World Map

[Aishagain]

Well tonight (UK time) has been another education in WHY we need a functional World Map.  When flying, the current limit of zoom that the Firstorm World Map will show is too local for flying at any speed (and of course region crossings still have to be negotiated carefully, corner crossings are still a lottery.  But several of the navigation tools/Maps are sufficiently out of date that gaps in the regions where regions have "gone" or are simply  offline do no show, and several shown airfields/airports have ceased to exist.

The need for a functioning world map that can be zoomed out sensibly is vital to this sort of activity and it cannot be down to the Firestorm devs or any other TPV team to make a Linden Lab service functional. 

WHEN WILL IT BE READY???  EVER??  Do I really have to keep another viewer to hand simply to perform one of the most basic of SL functions..ie to read a World Map?

ETA  Tuesday: And unfortunately I do not have a two-monitor set up to display Eddy's map.  So @Linden Lab get your act together, wipe the egg that Eddy threw at you off your face and get the map working .

Edited March 30, 2021 by Aishagain

[Eddy Ofarrel]

20 hours ago, Aethelwine said:

Eddie's World map is very useful, but it isn't showing the new regions.

I have noticed while visiting Second Norway Firestorm's (and presumably other viewers) minimaps are showing updated tiles for the the new regions there, where the world map still shows nothing.

I am not 100% sure but I think this is progress, I am sure the minmap tiles not so long ago were showing the same old tiles that were last updated on the world map last November. 

Yep, that's unfortunately the one thing I can't do anything about, actually getting up-to-date map tiles generated

As far as I know (in Firestorm at least, I don't use any other viewers) the minimap is generated in a different way. It seems to use the same tiles from the main map as a base, and then overlays them with some stuff based on what it knows is in the region from actually being there (or connected to it as a neighbouring region). I've just gone to check out Second Norway and found some regions which aren't showing on the map. For example the region Tore - I teleported into the region Hani to the north of it, then flew into it, and each bit of land visible in the region appeared on the minimap literally as it was appearing in front of me. Once it was all loaded, I noticed the sea in that region on the minimap looked a bit different (darker blue) compared to Hani, which does have an actual map tile. It also seems like actual buildings etc aren't shown on the viewer-generated minimap in the same way as they are in the main map tiles, as the couple of buildings that are there didn't seem to be visible on the minimap at all.

I think it *might* be possible for a modified viewer to generate map tiles which could then be used for the main map, but it would require visiting each region for it to actually load what's there and generate the tile, and actual 3D graphical rendering stuff is really outside of my area of expertise.

I've also just noticed something else curious in that area of Second Norway with regions with no map tiles - there are two regions next to each other called Brook Hill Cliff and Brook Hill Reef, which are showing on my map page (i.e. the server used for the map API is saying regions with those names exist at that point on the map, and the same in reverse, i.e. looking them up by name gives those positions on the map), but with no map tiles of course, just the names. But the built-in World Map says there's nothing there at all, i.e. no name, nothing that can be clicked on to teleport to etc. And even teleporting into the region next one of them to have a look, there seems to be nothing there at all. So I'm not sure what that's about.

2 hours ago, Ardy Lay said:

I just played with Cool VL Viewer on another computer with another Second Life account.  The World Map appears to be displaying the full-resolution tiles at all zoom levels except perhaps all the way out.  That appears to have some sort of desaturated summary tile on display.  Unfortunately, this approach resulted in the viewer ceasing to respond to OS service requests resulting it it being frozen from my point of view.  It's "Cool" though.  Just don't try to look at the whole world at once.

That sounds like Cool VL Viewer is doing much the same as my map page then, and yep, that's why I limited the zoom-out range to much lower than it would normally be. One of the things I'm planning to do next is try caching the map tiles on my server and see if I can make it generate the tiles as they should be for the other zoom levels, which would deal with those issues.

