add-ons
Publish-to-Web add-on is now available
Feb 22nd
The Publish-to-Web (PTW) add-on for Depiction Mapping software is now available for sale and download on the Depiction website. The normal price is going to be $124.95 but we are offering an introductory price of $99.95 through June 30, 2013.
The PTW offers a whole new way to share your depiction stories. You can see a sample of what a Publish-to-Web story would look like here. So anybody with a web browser and Microsoft silverlight installed can view your PTW. They will be able zoom in and out and pan; open, hide, move and resize revealers; mouse over icons and show hovertext.
Some of the things you could do:
- A police department could show crime incident locations in their city.
- A neighborhood wide garage sale could show the location of all the homes that are participating.
- A city government could show information about a new project in the city.
- A Red Cross chapter could show the location of all of their volunteers and shelters.
- Show the impact of Tsunami on your community.
- Show what areas of your community would be flooded based on floods of various sizes.
Send me your idea on what you want to show with PTW to info@depiction.com and I will send you a coupon code for another $25 off the PTW add-on.
Put PTW Idea in the subject line.
New Beta Version of APRSLive now available.
Oct 18th
The latest version of APRSLive from OL Solutions is now on the website. APRSLive is still considered to be in a beta phase, but the developers feel this release is very close to being a final release version. If you have purchased APRSLive then you will be able to log into your account on the Depiction.com website and download this version. If you have purchased it but don’t see it on your downloads page then send an email to support@depiction.com and we will add it. During our website conversion this summer some download permissions didn’t get converted. The build is 12449.
Fire Station Locations VS Home Locations Can Change Insurance Premiums
Oct 10th
An interesting article telling how insurance companies, using new mapping technologies, can tell how far way clients are from fire stations, which can impact how much their insurances costs.
http://www.walb.com/story/19787560/gps-mapping-impacts-insurance-premiums
With Depiction, our new OSM add-on and our routing capability you can find out quickly how far away you are from the nearest fire station. Insurance agents could use it to check on all of their customer locations.
USGS Topographical Background Tiler seems to still be working!
Aug 20th
We had removed the topo background tiler back in May because they said that they were stopping the service. We had created a topo add-on to allow those users that had the topo tiles in their cache to continue to access them. But recently we have noticed that with the Topo add-on installed it is still bringing in topo maps even for areas where we have not been before. So if you want to have topographical background maps, and you haven’t downloaded the topo tiler add-on, then please do so. Of course we can’t guarantee how long they will continue to offer this but for now it is working. You can find the topo add-on download here.
New OpenStreetMap Add-on now available – only $9.95
Aug 18th
The new OSM add-on adds five quick start data sources to your quick start list. The cost is only $9.95 and you can buy it here. You will need to have Depiction version 1.4 or later installed to use this addon.
Here is a screen shot of the results for a section of Los Angeles
The various elements will only be brought in to your Depiction if the point of interest is in the OSM data base. You can determine which ones will be brought in for your area by using the OSM street map as your background tiling source and zooming in to an area. If the POI is there then it should come in as an element icon when you use the Quick Start. Below I have highlighted in yellow the POI’s that would be brought in for this area of Los Angeles.
It should also be noted that when people enter Points of Interest into Openstreemap they can enter them as a point or as polygon to show a building or property footprint. Depiction will bring both in, one as a point and one as a polygon. See the example below.
So what happens if the POI’s for police, fire, schools, hospitals or places of worship aren’t there? You can go to the OSM website and add them yourself. This is pretty easy. You go to www.openstreetmap.org. If you don’t have an account you will need to create one. Log in. Go to your area of interest. Choose edit from the drop down menu.
In the example below, I know there is a fire station at the point highlighted in yellow below.
So I drag a fire station icon to that location. Enter the fire station name and click save.
Now the next time I do an import using the OSM add-on that fire station will be brought in. So by adding points of interest to your town or community you will be contributing to the OSM community effort and other Depiction users in your area will also benefit from your work.
The place of worship element is a new element and will be included in the upcoming version 1.4.2 release of Depiction. In the meantime a place of worship icon is included with the add-on. We hope you find this add-on useful and if there are other OSM points of interest that you would like to be able to be brought in to Depiction, let us know and we will develop additional add-ons.
Two New Depiction Add-ons Available Now!
Apr 17th
Created as accompaniments to the Recreation Add-on software both Add-ons are related to recreation. The Aquatic Recreation Add-on software comes with new point elements, which allow you to quickly map locations like kayak/canoe launches and diving points. You can easily draw vehicle ferry routes yourself or import them from a file. Of course areas can also be imported as swimming areas or drawn with the user drawn shape – freeform polygon tool. One element has a behavior; the Lighthouse. This element additionally requires an interaction (included) to simulate a potential line-of-site zone for safely traveling the waters. Use the Aquatic Recreation Add-on to create a simple map of your visit, or to plan and track the operations of a marina.
The Winter Recreation Add-on software also includes new point elements allowing you to map locations like warming huts and back country access points. Import various modes of transportation line data, such as snowshoe and cross-country ski trails or quickly draw them yourself; including elements based on the North American Trail Rating System for colorizing difficulty. Of course areas can also be imported as terrain parks and tubing hills or drawn with the user drawn shape – freeform polygon tool. Two elements have behavior; the first is the Avalauncher Site. This element additionally requires an interaction (included) to simulate a potential target zone for conducting avalanche control operations. The Snowmaking Equipment element can be used to show the intended coverage from a snowgun or general area of snowmaking operations by entering properties for a simple arc calculation (direction, distance, and angle). Use the Winter Recreation Add-on to create a simple map of your visit, or to plan the year round operations of a resort. Both of these add-on are now available for $12.95 each in the Depiction Store.
