Introduction
Java requirements
Maps
Files
Basic drawing controls
Icon use and creation
Icon Roots
Comments
Overlay controls
Networking
Output
Saved Views
Settings
Performance
Limitations
License
Contact
The Overlay Maker is a networked painting program with the ability to manipulate paint objects and add icons. It is designed to support military planning however can be used for a broad range of drawing requirements. The program replicates the creation of overlay graphics on maps or other background images. It supports multiple overlays and a range of graphic drawing controls. Graphic objects can be drawn with various line, transparency and anti-aliasing characteristics in a full range of colours. Icons graphics can be created, stacked and manipulated in many ways. Over a local area network multiple users can collaborate to work on a stack of overlays in real-time with ease.
The Overlay Maker is not a mapping program, and is not designed to integrate with any specific GIS application. Maps are imported from a range of images formats and provide a background on which to create overlays. Overlays created on different maps are, as a rule, not compatible as there is no geo-spatial information stored with them. Think of the program as being analogues to using plastic overlays on paper maps.
The Overlay Maker is written in Java and requires a 1.6 compatible Java Virtual Machine. If it was not included in your download visit Java.com to get the latest version.
To import a new map click Map|Load Map Image and select an image file to use as a background. Image formats such as .bmp, .jpg and .png may be used as maps. Depending on your version of Java other image formats may be imported.
Maps can be geo-referenced by selecting Map|Set Coordinate System.
The display will enter map edit mode.
You will need to define the 'Pixel Coordinate System' for the image
file by specifying a range of parameters relating to the top left and
bottom right reference points. The reference points can be at any pixel
location on the map. UTM or Latitude/Longitude coordinate systems can
be used. Two reference points means that The Overlay Maker can
reference images of rectilinear coordinate systems only (with the
assumption that there is no rotation in the image).
Maps can have sub-maps specified by using Map|Add Map Component. The
display will enter map edit mode.
You will need to specify a range of parameters for the Map Component
image. It is important to note that if that image also has sub-maps
defined then these will be displayed as you zoom in (although not in
map edit mode). While you are in map edit mode Map Components can be
edited by dragging the extents (press and drag just inside the Map
Component
edge). Double click on a Map Component to bring up its parameters.
Maps are saved by using Map|Save Map. This will create a 'tommap'
text file exists that is in the same file path as your image file that
references map components and the coordinate system. For
example, the tommap file 'woodhill.jpg.tommap' provides geo-referencing
and submap information for the woodhill.jpg image file (open it with a
text editor for examples).
A set of maps and tommap files can be created from a windows meta-file or a larger bitmap file using the included MetafileTiler and ImageTiler applications. See their readme.txt file for more information.
If your map is geo-referenced you can change the map coordinate display format (bottom left corner of the screen) by clicking File|Settings and changing coordDisplayMode.
It is important to select an appropriate map or map set early on in your workflow. Once you have produced overlay graphics it is difficult to migrate them to a map with a slightly different scale or cropping. This is especially important when working in networked mode.
The map can be toggled on and off by right clicking on the map and selecting Toggle Map or by selecting Map|Toggle Map from the main menu
Right click and drag to move the map.
Use the mouse wheel to zoom (holding down CTRL while using the mouse wheel gives a finer zoom). Or alternately click File|Show Controls for a simple control dialog. The control dialog is designed to be used for tablet PC's.
You can view the map in full screen exclusive mode. Use Ctrl-F, or right click and select Toggle Full Screen. To return press ESC, Ctrl-F, or Toggle Full Screen. This mode may not be fully supported on all devices. Note that going to full screen mode changes the drawing mode to push select.
The Overlay Maker has two file formats, *.ovr and *.ovp.
An overlay file has the file extension ovr. Whenever you are working on an overlay you are working on a *.ovr file. Even if you have many overlays, with many different drawing objects on the overlay, then you are only working on one .ovr file. The current file you are working on is shown in the title window of the application. If it is not saved then you will have a * at the end of the name. To create a new overlay file, open an existing one, save the current one, or save the current one with a different name use the File menu in a similar way to any office application.
