Home Bit Map Change Log

Bit Map Change Log

4.0.5 - 22nd May 2013

Information about upgrade to Maps n Trax is now displayed after each full launch.

FREE - 16th May 2013

Bit Map is now available free of charge.
Support will end on 30 June 2014.

4.0.4 - 17th January 2013

Corrected size of location accuracy indicator (red circle) when configured to use low resolution maps images on high resolution screen.
Improved information about upgrading to 'Maps n Trax'.

4.0.3 - 7th December 2012

Fixed returning to last map position on app restart with high resolution screens.

4.0.2 - 22nd November 2012

Fixed autorotation.

4.0.1 - 16th November 2012

Fixed default order of waypoint from imported KML files that do not include timestamps for each waypoint.
Uses full iPhone 5 screen size.
Fixed background of Settings table view and Maps Manager table view.
Added 'Maps n Trax' upgrade information view (available via new item in Settings view).

4.0 - 20th July 2012

New button in maps manager to export all maps (in optimised format) to Documents area. From there they can be copied to the Desktop/Laptop as a backup using iTunes. Exported maps can be imported back into Bit Map on the same or other devices without requiring any re-optimisation. (Exports should be deleted from Documents area after being copied elsewhere to avoid wasting space on the device).
Changed position of some items in main toolbar and tab bar, to reduce likelihood of accidental tap on new iOS 6 legal terms link in bottom left corner of map views (compatibility with future versions only - link won't appear in this version of Bit Map).
Upgraded internal data format for efficient re-import of exported maps.
No longer keep original images stored internally alongside optimised images (had previously been kept for internal backup/rebuild purposes).

3.20 - 22nd June 2012

Fixed import of PDF images

3.19 - 18th May 2012

Fixed a crash bug when reading some .map files during import

3.18 - 19th April 2012

Fixed importing of .zip files from Mail app (and other file exporting applications)
More tolerant of a wider variety of text encodings in .map files (ie, handles non-ASCII characters better)
Fixed updating of map sets list after adding a new map set
Fixed maps count in map sets list after adding new map
Fixed crash when importing a map, deleting it, then importing it again without leaving the map list view

3.17 - 28th March 2012

Fixed compatability with new iPad's high resolution display

3.16 - 25th February 2012

Fixed human readable name being gleaned from enclosing folder for pre-optimised .bitmap images.
Manually calibrated (filename-calibrated) images now work with multiple spaces between each value.

3.15 - 18th January 2011

Fixed parsing of .map files with unexpected numbers of calibration points.
Fixed trimming of image borders/margins for .map files with MMPXY borders specified.
Fixed importing of pre-optimised .bitmap images from MAPC2MAPC which included a .bitmapname file

3.14 - 21st December 2011

Fixed custom ordering of waypoints and maps.

3.13 - 9th December 2011

Added Portuguese datums 'Lisboa' ('lisboa') and 'Porto Santo' ('porto-santo').
Fixed superflous optimising (tiling) of ozf images (introduced in 3.11 and 3.12).
Fixed the JPEG/PNG setting for image tiling.

3.12 - 1st December 2011

Fixed a bug introduced in 3.11 that could cause some map images to be corrupted during upgrade from older versions or during import such they they only displayed as a black rectangle. Affected maps will need to be re-imported.
Corrected URL included in emails that Bit Map uses to send Waypoint/Route KML files, and within the KML files themselves.

3.11 - 28th November 2011

Fixed importing of non-UTM maps as though they were UTM.
Added the new "No Backup" attribute to the maps file store to prevent large problematic iCloud backups, as requested by Apple.
Internal changes to map image file format and tiling process to support planned future features.
Addressed a problem with .map calibration in cases where a latitude origin is used in the projection setup.
Disabled ability to select a route for display on maps if the route has over 2000 waypoints (to avoid performance/memory issues).
A maximum of 2000 waypoints will be displayed on maps (on- and off-screen) for any group of routes selected for display on map (to avoid performance/memory issues).

3.10 - 30th September 2011

Complete re-write of .map parsing and .map calibration.
Now doesn't switch maps until off the map sheet by more than 10 pixels (avoids map switching when crossing between sheets that don't quite meet up, with a gap of up to 20 pixels).
Importing map sheets now attempts to merge with all other sheets in the group being imported, rather than just the first sheet in the group. This results in many more successful merges in some cases, with fewer maps per import (with more sheets in each map).
HTTP upload from desktop/laptop to Bit Map's internal web server deprecated. It still works for people who know how to use it, but the instructions have been removed from the acquisitions view, as they confused people who didn't realise there are much quicker and easier ways to acquire files.