I have just added a bit to the top of the page where you can type in a region name (and optionally X and Y coordinates), or just paste a full SLURL, to locate it on the map

Edited March 30, 2021 by Eddy Ofarrel

[Anna Nova]

Just a quick note to say that I sailed round and through North Sansara from Kagel and out to Bay City in the west, with Eddy's map on my second monitor.  It is nice to have all the screen of monitor 1 for Firestorm, with only a small square for the mini-map (corner avoidance necessity).  No issues for over 2 hours sailing.  I found it wonderful to have a long distance planning map to hand.  Thank you @Eddy Ofarrel, you are my new #1 SLer.  Of course, nothing changes much in Sansara, so the missing new sims issues doesn't arise.

Edited March 30, 2021 by Anna Nova

[Mari Moonbeam]

On 3/5/2021 at 7:39 PM, Artemisia Atheria said:

Is there a way to tell which continent you're at? Like somewhere in About Land or The World Map that tells you the continent name for that region, similar to how you can see the region name for the land?

Try making a attachment that will tell you the continent:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/ContinentDetector

Thank you Braclo

[KjartanEno]

Using Eddy's map I'm seeing what looks like new planned regions for Zindra. They show a placeholder name "Ursula" followed by a number. Zindra has an unfinished feel to it since a lot of land abruptly ends in the air, so to speak. 

4 hours ago, Anna Nova said:

with Eddy's map on my second monitor.

This! 🚢

[Eddy Ofarrel]

I've just done another update to the map page (which is now at http://maps.eddyofarrel.com/ for consistency rather than map.eddyofarrel.com, but the old URLs should seamlessly redirect there anyway)

The map tiles are now all cached on my server the first time they are loaded, and it now actually generates the tiles for zoom levels 2 and 3 when they are requested (so the browser side now works as it's supposed to, rather than using the fully-zoomed-in images for everything).

I haven't (yet) enabled any more further out zoom levels though, because my server would have to load all the fully-zoomed images for all of the regions in view which haven't been loaded before (regardless of whether it's generating the tiles for that zoom level or not). At a standard screen size these days (1080p), there seem to be about 45 (9 x 5) tiles visible, so even at the current maximum zoom-out level of 3, that could be up to 720 region tiles for my server to load all at once. At zoom level 4, that would increase to 2,880 regions. I'm not too bothered about the possibility of it overloading my server, but it would take a long time to load in any case, and I'm more worried about the server that's the source of the map tiles not being happy about it. I might enable higher levels once more of the map has been loaded in and cached though.

As the map tiles are now all loaded via my server (which is in the UK) rather than directly from the CDN that LL use (which I would assume has many servers around the world and always uses the nearest one to you), you might find that the map tiles actually load more slowly now (certainly for regions which haven't been loaded in the map since this change, but possibly even for ones that are already cached on my server if you're a long way from the UK). Higher zoom levels (i.e. zoomed out) should load faster than they did before though, at least once cached on my server.

I've put a copy of the old version (which only uses the fully-zoomed-in map tiles, directly from the CDN) at http://maps.eddyofarrel.com/old.php in case anyone wants to compare. The new version already has the area around the default starting point cached at all zoom levels, so moving around a little bit/zooming out there would show the best case scenario. If you tell it to load somewhere completely different, that probably won't be cached yet unless someone else has got there before you.

The region names still aren't cached, they still load individually from a Second Life API server, so the only difference between the two versions is in the loading/processing of the actual map images.

[Nika Talaj]

13 hours ago, Eddy Ofarrel said:

I've also just noticed something else curious in that area of Second Norway with regions with no map tiles - there are two regions next to each other called Brook Hill Cliff and Brook Hill Reef, which are showing on my map page (i.e. the server used for the map API is saying regions with those names exist at that point on the map, and the same in reverse, i.e. looking them up by name gives those positions on the map), but with no map tiles of course, just the names. But the built-in World Map says there's nothing there at all, i.e. no name, nothing that can be clicked on to teleport to etc. And even teleporting into the region next one of them to have a look, there seems to be nothing there at all. So I'm not sure what that's about.

