Minecraft Overviewer, Minecraft Worlds In Google Maps
As the line between virtual reality and the common meatspace we inhabit becomes more and more blurred, tools used in the 'real' world are increasingly useful for virtual creations. In this instance, the technology that brings us Google Maps, maps that allow you to view a nation, a city, a street and a specific house is now being used to bring Minecraft worlds to life in map form.
You might be pondering to yourself at this point what the point of such a tool is. After all, we already have Cartograph, a Minecraft map tool that generates quite pretty, quite useful maps of your Minecraft worlds.
The answer is simple. Minecraft Overviewer goes further than Cartograph and serves a different purpose. It is designed for use with publicly available worlds. (SMP mode only, in other words) and creates a map that both be viewed zoomed out to get a sense of the world, but which can also be zoomed in close enough for the viewer to see individual chunks. By using Minecraft Overviewer you can get a sense for an entire world and zoom in to see creations that interest you without having to actually visit the server itself and wander around with all the limitations of speed that come with actually being serverside.
To view a selection of Minecraft SMP worlds that have shared their maps, visit the map sharing pages of the developer's site.
If you run a Minecraft server yourself, or if you happen to have enough expertise in coding that you know Python from Asp, then you may be able to make use of this glorious tool yourself and share the creations of your faithful server minions with the world at large.
Minecraft Overviewer Features:
- Large resolution images of your Minecraft world.
- Renders using the texture pack of your choice, no more shall your creations be desecrated by the default textures - unless you want them to be.
- Output directory can be uploaded to a web server and shared with your adoring Minecraft public!
How To Use Minecraft Overviewer
Minecraft Overviewer is not for the casual player. It works best in Linux and requires Python and Python scripts. If you're not comfortable messing round with that kind of coding then it's probably best to just stick with Cartograph.
The requirements of the program are as follows:
- Python 2.6 or 2.7
- PIL (Python Imaging Library)
- Numpy
- Either the Minecraft client installed, or a terrain.png file.
For further information on how to use the Overviewer, visit the developer's site.