Building a map has often meant a lot of hard work or expense. AditMap has always provided features to minimise the difficulties of building a new map but our new Trace facility is the best yet.

You can see the simple process demonstrated by clicking on the links below to follow a sequence of screen shots. This demonstration is based upon a real scanned image supplied by an AditMap user.

Step 1: The original image. This can be in a wide range of formats from a regular bitmap through JPEG, GIF and Windows metafile.

Step 2: Open the image file in the AditMap Trace window and set the trace parameters. These can be complicated at first sight but we find that the default settings usually work best.

Step 3: Here you see the trace in progress. AditMap is following the boundary lines on the original image.

Step 4: The trace has been completed and the lines have been loaded as a series of vectors.

Step 5: Here we have chosen to use the new AditMap facility that optimises the way the detail of the map is stored to minimise memory usage and to speed map drawing.

Step 6: To turn the traced lines into a map - we need to set the location and scale. In AditMap you can do this by identifying two known points or a single point and a distance or even a single point and the scale.

We now have a map created in just a couple of minutes.

Step 7: OK - it will look even better with some text, mapping symbols and graphics. Now it is ready for use.

The Trace facility works best with simple images - quite literally the sketch on the back of an envelope. Where the images are complex and involve many colours the AditMap Trace facility helps the user to simplify the image and concentrate the Trace process on the lines and features that the user wants to use to create the map.