File|Append Overlay will append the contents of one *.ovr file to another. File|Save Current Overlay will only save the active overlay to a *.ovr file, not the entire overlay set.
The *.ovr file is a data file that has references to all of the drawing objects, the map, and icons. It does not save these as part of the file. To package up these resources you create an overlay package file (*.ovp) using File|Package Overlay Resources. This will create a file that contains the all of the relevant maps, tommaps, sub maps and their tommaps, icons and the relevant overlay file. It first saves the *.ovr file, then creates a *.ovp file with the same base name, in the same location. Note that the *.ovp file is in the standard zip file format. If you rename it from *.ovp to *.zip then you will be able to extract the contents using a program such as Winzip.
The basic drawing controls are located to the left of the map (although the control toolbar may be dragged to another position). The control modes include:
Select - Used to select (by clicking) and
manipulate the location, shape and size of previously drawn objects.
You need to click near where one of the highlight points will appear.
Push - Used to push items about.
Line - A simple line drawing tool. Click and drag to
draw. Highlight points allow you to reposition, change the location of
each end, and rotate. You can add arrow heads to the line with the line
attributes.
PolyLine - A more complicated line drawing tool. Click
and drag to draw, click and drag again for another segment, double
click to end. Ctrl-Q when drawing will also end and close the poly
line. Ctrl-Q when selected will toggle the poly line closed. Ctrl-S
when selected will add intermediate points to allow for curves. Double
clicking on a selected point (not a curve point) will delete it. Double
clicking on a point while holding Ctrl will insert a point in the line.
Highlight points allow you to change the location of points, and
rotate. You can add arrow heads to the line with the line attributes.
Scribble - A scribbled line. Click and drag to draw.
Ctrl-Q when selected will toggle the scribble closed. Note that the
scribbled line is simplified once drawn to remove intermediate points.
You can set the simplification factor by changing the property
'scribbletol' (default 0.5, higher will result in less points in the
simplified line). Ctrl-W will change selected Scribbles to PolyLines.
Box - A box (that may have rounded corners). Click
and drag to draw. Highlight points allow you to resize. The highlight
just inside the upper left corner allows you to created rounded corners
on your box.
Ellipse - An ellipse. Click and drag to draw.
Text - Click to begin a line of text. Change font
using the font controls. Alt-Enter will give a new line. The highlight
point (for location) will always be on the base of the first line of
text.
Quad Arrow - The best of all arrows. Click and drag to
draw. Ctrl-Q when selected will toggle the arrow closed. Ctrl-S will
toggle the arrow between curved and straight. Experiment with the
highlight points to see what they will do.
IconMode Standard - When selected icons in icon stacks
will be drawn with their original colors.
IconMode Color - When selected icon stacks will be
re-coloured to the current drawing color.
Overlay Window Extents - Use this mode to set the extent
window on the current overlay. Drag the green edges (or corner) to
alter the extents
Map Component Edit Mode - Use
this mode to edit existing component maps (move or delete them). You
will enter this mode automatically by Map|Add Map Component. Note that
only the first level of Map Components will be displayed.
Most drawing objects can also have a number of attributes. The attributes are controlled in the area above the map:
Antialising - Turn on or off for smooth edges.
Filled - Turn on or off to fill PolyLines, Scribble
(this is a bit strange sometimes), Box and Ellipse.
Colour - Click to change the colour of selected
objects and for new objects that are drawn.
Font - For text objects. Note that although Java will
pick up all Windows fonts in the selection box many are not fully
supported. Also select Bold, Italic, Underline and multi line text
alignment.
Line Attributes - The first number is the line width
in pixels. The next two relate to the dotted and dashed line styles. A
value of -1 indicates that the line will be solid. Experiment with
other values for various line styles. Also select arrow heads for lines.
Transparency - Change the slider to vary object
transparency from fully transparent to solid.
Objects can be highlighted by clicking on them or near where a
highlight point will appear (depending on the selection mode set). Hold
down Ctrl to select multiple objects, or drag on the map around them.
