Virtual Earth – Map Cruncher
Map cruncher is an innovative tool and is newly released. This tool enables its users to import maps, share, and layer them on a site with the help of Virtual Earth platform. You can combine drawn to scale maps with Virtual Earth platform to give a unique composite view. Add detailed custom information to your existing aerial and road imagery by importing the entire map into your Virtual earth platform.
Map cruncher is indeed a very useful tool designed for converting existing maps into a online format which is very easy and fast to use. Map cruncher converts maps into a Mercator projection that is commonly used by virtual earth. As a large collection of maps is put into a projection, users can easily mix and match these maps for using them in a variety of ways. Map cruncher takes your input map and will create a small collection of correctly aligned tiles that you can view in Virtual Earth.
Map cruncher supports many source map types. They are as follows:
PDF: Very high quality results are obtained usually from PDF files. These contain vector graphics that look good when they are viewed at high zoom levels. Other formats that are frequently used with map cruncher are TIFF, GIF, BMP, PNG, and JPG.
If you willing to use these raster formats with your Map cruncher then make sure that the source map is at a very high resolution otherwise the results look poor if the zoom levels are high. Scanned maps that include historical maps are available often as raster images. File formats that are less commonly used are EMF, and WMF. These formats include vector data and can give high quality results.
Browser Support: Map Cruncher tool is compatible with same browsers that are supported by Virtual Earth. This innovative tool is compatible with the following browsers: Mozilla Firefox 1.5 and its later versions on Windows, Linux and Apple Mac OS X Microsoft Internet explorer 6 and later versions on Windows.
Map cruncher tool is not designed for handling schematic maps. You should not use it as a tool to draw maps. It is designed for converting existing maps into a viewable web form. Map cruncher uses an approximation for transforming maps; hence, location may not be precise. It is not possible to republish these maps as they are under copyright restriction.
You can easily download map cruncher from their official website. Map cruncher makes it very easy for publishing maps that are overlaid in a Windows application using Virtual Earth map control. When you become familiar with this tool, it will hardly take 10 minutes to create a new tile layer.
System Requirements: Map Cruncher supports operating systems that include Windows Vista, Windows server 2003 and Windows XP. Computer with Pentium II processor or higher. Pentium III is recommended. If you are using Windows vista then 1 giga byte of RAM is a must. For Windows XP, you will require 128 megabyte of RAM. Other requirements include 13MB of hard disk space and super VGA high-resolution monitor having 256 colors.
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