Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
39 lines (26 loc) · 1.8 KB

LABELS.md

File metadata and controls

39 lines (26 loc) · 1.8 KB
Raw

Adding labels to the map

I'm trying to add automated labels to the maps, so they can always be updated an accurate.

  • AreaTable.dbc contains a list of areas with labels

  • Each area has a pointer to parent the area (where there is one)

  • These contain no location data, however

  • World wdt files contain 256 (16x16) chunks per world tile

  • Each chunk contains an areaID

  • Since azeroth_11_22.adt matches azeroth/map_11_22.blp, I can match chunks to map tiles

There are two steps to this process:

cd build/
php areas1.php > zones.txt
php areas2.php > ../www/areadata.js

The first script partses the .adt files and outputs a map of each numbered zone and its bounds.

The second script reads AreaTable.dbc, recursively finds children, then outputs a JavaScript file mapping areaIDs to pixel bounds on the master map.

A custom map driver then loads these shapes:

https://worldofmapcraft.com/areas.php

The current test is loading Stormwind City (#1519), Elwynn Forest (#12) and Tirisfal Glades (#85).

An issue can clearly be seen with Elwynn - the mountains north of Stormwind are tagged as being in the forest. While they technically are part of Elwynn, this is pretty useless for labelling; a label in the middle of the box will be in the 'wrong' place. This could be combatted by only including child areas (for areas with children) as the bounding box, and just ignoring chunks tagged with the Elwynn area itself. It's not clear if this approach would work everywhere.

Another issue can be seen with Stormwind - lots of the ocean is tagged as being part of Stormwing Harbour (a child area of Stormwind City), so the box extends far out to sea. A centered label would be over the harbour area, which while not ideal, might be fine.

With these issues, it may be better to just manually place labels. Urgh!