Many people in the Civcraft community want to create maps, of their city, their region, or the world. But it is difficult to do, you need to run JourneyMap or WorldDownloader, then you need to learn how to convert the downloaded files into something usable as a map.

Then there are further difficulties in keeping the map up to date, requiring you to walk all over the area over again to make sure you get it all before you do another map run. Then if you want to coordinate with other players you get problems with finding out exactly which parts of whose map are the most up to date.

I've decided to do away with these difficulties for the community by starting up Civcraft Mapping Services™. CMS offers free map rendering services for the Civcraft community, providing isometric-zoomable maps and renders. ^sample

To assist in the collection of mapping data from members of the community, the development team at CMS has created its own in-house data gathering tool: GeoSharer. GeoSharer is a Forge mod that automatically scrapes block data from minecraft multiplayer worlds as you walk around, heavily compressing the data and time stamping each chunk. This chunk time stamp allows multiple people to work together to collect data, which can then be merged without old data overriding new data.

GeoSharer has been built with privacy in mind. All blocks below layer 30 are automatically obfuscated to stone (sorry Carson) , preventing anyone from being able to search for bedrock vaults with the data. Furthermore no block entity data is stored, such as chest contents and the text on signs. In addition, map data is organised per cooperative, so other cooperatives will not get copies of data you provide. If you would like more information on GeoSharer, the source code can be found on GitHub.

If you would like maps from CMS, PM /u/azirale with the name of your Cooperative and the /u/ names of its members. You will get a link to a compiled copy of the mod for your convenience, or you can compile it yourself from the source. With the mod running (you will need forge) you will find the .geosharer output files in your minecraft/mods/GeoSharer directory. Each file has the name of the server you were on, and the timestamp of when it started getting data. Send those files to /u/azirale along with the name of the cooperative you are participating in, and the data will be added to that cooperative's collection. Weekly map renders will then be provided through a designated channel.

*If you have existing WorldDownloader files those can also be used to create an initial state for your map.

If the public works have WorldDL files for a public map, I can also do the overviewer render for a public map and roll that map data into everyone's own maps.