The green highlight point will rotate any object. Double clicking on the green highlight point will reset the object's rotation.
Drawing objects may be deleted by selecting them and pressing the delete key, or by right clicking on the map and selecting Delete Objects to delete all selected objects.
Objects may be cut, copied and pasted by copied by right clicking, via the edit menu or using Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V.. It is possible to cut or copy from one overlay and paste to another. Ctrl-A selects all objects.
Objects may be grouped into one by selecting the appropriate objects and right clicking. Grouped objects may be moved, resized and rotated as one. When ungrouping objects they will be resized and move in unexpected ways.
Icons are dragged onto the map from the selection panel on the right hand side. Select one or more icons from tree and drag them onto the map. The icons can be moved, resized and rotated similar to other graphics objects.
Multiple icons are selected from the tree by holding down the CTRL key and selecting others. Multiple icons dragged onto the map will be drawn in a stack and treated as the one object. Icons are stacked together in the order in which they are selected. This means, for example, that you have to selected a background fill for an icon first.
Icons are scaled to a default setting when dragged onto the map. Use File|Set Default Icon Scale to alter the scale in the x and y axis. In most cases the 256 x 256 icons work best at a scale of 0.25 in both dimensions. You can resize an icon to the default scale by double clicking on the scale highlight point when selected.
In order to fix the icon scale ratio check the box 'fixImageRatio' in the settings dialog. This will constrict the x scale to be the same as the y scale when resizing the object.
You can export an icon (or an icon stack) by right clicking on a selection in the icon list and selecting 'Copy to Clipboard' (for a transparent background), or 'Copy to ClpBd (White BG)' (for a white background.
Edit Icon Controls
Icons may be created for use within the program by right clicking on the icon list. The standard image used for icons is a 256 x 256 .png image. Creating or editing an icon from within the program will be saved in this format.
You will need a wheel mouse to get the most from the icon editor. Most controls should be familiar to most users. A few tricky ones are as follows:
Read this slowly, then read it again.
First, a bit of background. Icon stacks are drawn by copying images from a local or network drive. The Overlay Maker caches the image in memory. When saving an overlay file the program will save references to where the icon files are located on a drive. Each reference is in two parts, the icon root (this is the icon root used when the object was originally drawn), and the icon file (this is the reference to the specific file). Together the icon root, and the icon file, specify the full path to the icon file. If an overlay file is opened and the icon root is not accessible then the local icon root will be loaded (this is the icon directory in the install directory). If the file cannot be found then you will see a gray box where the icon is supposed to be.
You can force all of the icon roots to be reset to the current icon root by File|Force Icon Root reset (this can not be undone so use it carefully). You can set to the local icon root by File|Set Local Icon Root. This local icon root is recommended for sharing overlay files between remote computers (that do not have a shared network drive location). You will need to ensure that a consistent set of icons is maintained between machines. For network use you should maintain a shared set of icons in a location which all users can access with the same pathname.
Paint objects such as lines, arrows, or icons may have a comment annotated to them. This can be used for many purposes such as adding an annotation to an icon to describe its purpose, or in a wargarme to describe its health.
To add a comment to an icon select it then double click on the location highlight point (this is the one that is generally in the center, it has the rotate highlight point coming out from it). A comments box will popup. You can just type text in. The comments boxes support drag and drop between each other and other applications such as Microsoft Word. To save the comment click OK.
The comments box will initially popup with the top left corner at the location of the object. You can move the comment around using the gray area to the left and right of the OK button.
To show all comments click View|Show Comments. This will show the comments box for any paint object that has a comment, is on the current overlay and whose location is on screen. To hide all comments click View|Hide Comments.
Selected objects that have comments can be distinguished by close inspection of the location highlight point. If there is a small circle in the center of the highlight point rectangle then the paint object has a comment. If you hover the mouse over the location point of a selected object for more than 1 second then the comment will popup.
Comments are supported over the network and saved with overlay files. If you enter a comment for a paint object (and click OK) then if someone else on the network has the comment box open it will be hidden.
