Updates on Deniska’s Mapviewer Project

 
 

You may remember Deniska as the homebrew developer who gave us goodies such as X-pired, Reverzi PSP, Project Starfighter, and MapThis. Most of the time this developer brings some homebrew games to the community, but MapThis is a different project. From its name alone, you know that it is suitable for directions-challenged individuals and for people who usually go out of town. This project is actually a portable map for the PSP which is really neat.

It has been a while since Deniska shed some light on the status of MapThis. Now, the good developer is back to hook us up with some new developments with this one. The status of the Mapviewer (we ain’t sure if this is the new codename for the project) is still very much active. The reason why it is taking so long to be unleashed is because Deniska crucially decided to start from scratch and re-code everything since according to the author himself, “the previous version was too buggy and limited in functionality”.

Deniska also steered away from DSL graphics libraries because they “exibited very unpredictable behavior and switched to custom graphics lib, mostly borrowed from lua player.” The developer also stopped relying on Yahoo for maps since it has a very limited content, majority of it are U.S. and Canada cities. Instead he began to utilize Google maps which he believes has a worldwide coverage, crisper map graphics and more of less open API for map manipulation.

Now, he also tells us what he has accomplished so far. He mentions that he is pretty much done with difficult tasks such as “scaling, xy <==>lat/lon conversion, basic attractions display, NMEA sentences parser, scripts to acquire maps”. The new version will be able to support regular, satellite, and hybrid maps.

For now, the good developer is still waiting for the arrival of his GPS order– Holux GPSlim236, so as he can begin with the unenviable task of working on GPS connectivity. From there on, if everything go as planned, we may expect a release in the coming week or two. So with that, let’s wish the developer the best of luck, and we need not re-affirm our faith in his abilities– because faith only applies to things we can’t see and Deniska’s talents is obviously well-flaunted and used.

  

Via Deniska

 
 

You may remember Deniska as the homebrew developer who gave us goodies such as X-pired, Reverzi PSP, Project Starfighter, and MapThis. Most of the time this developer brings some homebrew games to the community, but MapThis is a different project. From its name alone, you know that it is suitable for directions-challenged individuals and for people who usually go out of town. This project is actually a portable map for the PSP which is really neat.

It has been a while since Deniska shed some light on the status of MapThis. Now, the good developer is back to hook us up with some new developments with this one. The status of the Mapviewer (we ain’t sure if this is the new codename for the project) is still very much active. The reason why it is taking so long to be unleashed is because Deniska crucially decided to start from scratch and re-code everything since according to the author himself, “the previous version was too buggy and limited in functionality”.

Deniska also steered away from DSL graphics libraries because they “exibited very unpredictable behavior and switched to custom graphics lib, mostly borrowed from lua player.” The developer also stopped relying on Yahoo for maps since it has a very limited content, majority of it are U.S. and Canada cities. Instead he began to utilize Google maps which he believes has a worldwide coverage, crisper map graphics and more of less open API for map manipulation.

Now, he also tells us what he has accomplished so far. He mentions that he is pretty much done with difficult tasks such as “scaling, xy <==>lat/lon conversion, basic attractions display, NMEA sentences parser, scripts to acquire maps”. The new version will be able to support regular, satellite, and hybrid maps.

For now, the good developer is still waiting for the arrival of his GPS order– Holux GPSlim236, so as he can begin with the unenviable task of working on GPS connectivity. From there on, if everything go as planned, we may expect a release in the coming week or two. So with that, let’s wish the developer the best of luck, and we need not re-affirm our faith in his abilities– because faith only applies to things we can’t see and Deniska’s talents is obviously well-flaunted and used.

  

Via Deniska