This also seems to be happening around the new Bellisseria chalet regions ("Bellevaria") stretching between Belli's Stilt Homes area ("Margaritaville") and Satori.  I'm assuming that these ghost regions are new ones that will shortly be opened to allow access to Bellevaria.

https://community.secondlife.com/forums/topic/426577-ssp/page/213/?tab=comments#comment-2276932

 

Edited March 30, 2021 by Nika Talaj

[Qie Niangao]

4 hours ago, KjartanEno said:

Using Eddy's map I'm seeing what looks like new planned regions for Zindra. They show a placeholder name "Ursula" followed by a number. Zindra has an unfinished feel to it since a lot of land abruptly ends in the air, so to speak. 

Pretty sure the whole Zindra continent used to be called "Ursula" (see e.g., this wiki search) and there are still references to the name: parcel names for water regions south of, say, Novarez are "Ursula Bay" whereas the ones to the north are "Troyes Bay" for some reason.

[TT120]

That is awesome Eddy!  Thank you so much!

 

You have managed to do in a couple weeks what their "best" coder hasn't been able to do in 6 months.

[Mari Moonbeam]

Thanks Eddy . I see the map has void region names showing  for regions that were turned in to Linden, some over 5 years ago. Nostalgia or a glitch?

[Eddy Ofarrel]

3 hours ago, Mari Moonbeam said:

Thanks Eddy . I see the map has void region names showing  for regions that were turned in to Linden, some over 5 years ago. Nostalgia or a glitch?

I'm not sure what you mean - as in region names showing on the map where there's no region there at all any more? Can you give me the name of one so I can have a look? In any case, the region names all come from the Second Life "caps" server, as described here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Map_API_Reference

Just to let everyone know, I've fixed a few bugs that I've noticed such as region names with dashes or other characters in them being seen as invalid (in trying to validate/sanitise the input, I stupidly followed the Second Life guidelines for region names, which say they "Must use only alphanumeric characters (no punctuation)", but clearly that's not the case so I've got rid of that check lol)

I'm also working on some updates to my server itself now, so you might find that the whole page stops working/is unavailable at times, but just bear with me, keep refreshing the page and it should be back within a few minutes each time hopefully

[Stefanie Starlight]

@Eddy OfarrelThank you SO much for picking this up and doing all you have done.  Surely your skills can lead to a job in some lucrative enterprise, or maybe they already do   *smile*  Words fail me in regard to just how much benefit I have already gained in just the last couple of days.  Just another huge fan here!   

[Chic Aeon]

Thought it might be good to show how the map looks on 2560 monitor :D.

Not resized by me but the forums may resize to a maximum I think.  

 

[Coffee Pancake]

Not high rez, but can see a bit more by using browsers built in zoom

[Qie Niangao]

16 hours ago, Eddy Ofarrel said:

I'm not sure what you mean - as in region names showing on the map where there's no region there at all any more? Can you give me the name of one so I can have a look? In any case, the region names all come from the Second Life "caps" server, as described here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Map_API_Reference

In case it's still a question, I think @Mari Moonbeamwas asking about the same "ghost" region names as @KjartanEnofound surrounding Zindra, e.g., "Ursula 281" and eighty or so to the southeast, and a bunch more elsewhere around that continent.

I guess that this occurs for estate regions turned back to the Lab over five years ago is a pretty good hint that those "Ursula <n>" names aren't "new planned regions" but rather leftover placeholders.

It's interesting that the cap somehow has all those names registered for regions that don't exist.

[Claireschen Hesten]

27 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

I guess that this occurs for estate regions turned back to the Lab over five years ago is a pretty good hint that those "Ursula <n>" names aren't "new planned regions" but rather leftover placeholders.

Any region with Ursula in the name has a connection to Zindra as every region on that continent was originally named Ursula

[Eddy Ofarrel]

6 hours ago, Stefanie Starlight said:

@Eddy OfarrelThank you SO much for picking this up and doing all you have done.  Surely your skills can lead to a job in some lucrative enterprise, or maybe they already do   *smile*  Words fail me in regard to just how much benefit I have already gained in just the last couple of days.  Just another huge fan here!   

