> (does anybody uses this?)

I had a play with it before it was committed to trunk; it's pretty cool. Now I'm trying it again on trunk to monitor an autogame (previously I used --Ppm for this).

One thing it could do with is some way to specify which directory server-created image files are written to (currently they go in the working directory), but that should be fairly easy to add.

updated all-in-one patch

(does anybody uses this?)

(file #10847)

The last message shouldn't be there; here is the complete comment:

I did update the mapimg patches fixing all the TODO's. At the moment help is needed for the sdl and gtk client (see patch #2061). Attached to this ticket is a file including all the patches listed below.

[01/12] patch #2057: [mapimg] rename registry.c:MAX_LEN_BUFFER to MAX_LEN_ERRORBUF
[02/12] patch #2058: [mapimg] add rgbcolor.(ch)
[03/12] patch #2059: [mapimg] update colors_common to use struct rgbcolor
[04/12] patch #2060: [mapimg] define terrain colors in the ruleset
[05/12] patch #2061: [mapimg] define player colors in the ruleset
[06/12] patch #2062: [mapimg] new setting playercolor + command /playercolor
[07/12] patch #2063: [mapimg] update display for 'list players'
[08/12] patch #2018: [mapimg] implement map image
[09/12] patch #2019: [mapimg] map image support for the client
[10/12] patch #2020: [mapimg] script to generate animated gifs from map images
[11/12] patch #2021: [mapimg] add magickwand as another toolkit for the creation of map images
[12/12] patch #1928: [mapimg] remove save_ppm and -P option

(file #10749)

This is now a meta ticket for the mapimg patches listed below. They add the possibility to create map images from the server and the client with a list of options.

01/05 [mapimg] implement map image (patch #2018, In Progress)
02/05 [mapimg] map image support for the client (patch #2019, In Progress)
03/05 [mapimg] script to generate animated gifs from map images (patch #2020, In Progress)
04/05 [mapimg] add magickwand as another toolkit for the creation of map images (patch #2021, In Progress)
05/05 [mapimg] remove save_ppm and -P option (patch #1928, In Progress)

The patches are working at the moment. They add new features to freeciv. Thus, code is only added (save the last patch which removes the old code).

TODO:
- check all error messages; must they be translated?
- the colors are hardcoded. Is it possible to define them on the server and send them to the client (i.e. terrain and player colors in the ruleset)

need help:
- configure magic; I would like to have an option '--mapimg=[magickwand|sdl|gtk]' which activates the corresponding toolkit. Additional '--magickwand[=DIR]' could be needed. At the moment only magickwand and the default ppm toolkit are available.

Comments welcome!

updated version:

• only ppm files possible (no additional tools needed)
• save mapimg definitions in savegame
• show borders/cities below fow
• prepare for using it on server and client
• some cleanup

(file #10547)

I meant borders under fog of war when both 'f' and 'b' options are enabled.

It looks great. Is there a way to keep borders out of the vision?

add an example file

(file #10180)

time for a little status report:

I used the stub client (with some functions from the gtk client) for the new mapimg client. After the server is running it can be started as:

./civ.x --gui mapimg -a -s mattsys -n o1

It will autoconnect as player, drop the player status and switch to global observer. While the game is running it will create a map image for each turn. Most of this is hardcoded.

WIP:

• a console similar to the one of the server for this client (for this console.(c|h) was moved to ./common); here some hints how this is / should working would be helpfull
• remove the dependency on ImageMagick (MagickWand); use gtk instead (see mapimg.c)
• some speedup of the image creation
• cleanup of the code is needed
• the ./civ script (see ./bootstrap/civ.in) does not allows to start different clients. My version (civ.x) uses a bad hack to allow the start of different clients. I will send this as a bug shortly.

(file #7846, file #7847)

> This patch for generating a animated statistics from a game
> is exactly a feature I've been looking for, to generate
> post-game statistcs for http://www.freeciv.net/
>
> I'd like to use this functionality to create an animated .gif
> to be displayed on the website after the game is finished.
>
> Do you have any ideas, plans, or code, for how to trigger your scripts
> properly once a game has ended, so that the resulting animated .gif
> will be related to game statistics in a database?
>

At the moment the patch only creates map images. It can be configured to create different types of images (all players, only one player, ...). The animated gif (or mpg/avi/flv) is created by a script. If the server exists after the game ended you could call in a script like

# ./ser
# civstats2anim <options map animation 1>
# civstats2anim <options map animation 2>
# ...
# civstats2anim <options map animation n>

This way all animated gifs will be created after the server stops.

>
> I've found something similar here:
> http://munk.wtf.la:5560/game_records.php?game_id=11
> Are you the creator of this project also? If so, do you mind
> sharing the source code? Are all these statics automated?

The code for this statistics was created by munk. It is a php script available in the forum (http://forum.freeciv.org/viewtopic.php?t=6128). I created the patch after I read the script and ask myself: Why create a parser for the savegame if we have an excellent one (the freeciv server)?

The patch should be seen as a helper for the script. This way the map images as well as statistical data (as civscore.log file or *.csv files for each turn) can be created by the server and used as input for the postprocessing of the played game.

> I think we should cooperate on this functionality, since
> I'd like something very similar.
>
> On a related note, the Freeciv web client could be used to replay
> whole games, as well. This would involve setting up an observer
> player, which stores JSON in a database, which is then replayed
> to other players when they want a replay.

I'm not familiar with the freeciv web client but I think that it would be easier to create a save file for each turn and replay the game loading this files turn by turn and displaying the whole map. This is that the map images do (missing are the exact information about the units and cities).

> Within colors_common.c it is said, that the number of player
> colors is limited to 14. Is this limitation still valid? I
> would like to use 30 different colors as defined in score.c?
> This way the colors would be different for each player.

After some more searching I looked into colors.spec and colors.png. Aha, these files have to be modified for 30 player colors ... ;-)

It sounds like a good idea for me. But I guess that the .tilespec will have to be dropped in this case.

If freeciv is played statistics are interesting, most of all as images. The attached patch adds a new binary called civstats which reads a savegame and creates a ppm images with

• the map (ocean / land)
• cities and units
• border

The code was tested for all topologies available. It will be extended to

• return a ppm image of the map (terrain)
• return a txt file with statistics (can be easily interpreted by a script to generate graphs)

using a small bash script and ppmtogif and convert animated gif images can be created.