Guild City

[Redrobes]

You could, in theory, have an infinite number of zoomable layers

Yes you could but each one is 16384x16384 pixels which is a lot of bitmap to upload. So its more about the effort of maintenance than anything. My ViewingDale app did it on the fly so you didnt have to do this but were on a forum with HTML and Javascript at our disposal so were limited.

The composite map is built on-the-fly using the individual district maps whose positions are defined by some gridding system magic.

I build the composite map from peoples uploaded thread attachments and put it all into my ViewingDale app which does do it on the fly, then export it as one large bitmap to upload to the guild.

The more zoomable maps there are the more room for errors to creep in, so keeping it simple is crucial, so the number of zoomable layers needs to be limited. Am I understanding this correctly?

Its more about management and effort of the amount of huge files we have to upload on every single update of the map. If someone changes a small item in one of their sectors of the city and creates a new attachment then we have an automatic WIP Scraper here on the guild which I wrote the original of some long time ago and improved by RobA. Thats run every half hour or so and it looks out for new WIP attachments with the ### Latest WIP ### tag and generates a page of the thumbs with links to the latest thread post. Its normally used for the monthly challenges but its also used for the community threads too. I download a copy all the new latest images that I dont have and update my local set. I put them into my ViewingDale app which aligns them and composes all the parts together and I export one large 16Kx16K bitmap of the whole city. I have another app I wrote to break up these large 16K bitmaps to LeafletJS compatible tiles (256x256) for the zoomy javascript engine called Leaflet. Once you upload 5000 or so of these tiles then in a browser you get to zoom in and out of everyones sectors like google maps up to a resolution of 16K in a browser window of say 1280.

So thats how its all done

[Straf]

Yes you could but each one is 16384x16384 pixels which is a lot of bitmap to upload.

Oh, I don't know. In 24 bit depth I make that only 4.5 x 10^15 bits, I mean that's only somewhere in the region of 500 ish terabytes uncompressed. Imagine how long it would take to back that up onto 3.5" floppies!

So its more about the effort of maintenance than anything. My ViewingDale app did it on the fly so you didnt have to do this but were on a forum with HTML and Javascript at our disposal so were limited.


I build the composite map from peoples uploaded thread attachments and put it all into my ViewingDale app which does do it on the fly, then export it as one large bitmap to upload to the guild.


Its more about management and effort of the amount of huge files we have to upload on every single update of the map. If someone changes a small item in one of their sectors of the city and creates a new attachment then we have an automatic WIP Scraper here on the guild which I wrote the original of some long time ago and improved by RobA. Thats run every half hour or so and it looks out for new WIP attachments with the ### Latest WIP ### tag and generates a page of the thumbs with links to the latest thread post. Its normally used for the monthly challenges but its also used for the community threads too. I download a copy all the new latest images that I dont have and update my local set. I put them into my ViewingDale app which aligns them and composes all the parts together and I export one large 16Kx16K bitmap of the whole city. I have another app I wrote to break up these large 16K bitmaps to LeafletJS compatible tiles (256x256) for the zoomy javascript engine called Leaflet. Once you upload 5000 or so of these tiles then in a browser you get to zoom in and out of everyones sectors like google maps up to a resolution of 16K in a browser window of say 1280.

So thats how its all done

Thanks for the explanation. I just went off to see what ViewingDale is and I watched a video on YouTube. When the view zoomed in on a character's bald head I thought there was going to be a zoomable map tattooed on his head!

I thought there was a server side app stitching everything together from individual sections on-the-fly. Thinking about it, processing that much data for potentially multiple clients may cause a bit of a CPU load problem.

I'm thinking that Google Maps draw theirs from GIS data at the relevant zoom level?

[kacey]

I was also wondering...Could we have some say on what type of district or area we get. Like will the city be divided up into different types of areas? If so then I would be particularly interested in doing the learning, and science area, where the people of this guild city do reasearch, and have universities, and such, and maybe do an observatory, and science centre, and learn all sorts of things, maybe a school of astronomy, that type of thing, because I feel like that's what I do here at the forum is observe other people work on there maps, and learn from them, and well, I just think these types of buildings would have more interesting rooftops. Also there might be some good potential for some underground tunnel systems, and chambers where forbidden knowledge has been kept secret by the ancients.

[J.Edward]

That sounds splendid Kacey.

I can not speak for what people will ultimately want to do, but my intent is for the city to just be divided up based on interesting areas and sizes and then it is up to each mapper to plan their section.
If we end up with 20 sections that are all about science and learning, then so be it.
I doubt we will, but I don't wish to dictate what a person maps that specifically.

I may well do some slums and some other not so pretty parts. They are actually quite fun to create.
I think there is a lot of potential for all sorts of fun things.

[Falconius]

I think we should just divide the city into neighborhoods, but leave it open for people to do whatever sort of 'city' they want in there, just like the Guildworld was open for people to do what they want (Although I don't think anyone made a future setting except Waldronate and it was kind of a post apocalyptic fantasy setting). Also keep in mind that we might need it to be able to expand, so perhaps mapping out a core general layout to cover the initial participants, but keeping in mind we may need to tack more neighborhoods on if more people join in as does happen. Perhaps we could also have a list of important sites/buildings people also get along with their hood (could also be random pick). Such that someone might get a university, and someone might get a palace, and someone might get a town council building.

[Mouse]

We should put our heads together as mappers and try to come up with the coolest city design possible. We could make a thread dedicated to collecting the ideas of guildmembers and put them in a pot, boil for ten minutes, take it out, and mash and stir together to create the coolest-est (maybe another 'est') and unique-est city map ever design (now my words are getting all mixed up). After all, between all the amazing cartographers on here, we must be able to make something awesome together.

