on MiniVMac DS. Then I can wait quite a while for those last editions

the ones I have to suggest as priority would be hyrbid sat and regular roads, and imaging that way I can use this program as a map when I drive around.

Thanks for listening

[stravingo]

I have updated the project description as Treasures of Gaia v0.2 is now available. Some people said that it was difficult in v0.1 to find a precise location because it lacks of reference points such as city locations. Well, the biggest improvement in this new version is that you can now switch between a satellite view and a map view by pressing button A!!!
Other improvements are the following:

• You can zoom on a site by clicking a second time on its location on the map.
• Partially translated in French (about 80%).
• Better looking map on the upper screen (less JPEG compression).
• Bugfix: the zoom was not centered properly.

Enjoy! 

[laos]

   

THAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNKKKKKKKK

YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Yes, it was a bit pushed.

But MAN! thats JUST what i've been waiting for. Dude, Man this is AWESOME

I cant wait to see how far this gets to. It just came out but this is just godsend already, i actually found my house.

This gets my vote for the summer competition

[Marcel100]

If You can please add "Search" option to find our houses. It will be the best app whne you add search and hybrid mode Maybe you can add also "Street view" from Google maps, it is possible?

[laos]

Whats the usefulnes of street view? So you get to see a lot of photos in 3D, it sucks ram and isnt effective. MAYBE for the treasures of gaia sites, but i doubt most of em even have street view. It doesnt help enough IMO to be added,

Search could be nice, but saving the images so you can use em is good too.

-laos

[pasc]

It would kick ass if we could:

Download Cities

and search streets by typing them in like we can in google, because for example finding Günzburg in Germany is a pain. It would really make this app more useable.

[laos]

Let me just note this for reference, Stravingo said at this moment ToG is NOT for a road map/guide usage at this time. He said its for viewing the beauty of Mother Earth, and learning about areas of preservation.

However, It does not mean we cant suggest search ideas and image capturing etc. It simply means he doesnt have to code it in when it necessarily isnt part of the Primary Goal

[stravingo]

Yes, laos, you're totally right. This is exactly the purpose of ToG. A lot of things can be done with my cartographic engine, but not necessairly in ToG as it would not correspond to the spirit of the app.
All suggestions are welcome, I noted a lot of good ideas suggested here, as well as yours, pasc. However, some of these ideas will be implemeted in another project ;-)

[Cid2Mizard]

Bonne chance 

[JBuRRkE]

wow! this app is really nice.. i only have a couple of things to say

i ran into a bug while trying to find my home.. i was searching near my house (its easier to find places in map view ) and i decided to change back to the other view to see a nearby mall.. after looking, when i tried to change it back to map view it turned into half map half picture view, and i couldnt get out.. i had to restart my ds completely in order to get back to all map view..

also, if you were to implement a way to "pin" locations.. that way we dont have to search over and over again, it would be awesome..

and as im sure many of you have probably said.. an offline version would be awesome.. =]

i didnt have time to read through every post, so if i said something already mentioned im sorry =/