Python programmers may find the application to decoding an encrypted map image format known as Memory Map to produce a standard PNG image file interesting.
Someone obviously very well versed in Python and in the intricacies of image files has written a routine to decode originally the UK Landranger maps, so that they can be used with other mapping and GPS programs apart from the restricted Memory Map viewer. You can get the details in this RAR archive. http://www.mediafire.com/?3twm5xbozet The application was obviously written with a specific job in mind, and has no GUI and is not very user friendly for people to use who are not Python experts. One of the problems is that the original application was intended for UK Landranger map squares which are 20000 pixels square, and when decoded from Memory Map qct format to PNG format the files produced are around 50-60 megabytes which is quite manageable as a PNG image. PNG has to be fully loaded into RAM to manipulate, can't be paged from disk. But with a much larger qct image file, to decode it into a single PNG file would produce too big a file for most computers to handle when a say 200Mb PNG file on disk is decompressed into RAM. So it is necessary to be able to decode large qct (Memory Map Image) files into map squares of a manageable size. Easy enough when you know how! Problem is the existing Python routine starts decoding at the top left of the qct image file, and the only control in the routine that I have been able to decipher is the number of pixels along an edge of the square that are decoded which are controlled in the code line extractsquare(row[2],row[1],int(row[3]),int(row[4]),20000) near the end of the file qct2png.py The last term 20000 sets the edge length of the decoded square. The question is how can this routine be modified to start the decoding at pixel x,y, instead of at pixel 1,1 in the qct file, and to then decode a map square of say 20000 pixels edge length from that point, so that a qct image perhaps 60000 x 60000 pixels could be decoded into 9 squares of 20000 x 20000? The original programmer has solved all of the complex problems of decrypting the encrypted file format and the routine works as intended, but with a much larger qct file than the originally intended target you are limited to decoding a square of about 30000 pixels edge depending on how much RAM your computer has to later handle the resultant PNG image file. Usually the PNG file needs to be further converted to a format which can be paged from disk such as MrSID or ozf2 which is a format used by a very popular GPS application called OziExplorer. Does anyone know any "Python Pirates" who could solve this? Could you post a suggested code alteration to do this to this newsgroup please? -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