Thank you! I really appreciate you saying that. You would think so, but my skills have really been going to waste for years (I can't really do a "normal" full-time job, i.e. one that would require going into an office every day etc, for several reasons). I've actually recently started to feel like I couldn't even do anything useful anymore, couldn't think like I used to be able to etc, so I'm really pleased that people like what I've managed to do here (I think I've always been motivated more by that than by money anyway, really)

It is literally costing me (quite a bit of) money every month just to have a server that I can do this sort of stuff on though, and I have recently been thinking about either getting rid of it or at least downgrading it to something much more basic... but now it looks like this will make good use of it again. I have got several ideas for map-related things that I think people might find useful, things which aren't possible at all right now (as in not even before things broke), so I'm thinking I might end up putting those more advanced features into some sort of paid product (i.e. something that can be bought on the SL Marketplace), and hopefully that might cover at least some of the server cost. If I do though, I'll definitely always keep the standard version available for free (and keep improving it), as long as I still have the server to run it on.

Before I can even start experimenting with any of that more advanced stuff though, I've been working on getting the whole thing working as efficiently as possible, which will hopefully allow for enabling at least one more zoom level. I was hoping to have some good news about that right about now, but unfortunately I've run into an issue/bug with a tool that I need to use as part of it. So I might wait a bit to see if I get a reply to my bug report for that... it is an open-source tool, so I probably could fix it and recompile it myself if it turns out to be necessary, but I don't really want to go that far down into it if I can help it! lol

[Eddy Ofarrel]

43 minutes ago, Qie Niangao said:

In case it's still a question, I think @Mari Moonbeamwas asking about the same "ghost" region names as @KjartanEnofound surrounding Zindra, e.g., "Ursula 281" and eighty or so to the southeast, and a bunch more elsewhere around that continent.

I guess that this occurs for estate regions turned back to the Lab over five years ago is a pretty good hint that those "Ursula <n>" names aren't "new planned regions" but rather leftover placeholders.

It's interesting that the cap somehow has all those names registered for regions that don't exist.

Thanks. That is interesting, I would have thought the caps server would be a definitive source of whether regions exist or not, but according to the Gridsurvey site (which unfortunately is always verrrry slow, so I don't use it much even though it looks like a very useful resource, but that's another question/issue) it hasn't existed since 2009. Does that seem right to you? (I don't know much about the history of this sort of stuff)

http://www.gridsurvey.com/display.php?id=69944

[Qie Niangao]

33 minutes ago, Eddy Ofarrel said:

Thanks. That is interesting, I would have thought the caps server would be a definitive source of whether regions exist or not, but according to the Gridsurvey site (which unfortunately is always verrrry slow, so I don't use it much even though it looks like a very useful resource, but that's another question/issue) it hasn't existed since 2009. Does that seem right to you? (I don't know much about the history of this sort of stuff)

http://www.gridsurvey.com/display.php?id=69944

Yeah, 2009 was when the Zindra continent came to exist as part of the "Adult Content" migration. The gridsurvey history of a region also called "Zindra" may be of interest:

Quote

Region: Zindra

• Map Coordinates¹: X=1807 Y=1196
• Access Rating: http://www.gridsurvey.com/img/access_A16.png Adult
• Estate/Mainland: Mainland
• First Surveyed: 17 Jun 2009
• Last Surveyed: 4 Nov 2011
• Status: Inactive - offline
• Status changed: 5 Nov 2011
• Terrain Map UUID: 44604187-159a-1af7-7002-90b68d76003b
• Objects Map UUID: 6babdf9f-f931-c085-5284-85c20a7fce99
• SLURL Link
• SL Web Search Link
• SL Map Link  (Search version)
• View Second Life Images taken in Zindra on Snapzilla

2 regions have shared this grid location (1807,1196)

• Mosh South - Last Seen 28 Mar 2021
• Ursula 104 - Last Seen 7 Jun 2009

Note that the location was originally assigned the name "Ursula 104" up until 7 June 2009, then it became "Zindra" between 17 June 2009 and 5 November 2011 when it was changed (after much controversy) to "Mosh South" which it remains.