That's basically what we are trying to do right now, but not yet described so succinctly - thanks Josiah

The boiling pot is currently residing in comment 59, where I'm collecting place ideas as we go along - for J.Edward to use as a reference point for the minimum of what we want in the city Just add any new ideas to the end of the thread and I'll pick them up to add on the end. I expect there will also be lots more just spontaneously appearing in individual maps as we go along - adding the personality of all our individual imaginations to the city 'live'.

I think we should just divide the city into neighborhoods, but leave it open for people to do whatever sort of 'city' they want in there, just like the Guildworld was open for people to do what they want (Although I don't think anyone made a future setting except Waldronate and it was kind of a post apocalyptic fantasy setting). Also keep in mind that we might need it to be able to expand, so perhaps mapping out a core general layout to cover the initial participants, but keeping in mind we may need to tack more neighborhoods on if more people join in as does happen. Perhaps we could also have a list of important sites/buildings people also get along with their hood (could also be random pick). Such that someone might get a university, and someone might get a palace, and someone might get a town council building.

I think that's what J.Edward is considering in the odd moment between other things by the sound of what he's saying elsewhere in the thread.

In the UK, where we have many walled cities due to the tendency for our island to get repeatedly invaded down through the millennia, the usual growth and development is to place new suburbs outside the wall in an organic method. Of course, these suburbs would be vulnerable if another invasion occurred, but the people in them would be summoned to rush into the walled part of the city in that event, and join the resistance fighters...

I think I will add watch towers to the list.

EDIT: The list of important/interesting features is currently being kept on this thread at comment 59. It started there before things got really serious and we started to talk about levels and drains - and before we had over 20 potential participants.

I think J.Edward will probably take quite a few of them and put them in the basic plan already, but I've no doubt there will be quite a few left for us to fight over

[Falconius]

Ah ok, it's a long thread and I only saw it recently

[Mouse]

@ Falconius - Its grown a bit bigger than expected! LOL! I've had to start putting links in to find my own way around.

Add what you want in a new comment and I'll go add it to the list for you

I'd start a new thread specially for it, only I don't know if we are staying in this forum or moving over to the Guildcity forum just yet

[Wingshaw]

Wow, a lot happened on this thread in the last 24 hours!

Happily (for me) Adelaide isn't as much of an internet blackhole as I had suspected... So, I'm back and keen to put my knowledge at service.

Here are a few comments and thoughts of my own:

Time Period
I've seen some people suggest medieval, others say modern, and a few sci-fi or post-apocalyptic. Personally, I think cartography leans closely towards steampunk, so I think an 18th-19th century setting would be cool, and could be a nice compromise between medieval and modern.

City Form
Once again, I think a compromise is possible. There is no such thing as a totally planned or totally unplanned city. What if this city began its existence as an unplanned city, but then an element of planning was introduced at a later stage. Or vice versa. Here's an example of how that might have come about: a handful of scattered villages grow to the point that they merge into a town, and at that point a local lord/king/emperor/madman decides to make it his/her new capital and lay down major roads, districts, walls etc. Later, said madman (who may or may not be called Robbie...) disappears (I think he/she is sitting in a corner of the castle, mumbling incoherently about bumblebees) and so the organisation starts to crumble and it returns to a disorganised mess.

Setting/Location
For the sake of plausibility, I think a few things need to be considered:
--where does the city get its water from? I think a water-source like a river or lake is necessary. Other options include an oasis, aquifer, canal systems etc. but each of these has implications for the climate/countryside around the city.
--what natural defenses does the city have? Historically, many early settlers needed to make the decision between settling in a protected location (hilltop, plateau) or in a place that has natural resources (valley bottoms tend to have better arable land than hillsides) or good access (riverways and traffic routes). If this settlement began in a place that was threatened, they would prioritise defensive locations. If it was relatively safe, they might favour a less protected but more connected or fertile site.
--why did the town begin/grow? Most villages never become more than villages. The point I am getting at with this question is: did the town grow from farming communities, merchants, soldiers (encampments/fortresses), bandits, refugees, fishermen... The history of a town has a huge role to play in its later development.

Admin
So, there's been a lot of ideas so far, it seems like Mouse is--for the moment--spearheading the operation with J. Edward's help, but there's no executive decision-making going on. I'm not claiming any authority, but here's my thoughts:
--we could appoint a grand maestro of the Guild City who decides all of these things, creates (or commissions) a layout map that gets divided into neighbourhoods, and then everyone maps their respective districts...
--we could make it democratic, and have polls on time period, setting etc. This will take a lot longer to reach a decision. And then, in true local government style, we could have a committee to discuss the poll results. And a subcommittee to decide on the members of the committee. And a working group to determine the functions of the subcommittee... (Sorry, I got carried away there).

Personally, I want a grand maestro. And I want him/her to be called the grand maestro. Perhaps with a capital G and a capital M.

In terms of laying out the city, I'm happy to make a basic (i.e. very sketchy) layout which can then be put into a format that allows all participants to map the neighbourhood of their choice. At the moment, I think I only have time to make the sketchy layout.

Anyway, those are a couple of my thoughts so far. I like the other suggestions (eg. about the city's different levels, and different scales) but haven't got much to contribute to those discussions for the time being.

THW

[Abu Lafia]

Sounds like a great idea to start the new year with another community mapping project. Count me in! I think Robbie's narrative about the cosmopolitic meltingpot Azuredawn and "the Guild" were cartographers and other folks from all the different places around the Guildworld come together sounds perfect for such a city (given Robbie is ok with us "hijacking" the city ). From an aesthetical point of view, i 'd prefer a more organic outlook of the neighbourhoods (and the whole city) too.