Getting a map outline of my country with MapSCII

~kypan <kypan@posteo.net>

OCT 16 , 2022

MapSCII [1] is a console world map renderer using open data from OpenStreetMap (OSM) [2]. It displays the map in plaintext format with Braille or ASCII style. MapSCII can be either installed locally or accessed via Telnet.

[1] MapSCII on GitHub

[2] OpenStreetMap

I got the outline of my country with the following steps:

① Access MapSCII via Telnet

Open the terminal and run:

img/telnet_to_mapscii.png

② Move and zoom to my country

Use Arrow keys to move; `a/z` to zoom in/out; `c` to toggle between Braille and ASCII style; and `q` to quit.

img/zoom_in_to_my_country_in_mapscii.png

③ Copy the content to a text editor for further refinement

Since MapSCII supports mouse control for dragging and zooming; instead of selecting a region to be copied by mouse, I need to use other methods on my terminal to copy the content; such as `CMD-A` (select all) and then `CMD+C` (copy) on Mac’s built-in Terminal app. After pasting the content to a text editor, I removed most of the characters and just left the outline of my country. When removing characters, it’s more convenient to enter the “replace mode” of the text editor and replace the unwanted characters with spaces.

img/copy_the_text_from_mapscii_to_a_text_editor.png

Once the outline is obtained, I can then add additional information, emoticons, etc., on it.

Done :)

img/refine_the_map_outline_obtained_from_mapscii.png

Copyright © 2022 ~kypan. Some Rights Reserved under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License.

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0