Help:Producing maps with xplanet

Getting xplanet

See the project page for downloads

Getting started

Typical command-line use of xplanet (this all goes on one line)

xplanet.exe 
 -proj orthographic 
 -config script.txt 
 -latitude 52.25 
 -longitude 21.00 
 --num_times 1 
 -geometry 600x600 
 -output xplanet_image.jpeg
 -radius 700 
 -fontsize 16

Result:

Script files

Some of the map data is typically stored in a script file (a text file on your computer) - the script I used for the above map was simply:

grid=true
grid1=10
grid2=10
shade=100

shade=100 is important, because it says that nighttime regions should be shaded at 100% of daytime illumination. When drawing maps, the nighttime shading isn't normally needed, so set that to 100 to turn it off

Projection	orthographic
config	data script
latitude, longitude	where to centre an orthographic projection
num_times	must be 1 (stop xplanet running continuously)
geometry	width and height of the desired image
output	where to save the image
radius	radius of the earth, as a percentage of image width (make this bigger to zoom in)
radius	try the docs

Drawing on maps tutorial

plot significant points, then use them as template in GIMP?