Hi Don
May I chime in. Yes, to have good maps has bothered me every now and
then as well (you remember the northern Sudan border case?). The "McIDAS
World Country Outlines" is definitely superior to what we have had in
IDV so far. It even has taken Montenegro on board. Also, it matches
closely "Europe" from European Maps in the Map plugin (no Montenegro,
though). The only not very logical feature in the McIDAS map are the
fragmented US (looks like Africa from a global point of view, perhaps
not a bad idea ;-) ).
BTW In June TomY showed me some work he is doing towards a
super-precise/up-to-date map. Any transplant fom him?
back in idle sunshine, HP
Don Murray wrote:
Hi Heiko-
Thanks for pointing this out. It's been difficult to get good, free
maps.
A couple of notes:
- In the latest version of the IDV (2.7u1), the World Coastlines map
was updated to a higher resolution map. However, if you have ever
changed your default map preferences, then you will not see that map
by default. You can get the updated map by:
- Open the Default Background Map Control window
- Delete the World Coastlines map by clicking the trash can icon
- Select the File->Default Maps->Save as Default Map set
- Exit the IDV.
That will remove the old reference.
- Restart the IDV
- Open the Default Background Map control window
- Select the Edit->Add System Map->World Coastlines map.
Alternatively, if you have not added or changed any of the other
default maps, you can use the File->Default Maps->Remove Local Map
Defaults and restart the IDV. That will pick up the new map and you
can then save that preference.
- I just added a new plugin with a better World Country Outline map.
- Use the Tools->Plugin Manager dialog to add in the Maps->World
Maps plugin.
- Restart the IDV.
- Use the Edit->Add System Map->McIDAS World Country Outlines to
get the new map.
If users like this map better, we can set that as the default World
Country Outline map. This is from the Unidata McIDAS distribution (as
is the new World Coastlines map). If there are any issues with this
map, please let us know so we can fix them.
Don Murray
Heiko Klein wrote:
I've been checking some altitude maps over Europe and got a bit
confused by using the default IDV (2.7u1) 'world country outlines'.
It seems like Iceland (lower left corner) is about 2 degrees more
west than the altitude, while Svalbard/Spitsbergen (upper right
corner on the attached figure) has only 5% of its actual size.
The same map looks okay with the World Coastlines, which is of lower
resolution.
I recognized, too, that the country borders don't reflect the split
of serbia and montenegro in 2006.
Does somebody have other country border or higher resolution world
coastline files available? Did somebody convert i.e. the recently
updated NCL / Ncar graphics database 'Earth..4' to an idv-readable file?
Best regards,
Heiko
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