AZMap - an Azimuthal-Equidistance Map Generator

version 3.6

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ATTENTION:  If you have previously downloaded an earlier version of AZMap, I advise redownloading version 3.6 since the previous versions contained a resource leak and if left running for a while will bring your system to a halt.   See the version information at the bottom of this page for further information.

I have now created an install program for AZMap and hopefully it is an improvement over the previous installation.  Unfortunately the compression was not as good and the download is about 1.1MB now.  Sorry about that.

This website is now getting enough downloads that I have occasionally pushed the limit of my bandwidth (the new larger download won't help that).   Therefore, near the end of the month you may find the website becomes unavailable until the first of the following month.  I have not justified the extra cost of more bandwidth (hey, this is freeware  :-] ).

My first Windows® application software effort is AZMap, an azimuthal-equidistance map (great circle map) generator.  You can read a lot of detail about the program in this page, or simply scroll to the bottom of this page where you can download it.

AZMap is a Windows®  9x/NT program which will generate and display or print an azimuthal-equidistance (A-E) map of the world centered on any latitude/longitude point on the surface of the earth (except very near the poles).   The A-E map is also known as a great circle map since straight lines from the center point to any other point always fall along a great circle path and represent the shortest distance between the center and that point. A-E maps look normal within the earth hemisphere of the center point, but become highly distorted in the other hemisphere (the outer part of the map). Due to this distortion, it is necessary to shut off printing of the map very near the antipodes (opposite side of the world from the center point and represented by the outer edge of the map). 

A-E maps are useful for short-wave radio operators with directional antennas, since they can tell which territory of the earth is being targeted by the antenna. A map is first generated by entering a latitude and longitude for the center point, or selecting it from a convenient list of locations.  The list is an ASCII text file (atlas1.lst), and new locations may be easily added.  The map is drawn from a geographical database, and AZMap is shipped with two databases.  One is large and contains great detail, where the other is condensed for quicker drawing.  The condensed database has flaws and does not show newly formed countries, while the large database is more current and correct.  The oceans may be optionally colored in to differentiate them from landmass at the expense of map generation and drawing speed.  Currently the map cannot be saved.  Once the map is generated, the following functions may be optionally activated from a control panel.

• a path from the center point may be displayed to any other location by entering latitude and longitude or selecting the end point location from a list.  A display of the long path can also be enabled.
• Constant distance out from the center point is represented by a circle on the map, and AZMap allows the user to define distance circles at any regular interval in units of Miles, Kilometers, or Nautical Miles.
• The short path and long path bearing and distance from the center to the path endpoint is shown below and left of the map in the units selected for the distance circles.  You should be aware that AZMap is derived from a spherical representation of the earth which is an approximation.  Therefore the distance and bearing values may be slightly inaccurate (20 km or so) in some cases.  For applications which require high accuracy you may wish to use other software which accounts for the oblate spheroid shape of the earth.
• Sunlit areas of the earth are differentiated from darkness when the terminator function is enabled.  The sunlit areas can be cycled through the hours of the day in order to see the various positions of the gray line.  The time for the terminator display can be set to any date/time, brought to now, or set to continuously update for a real time terminator display.  The time setting can also be set to the approximate sunrise or sunset for the center point or endpoint, for a quick display of the terminator at gray line time.
• A latitude/longitude grid may be displayed with any interval of gridlines.
• The approximate auroral rings may be displayed.  Since these rings vary continuously due to position of the sun and level of solar wind, the rings are approximated as being 2000 miles from the geomagnetic poles.   I would like to do better with this, but am not sure if it's possible at a reasonable effort.  In fact, I have considered removing the auroral rings.  What do you think? 
• A set of locations may be displayed on the map, taken from an ascii text file which has previously been created.  AZMap is shipped with the NCDXF HF Beacon locations around the world, but the user could change the file to show labels on the larger countries, etc.

The maps look best on the larger displays (17" or larger), but are acceptable on 15" screens.  A screen resolution of 1024x768 or higher makes the best looking maps, but 800x600 is acceptable.  The display should also be either True Color or Hi Color to give the best effect.  Printing the maps is a problem due to the large amount of data, and I have not found a way to limit the print resolution to avoid exceeding the printer buffer.  I also suspect there may be some undetected bugs in the print routines.  I have been able to get good printout by doing a screen capture using print screen and then pasting it into a word document and printing it.  If anyone has any suggestions on how  to deal with this, let me know.

