Geographical Map Settings

The Geographical Map Settings window is opened by:

  • clicking the  "Settings" Toolbar button and selecting the "Geographical Map Settings..." menu item, or
  • selecting "Settings" | "Geographical Map Settings..." from the main menu, or
  • right-clicking in the Geographical Map tableau and selecting "Geographical Map Settings..." from the popup menu.

The Display tab

General panel:

  • Grid - overlays the map with a coordinates grid,
  • Tooltips - enables place-name tooltips for the mouse pointer,
  • Rivers - displays river features,
  • Night regions - when checked, regions of the Earth currently in the Sun's shadow are rendered in a darker tint. The slider control below the checkbox allows you to adjust the tonal value of the night region,
  • Relief (topographical) - activates the topographical map. (This option is available in ZET 8 Geo version only),
    • Shadows - emphasizes the relief of map terrain,
    • Measure of Heights - enables the display on the Status bar of the spot height (in meters) of the location at the mouse pointer. NOTE: When you operate in full-screen mode or exit a program, this option is checked off.
    • Sea Depths - the color of sea water depends of depth in this point:

    • Ocean Floor - display the ocen floor without water:

 

Cities panel allows you to adjust the display of map legends for cities:
  • City names - activates the display of city names on the map,
  • All Names - displays all available city names (deselected by default),
  • City marks - when checked, every location in the Atlas is marked on the map,
  • Highlighted - the checkboxes allow alternative means of highlighting city name legends on the map,
  • Atlas II - displays city names from Atlas II also, if this atlas is available,
  • Big Atlases - displays cities and other features from Big Atlases on the map, if the Big Atlas exists for displaied country,
  • All synonyms - it is not uncommon for a city to have alternative names. Normally these synonyms not displayed on the map. Check this option if you want to include all alternative names,
  • Min. Zoom Level - sets the limits of the zoom level when an Atlas II and a Big Atlas's city names are displayed - preferable to a dramatic reduction in performance! It is not recommended to set a value of less then 10.
Boundaries panel allows you to display boundaries on the map according to the following options:
  • International and internal,
  • International only,
  • None.

Navigator check-box displays a mini-World map which previews the current frame location. Clicking in the Navigator recenters the tableau to that location.

Outline map - displays an outline version of the map for printing.

Upgrade Topographical Map button - opens the upgrade control panel, see below.

The Color tab

The options on this tab allow you to change the colors used to render the Geographical Map. You can set colors for oceans, landmasses, coastlines, boundaries, the coordinates grid, and the zoom marquee. To edit a color, click with the mouse on the icon adjacent each option to open a standard Color picker dialog.

Color schemes can be saved and retrieved using the Save and Open file buttons. Schemes are stored in the [ZET] folder as <file-name>.gpl.

The Grid tab

This tab allows you to set the grid line spacing for the Geographical Map tableau at each of 12 magnification steps. The zoom steps are labelled from "32" (highest magnification) thru "1/64" (least magnification). The grid is not visible unless it has been enabled on the Display tab.

The grid step means the distance between grid lines. This distance should be specified in degrees and arc-minutes. Click in an entryfield to edit the current setting. You can obtain the degree symbol by typing Alt+0176 (NumLock off), or by cut-and-paste from an adjacent entryfield. To obtain the arc-minute symbol, type the single-quote character '. Click the Apply button to effect your changes.

The Misc. tab

Scaling of Measure Tool panel sets the properties of the Measure tool, which is located on the right side of the Toolbar in the Geographical Map tableau. Uncheck the Scaling option to display measured distances in kilometers (km) on the status line of the tableau. Check ON to display measured distances in millimeters (mm) for a paper map with the scaling set in the entryfield.

Path to GeoData files panel allows you to select the drive and folder specification for geographical data files. By default this is [ZET]\GeoData. The following files and subfolders may be present, depending on your version of ZET:

  • GTOPO30 - folder with topographical map files,
  • Lake - folder with lakes data files,
  • AdminBound.dat - internal boundaries data file,
  • Boundary.dat - international boundaries data file,
  • Rivers.dat - rivers data file,
  • Shoreline.dat - high resolution map file.

This function is helpful if you use several versions of ZET in different folders and allows you to utilize a single common set of the huge geo-files.

To set a path click the ... "Browse" button (right of field). The following dialog is displayed:

Locate the "GeoData" folder which contains the files, and click "OK".

Map Legends panel controls the display of city names on the map. Click the spin-buttons to change the settings, or click in the entryfield and type a new value.