Someone truly obsessed with Zindra history might investigate why "Ursula 104" was first surveyed 22 Jan 2009, but "Ursula 281" wasn't surveyed until three months later, on 27 April—whatever "surveyed" even means in that case.

[TT120]

This showed up in the status report page this morning:

"Update - We are continuing to work on a fix for this issue. We appreciate your continued patience!
Apr 2, 08:05 PDT"

 

 

[Mari Moonbeam]

On 3/31/2021 at 4:07 PM, Eddy Ofarrel said:

I'm not sure what you mean - as in region names showing on the map where there's no region there at all any more? Can you give me the name of one so I can have a look? In any case, the region names all come from the Second Life "caps" server, as described here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Map_API_Reference

 

"region names showing on the map where there's no region there at all any more" = exactly.

Regions are         Caledon Lionsgate
                              Caledon       Gearhaven
                              Caledon     Templemore
                               Caledon  Brigadoon

Some went off line years ago. Newest maybe a year, but not recent .

And I must hasten to add Caledon is a Steampunk Victorian estate and not Adult Zindra.

Edited April 2, 2021 by Mari Moonbeam
clarify

[Nika Talaj]

3 hours ago, TT120 said:

This showed up in the status report page this morning:

"Update - We are continuing to work on a fix for this issue. We appreciate your continued patience!
Apr 2, 08:05 PDT"

Oh, SO informative! 

In one month, I fully expect to hear that the fruit of LL's long labor (?) on this problem is actually just a slight expansion of the map API, and they are eliminating the World Map and giving the Firestorm team, Henri Beauchamp, Chaser Zaks and Eddy OFarrel each $1.50 to develop a client-side or web app "solution". 

I'm sure it will be better than nothing, but probably not a true replacement for the world map, and will demand more from users' machines.  Heck, at present I avoid even having a browser up while running SL, both apps being such memory hogs.

(Of course I'm joking.  Or am I?)

Edited April 2, 2021 by Nika Talaj

[arabellajones]

We have several legacy map tiles showing in the new "chalet" district, That's the new-build linking Satori and Bellisseria. If you use the viewer map, "Yeeowler" region is at the southern tip of Satori, and the chain of no-maptile regions runs off to the West. They are named. They have remarkably well-developed visible landscape and Parcel Boundaries show on the Firestorm minimap.

"Buffalo Springs" is a false maptile, It has a part of the wide E-W water channel which runs through the new section. The other two I know of are "Duncan's Brea" and "Geppetto". 

Maptiles reappear at "Something Fishy" which is the other end of the water channel, on the edge of the "Stilt" themed district. Some of the no-maptile regions already have residents. You'd expect those places to have working maptiles. The gaps between the "Stilt" regions and the rest of Bellisseria anr still no-maptile. Some have had scenery for a long time, and I would expect the railroad terminal to have better than a placeholder-name.

The false maptiles have me thinking that the fix to the map is not as near as we were beginning to hope.

This is the scenery in Fiddlesticks. I'm in the helicopter. I think some scenery elements are still incomplete.

 

[arabellajones]

8 minutes ago, Nika Talaj said:

Oh, SO informative! 

In one month, I fully expect to hear that the fruit of LL's long labor (?) on this problem is actually just a slight expansion of the map API, and they are eliminating the World Map and giving the Firestorm team, Henri Beauchamp, Chaser Zaks and Eddy OFarrel each $1.50 to develop a client-side or web app "solution". 

I'm sure it will be better than nothing, but probably not a true replacement for the world map, and will demand more from users' machines.  Heck, at present I avoid even having a browser up while running SL, both apps being such memory hogs.

(Of course I'm joking.  Or am I?)

I have RL friends who can do programming.

They're pretty good. But LL may only have a budget for 30s of their time.

[TT120]

They are obviously not working on the problem.  If they were, it would have been fixed by now.  I think everyone should start filing JIRA after JIRA over and over again.  They might finally notice there is a problem and actually have someone fix it.