Previously I offered some screen shots of AZMap to show it's capabilities.  However with all the downloading of AZMap I have pushed the bandwidth limits of my web account, so I removed the screen shots to decrease the bandwidth.   If I do exceed my alotted bandwidth in any month, my website will be shut down until the first of the following month.  So if you temporarily lose access to this website, you will know why. 

DOWNLOADING AZMAP
AZMap was written in Microsoft® Visual C++ as a learning exercise. The AZMap files are zipped, so you can use WinZip© or PKUnzip© to recover the uncompressed files and place them in a directory of your choice. Then, create a shortcut to azmap2.exe for execution.  When you download a new version of AZMAP, you will receive the cpinit.dat and mapinit.dat files from my website.   If you have already created a custom version of these files due to previous program usage or manual updating, you might want to avoid overlaying those two files into your Azmap folder so you can keep your previous setup.  You wouldn't have this problem if I got busy and created an install script.  Oh well - it's freeware!

Note: This is a 32-bitWindows program. It won't run on Windows® 3.1.

Version 3.6 was released because I found that previous versions had a resource leak which chewed up Windows GDI resources every time the window was drawn.  It takes a while for it to happen, but eventually all Windows pens/brushes will be used up and no windows program will be able to draw correctly.   Killing AZMap will solve this problem, but it is not a nice thing.  Resource leaks are difficult to detect and find, but I was able to find and fix it, so I advise everyone to download the new version (you only need to replace azmap.exe, the rest of the files are unchanged.).

Version 3.5 colors in the whole darkness area with the terminator color, allowing a full darkening of the dark side of the earth, while still allowing the map and ocean coloring to shine through.  It also adds a long-path display to the path.   Other minor appearance changes have been made.

Version 3.4 adds enhanced printing, auroral rings, distance circle spokes, performance enhancements, and better ocean coloring.

Version 3.3 adds the ability to use the High Resolution database, which provides much more detail and accuracy in plotting geographical areas.  It is especially useful at 1024x768 resolution and higher where the additional detail can really be seen.  Go to View, Properties to enable the High Resolution database.  There are several downsides to using the High Resolution database.  It is much slower to build a map, especially in color.  You get to decide whether the added delay is worth the enhancement of the map.  There is also a problem somewhere (I haven't figured it out) which infrequently causes some land areas to be flooded with ocean color.  It is usually just one or two country areas, and they are usually near the outer parts of the map.  Changing screen resolution sometimes changes these flooding errors, but I have seen them at all resolutions.  I suspect this is a program bug and am searching for it, but it is VERY difficult to find and I decided to release the capability with the bug.  Version 3.3 also includes the ability to see approximate GRAY LINE times for the center point and the end point of the path.  Also, you can click on a button and immediately display the terminator at that time.  The problem here is in the definition of the radio Gray Line.  Using this feature will get you very close to the sunrise/sunset time which is adequate for most HF radio propagation work, but if you require a very precise radio Gray Line time, then this is not the software to find it. 

Version 3.2 adds the ability to display a list of points on earth, each with an appropriate label.  I have used it to display the NCDXF HF Beacon network, but you can edit the ascii text file (locations.txt) to draw any set of points and identifiers you wish.  It also adds distance and bearing information for a given path, using the distance units selected for the distance circles.   A terminator anomaly causing disappearance of the terminator at the equinox gray line has been fixed.  Unfortunately the additions don't show up on the printout.

Download AZMap (1.1Mb)

Download only AZMap.zip (166 kb for upgrades from a previous level of AZMap)  You must unzip this to your directory containing AZMap.exe

If you like this program or have any suggestions for improvement, I would like to hear from you.  This is the only way I know if anyone out in web land is interested in the program and further work on it.  Other that gaining Windows programming experience, the only reward I get from doing all this work is your feedback.  To e-mail me click here.

Roger Hedin, SM3GSJ, has written an excellent program called GCM which is similar to AZMap but has major differences and does run on Windows® 3.1. You can download it from his web page which is reached by clicking here.

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