  • Base font size - sets a baseline font scale factor (default 8),
  • Minimum visible font size - reduce to display more cities; increase to display fewer cities (default 7),
  • City size factor - controls how the displayed real size (city circles and legends) of cities is displayed in relation to the code indicating size in the Atlas (default 17).
  • Legends size factor - controls how the legends font size is displayed in relation to the city size and the zoom level (default 12).
  • Bold for capital cities - specifies a zoom level above which capital city names are rendered in a bold font (default 10).

Clicking in the Font entryfield at the base of the panel opens a Fonts dialog allowing you to select a font for the map legends.

The Country tab

These options enable the display of country and province names on the map.

Setup and Upgrade Topographical Map (for ZET 8 Geo only)

Some distribution kits of topographical map needs for special functions to setup and upgrade it. The control panel of topographical map upgade functions opened by "Upgrade Topographical Map" button in the "Display" tab.

To setup a topographical map release 10 March 2007 from ZET web-site, do following:

  1. Download files of distribution kit (this is 5 volumes achive).
  2. Open 1st file. When appears a dialog window, specify the main ZET folder, e.g. "C:\Program Files\ZET 8\", and press OK button.
    Upon unpacking the next files will be found automatically.
  3. After unpacking the [ZET]\GeoData\GTOPO30\1\ folder should be created and contains 33 "*.etp" files.
  4. Note. If your computer have an Anti-Virus scaner, then in scanner's settings specify *.etp as excludes from scanning to prevent very long time of relief map drawing.
  5. Run ZET and open the control panel of topographical map upgade functions,
  6. Click "Create Chip Tiles" and "Create Tiles 2" radio-buttons. Click "Execute" button.
  7. The process of executing displyed by the progress bar.
    The "Create Tiles" buttons will automatically resets from 2 to 64 poins during calculation. In this time you must not click it manually.
    No need interrupt it.
  8. If switch on the "Confirm continuation" option, then after every point will appears the confirmation dialog for continue the process. If "No" answer, the process stopped. You can continue it later from next point.
  9. After processing of all points, the "Done" message appears. Click "Close" button. Check result, switch on the "Relief (topographical)" option, see chart for any zoom levels.

Some source distributed topographical map have not the water color of lakes. If you want to paint lakes and some rivers on then topographical map by water color, then

  1. Download UpgradeGTOPO.zip file,
  2. Unzip it and copy UpgradeGTOPO.dat file in ZET folder,
  3. Run ZET and open the control panel of topographical map upgade functions,
  4. Click "Paint Lakes" and "Create Tiles 1" radio-buttons. Click "Execute" button.
  5. Wait, it requires extensive computer time - up to one hour. If you computer have an antivirus monitor (guard), then it's recommended to disable it for speed up the process.
    The process of executing displyed by the progress bar.
    The "Create Tiles" buttons will automatically resets from 1 to 64 poins during calculation. In this time you must not click it manually.
    You can interrupt the process at any time by clicking "Stop" button (it will appears when process starts), and contunue it later, selecting a point, which was interrupted.
  6. If switch on the "Confirm continuation" option, then after every point will appears the confirmation dialog for continue the process. If "No" answer, the process stopped. You can continue it later from next point.
  7. After processing of all points, the "Done" message appears. Click "Close" button. Check result, see any lake.

If you have an old distribution kit, but wish to have the topographical map oceans depths, then

  1. Open page NGDC, download ETOPO2.raw.bin file and put it in [...]\GeoData\GTOPO30\ folder. Be sure then file size is 116 640 000 bytes, if not, then seems you incorrectly download this file or it's formay was changed. In this case the next steps impossible.
  2. Run ZET and open the control panel of topographical map upgade functions,
  3. Click "Create Depths" and "Create Tiles 1" radio-buttons. Click "Execute" button.
  4. Next same as 5th and 6th steps of previouse function.
  5. After processing of all points, the "Done" message appears. Click "Close" button. Check result, switch on the "Sea Depths" option on the "Display" tab.

If you wish to complete all these two upgrades together, then

  1. Switch on the "Confirm continuation" option,
  2. Click the "Paint Lakes" and "Create Tiles 1" radio-buttons. Click "Execute" button.
  3. When the dialog of confirmation of continuation appears, select "No" answer,
  4. Click the "Create Depths" and "Create Tiles 1" radio-buttons. Click "Execute" button.
  5. When the dialog of confirmation of continuation appears, select "Yes" answer,
  6. The process of creating of files with 2...64 levels is common for both of these two upgrades.
  7. You may switch off the "Confirm continuation" option.

During the process of calculation you can minimize the program window by pressing Alt+F11 keys.