Next Generation SHP Viewer

[MarkSheppard]

Still haven't cracked the SHP recompression code; but I'm close to cracking the SPHeader fix code.

As requested, you can double click on the location to get into the gross area of where you want your new centroid to be; and then use the +/- buttons to dial in the exact location.

The "write header to all icons" is for when you have a massive collection of 40 x P-51 mustang icons in that SHP and they all have the same basic centroid.

EDIT: Further work will have to wait for later; everything here so far is a proof of concept working on a massively kludged system; I have to go back and refactor more code to make storing/editing the new header data easier and actually doable.

[DRG]

Originally Posted by MarkSheppard

; everything here so far is a proof of concept working on a massively kludged system

Funnily enough if it was not for kludges made to work the game would not exist

[MarkSheppard]

Here's version 0.80 -- chosen because it's 80% of the way there; that last 20% will be probably quite difficult.

As before, the password is SPCAMO.

Changes with this version:

1.) More accurate SHP file decoding than previous versions.

2.) You can now edit SP Header files; either by typing in the data yourself, double clicking on the general area you want the centroid to be, and/or using the buttons to fine tune the centroid placement.

BIG NOTE: Currently, the SP Header edit (right click and choose SHOW ICON SP HEADER DATA) has options that are not data friendly.

For example, we have

Write Header to this Icon
Write Header to 'N' Icons
Write Header to This + Alternating Icons

Buttons.

The last two are "extras" to make writing 35 icons of the same exact type (i.e. 35 versions of the same P-51D Mustang) simpler and save you time.

The current implementation when it's used for write header to 'N' icons just copies the "bounding box" -- the last two variables in the SHP header -- xEnd and yEnd -- from the icon in the pop up menu to the next 'N' icons.

It works great if the bounding boxes (i.e. rightmost+bottom-most pixel that is not transparent) are the same. But what happen if the bounding boxes are not the same; i.e. we take the bounding box from a hull icon and paste it over a turret icon?


(Image from SHPEd)

Yeah, that happens.

I need to revise (in the future) the "paste into N" buttons to include a 'recalculate bounding boxes on the fly' function to eliminate this possible failure mode.

But I wanted to get this out for input and testing.

[MarkSheppard]

Sharp eyed people may notice a "Replace SHP Image" option in the right click menu that has functionality that lets you select images to replace an existing SHP icon with.

You can then set the replacement SHP image's header with SHOW SHP HEADER DATA.

What's remaining to do is the last major hurdle -- trying to figure out how to get this thing to do correct SHP compression and then reassembly so that the Replace SHP Image is actually useful, and not just a tech demo.