The program generally starts with a single overlay called blank. You can create a new overlay set using File|New.
An overlay has a 'Window Extent'. To change the extents enter the Overlay Window Extent mode by clicking on the appropriate mode button. Drag the green edges to set new extents. Although you can draw under gray area you might like to use the extents to provide passive control to others in a network. You can copy or save just what is in the current overlay's extent window by selecting the appropriate option in File|Export Entire Image or Edit|Copy Image to Clipboard.
At any stage you can only draw on one overlay at a time (and it must be turned on to do so) but you can have many in the stack. Any other overlay can be turned on or off. The overlay control panel is above the icon selection panel. Right click to see a range of options. They are:
Applying to a single overlay in
the set - does not affect others in network mode:
Set As Current - Set the selected overlay to be the one that
is currently drawn (indicated by a blue arrow).
Set Uniquely Current - Set the selected overlay as current and
turn all others off.
Toggle Displayed - Toggle an overlay as displayed or
not. A displayed one has a green tick. One that is not displayed has a
red cross. You can't turn off the current overlay.
Move Up - Moves the selected overlay up the list (and the order
in which it is drawn - the top overlay is drawn first).
Move Down - Moves the selected overlay down the list.
Affects others in network mode:
New Overlay - Create a new one. You will be prompted for a
name. Select something unique.
Rename Overlay - Rename the selected one.
Copy Overlay - Copies the overlay to a new one and sets the new
one as current.
Delete Overlay - Deletes it. You get a warning.
Clean Overlay - Deletes all of the drawing objects and
icons from it. No warning - watch out.
Merge Overlays - Merges two overlays together into
one. You have to select a new name.
Save Overlays - Saves the overlay set to a file
with
an extension .ovr. This includes a saved reference to the map and
icons, not the map and icons themselves.
Load Overlays - Loads a set of saved overlays. (Note that all
current overlays will be deleted).
Disabled in network mode.
Save Overlay - Saves only the selected overlay to an
.ovr file.
Append Overlay - Appends a set of saved overlays to
the currently selected set.
Reset Window Extents - Sets the overlay extents back to the
edges of the currently loaded map.
The Overlay Maker supports basic networking over a LAN. It could conceivably be networked over the internet provided each installation had similar references to maps and icons. When considering working in networked mode each user should have the same access to shared drives. Ideally this should be both read and write access. It is most important to set the icon root directory as a shared resource by selecting File|Set Icon Root.
Any user can act as a server by simply clicking on the Server button on the top of the overlay control. This user becomes the master user, although the server can still edit overlays, etc. The ip address is shown below the Server button with the number of clients connected. To disconnect all clients the Server just presses Disconnect.
To connect to a server press the Client button and enter the server ip address. Note that by doing so the client will loose any work created in standalone mode unless it was previously saved. When connecting the client inherits all work from the server and by default will have the server's current overlay set as current on the client. Multiple clients can connect to the one server. The power of networking mode is shown when different clients are working on different overlays in a networked fashion. Clients can selectively turn any overlay on and off
When working in networked mode any overlay action, such as deleting, creating, loading, saving and appending overlays will be reflected to other clients (including the server). Any icon or drawing object will also be updated in real time.
The overlay maker uses port 1234 by default. You can change this in the settings dialog.
In addition to the overlay files The Overlay Maker can output a composite image of the map and any currently selected overlays. You can either output the entire map and overlays (File|Export Entire Image), or just the current view (File|Export View Image). The same output can be copied to the clipboard by using Edit|Copy Image to Clipboard or Edit|Copy View to Clipboard, or by right clicking on the map.
The dialogs for exporting images or copying to the clipboard are similar. The saved/copied image may be resized, and the background may or may not be included. PowerPoint supports pasting the transparent overlay images copied to the clipboard.
After creating a set of overlays on various maps you may wish to create a presentation of them. Of course you could copy particular views to the clipboard as described above but the best results are obtained by presenting directly from The Overlay Maker. A 'Saved View' encapsulates a loaded map, whether or not particular overlays are displayed, a zoom level, a scroll location, and pretty much anything else that controls what you see on the screen. To created a saved view right click on the map and click 'Saved Views|Add View'. Choose a name then next time you right click on the map and select Saved Views you will see the one you added in the menu. You can then 'Show' it, Move it up or down the list, Update it (to the current view), or Remove it from the list.
If you have saved views the View menu will allow you to clear all of them (View|Clear Saved Views), or 'show' them (View|Show Saved Views). The latter option toggles the map to full screen and loads the first saved view. Pressing the space bar will then advance to the next saved view (at the end it goes back to the start). Ctrl-Space will go back in the saved view list. Note that at any time you are in Full Screen mode you can load a saved view by pressing the space bar. You still have the option to load a saved view explicitly using the right click popup menu. You also have the option to pan and zoom the map whilst advancing through the saved views.
Saved Views are saved in overlay files. They are not however distributed between clients in Network mode.
By clicking File|Settings you can control some aspects of how The Overlay Maker works.
| Property | Default Value | Description |
| fixImageRatio | false | If true will constrain resizing image icons to constant proportions. |
| autoPopupChat | true | If true then the chat window will popup automatically in network mode if a new message is received. |
| newNetworkOverlayDisplayed | false | In networked mode if this setting is true then a new overlay added by another user will be displayed. If not then it will still be added to the overlay list (at the bottom), it just will not be displayed. |
| copyComments | true | If true then when copying paint objects with comments then the comments are copied. If false then copied paint objects do not have comments. |
| port | 1234 | The port used for networking mode. All computers used in a The Overlay Maker network must use the same port. |
| autoSaveInterval | 300 | The interval in seconds in between autosave's. The current overlay set is saved to default.ovr. This is the file that is loaded when The Overlay Maker starts. Note that on exit the current state is also saved to default.ovr. On each save the old default.ovr is overwritten. |
| highlight | Magenta | The color used for highlight points. |
| rotatePointColor | Green | The color used for rotate points. |
| scribbletol | 0.5 | The tolerance used to simplify scribble objects once drawn. |
| unloadMaps | false | If true then maps that are nested as Map Components within base maps will be unloaded from system memory when not required to be displayed (when you are zoomed out for example). This only needs to be set to true for very complex nesting arrangements when there is not enough system memory available. |
| coordDisplayMode | Map Mode |
Sets the display mode for the bottom left corner of the main TOM screen. |
| forceUnpakLocal | false | If true will force overlays, icons and maps to be unpacked to the local path when opening a *.ovp file. |
| scaleWithZoom | true | If true then line widths to be drawn will be scaled as you zoom. Once drawn the line with does not scale as you zoom in and out. However, you can select the object later and change its width. |
| useHighlightPointSelection | false | If true then the 'old' selection mode mechanism will be used, whereby paint objects would be selected based on how far away a potential highlight point was from a click location. If false, then the new selection process (from build 1621) will be used, whereby objects will be selected based on clicking on a visible part of the actual object. The new mechanism may be slower on older machines. At high zoom levels the new mechanism is not exact. |
The file 'localresourceroot', included in the installation directory, provides a mechanism to manage where the overlay.properties file is saved. The overlay.properties file encapsulates the above properties and other settings. In addition localresourceroot also points to a location for an 'icons' and an 'overlays' folder. To alter the localresourceroot you can open the file with a text editor and follow the instructions therein. You must include an 'icons' and an 'overlays' folder in the local resource root location for everything to work nicely. The default location is null, which means the installation directory.
The Overlay Maker is optimised for graphics performance on a Windows 7 operating system with 3D hardware acceleration and Java 1.6. The overlay.exe launcher allocate up to 512M of system memory for use by the application. If you load up too much in the application (lots of big icons) and exceed this limit then the application will have unpredictable results. The script in OverlayDebug.bat may be used to experiment with other java runtime options and change the system memory.
No computer program does everything and in any application design there are compromises. Some of the key limitations of The Overlay Maker are:
See licence.txt for licence information.
Visit www.theoverlaymaker.com for contact details and to support future development. Feedback is highly appreciated.