3.9 - 22nd June 2011

Fixed bundled world map not working on new installs.
Fixed calibration failure for some manually calibrated lat/lon maps.
Fixed calibration failure for some WGS84 maps.
Fixed "(null)" security code in files acquisition view.
Fixed crash on launch for some users.

3.8 - 15th June 2011

Re-arranged some toolbar items so that toggling between the map view and tab view no longer required moving finger to different area of screen.
Fixed a bug that could cause a found waypoint to be removed from its route after a waypoint search.
Fixed a bug that caused a selected waypoint to appear in a wrong location when switching to a map that does not include the waypoint.
Some essential but time consuming initialisation code is now executed after launch instead of during launch in order to prevent a launch time out in rare cases where extra time may be required during setup (eg, converting databases from an older version to a newer version), and an activity indicator is now displayed during this initialisation phase.

3.7 - 31st March 2011

Improved battery life when automatically recording waypoints in the background or during sleep. Now when recording in background or during sleep, powers up GPS hardware only at the intervals specified in Settings.
Improved clarity of terminology for grid references and coordinates in info panel settings.
Cleaned up deprecated API calls.
Fixed crash that occurred for some users when enabling locations tracking while viewing a map that does not include the current location.
Fixed crash that occurred for some users when selecting a waypoint that is not on the current map.

3.6 - 15th March 2011

Can acquire maps and routes via email - tap on attachment within email message. Recognised file formats include KML, KMZ, OZF2, OZFX3, ZIP (common image types such as PNG, JPEG, TIFF would also work but may need to be zipped first to avoid iOS' image handling taking over access).
Map display is forced back to zoom scale of 1.0 (default map scale) at startup.
Fixed centering and moving of waypoints on high resolution 'retina' (iPhone 4) displays.
Fixed pairing of image file with .map calibration file using 3rd line of .map file.
Fixed a bug with UTM calibration with .map files.
Fixed the false positives for the attempted ozfx3 key cracking.

3.5 - 25th February 2011

Import ozfx3 map image files (in addition to ozf2), excluding the newer RC4 encrypted formats.
Create arbitrary waypoints not based on current location. These initially appear in the middle of the screen, but can be dragged to any location on the map (double tap, or create another arbitrary waypoint to fix it's position).
Selected waypoint can now be deselected by double tapping it on the map.
Sort maps within a map set by map title.
Existing waypoints can now be moved by dragging on screen (new buttons in waypoint editor view to set a waypoint in moving mode).
Info panel can now includes distance and bearing between last two waypoints, bewteen current location and last waypoint and/or between current location and selected waypoint.
New option to have coordinates on info panel in either WGS84 or in current map's datum (UTM grid references are always in map's datum).
New option to choose beetween lat/lon coordinates or UTM grid references for all locations on info panel.
All components of the info panel are now optional and configured using a new settings category.
Settings are now divided up into separate views for each category, to make them easier to look at and use, and to allow for additional settings which wouldn't fit on the previously crowded single view.
Re-enabled settings to configure JPEG compression levels for optimising images.
New setting to create PNG instead of JPEG tiles when optimising images.
Changed default JPEG quality from 0.5 to 0.75 for optimised images.
Image and .map calibration files can now be paired according to the image name/path in the .map file (second/third line) and no longer requires both files to have the same file name.
Fixed pairing of images with .map files with .MAP (capitalised) filename extension.
Fixed truncation of decimal part of second latitude value from some calibrated map filenames during import.

3.4 - 13th January 2011

Waypoints can be manually reordered within a route (in Edit mode).
Waypoints can be displayed in custom, chronological or alphabetical order (custom is the default).
Fixed out of order waypoints when imported from KML files without timestamps for the points.
Fixed import of some .bitmap (pre-processed) image files.
Calibration of .bitmap/.map file pairs is no longer ignored.
Calibration using .map files where image pixels are less than defined in .map file now displays an error instead of calibrating incorrectly.

3.3 - 17th December 2010

Added ability to import already-optimised map images. Now optimisation can be done on the desktop or by a central web-based service instead of on the iOS device (MUCH quicker, and less likely to run into memory problems). This eliminates the need for the 3rd party img2ozf application which had been modified by the third party to produce ozfx3 files (with ozf2 extension) instead of correct ozf2 files, so that they were no longer compatible with Bit Map.
Fixed some map sheets not being displayed on screen for iPhone 4 users when "use low-res on high-res screen" was set to "OFF".
Fixed deletion of map files when deleting a map (which could prevent a map with same name from being imported again later).

3.2 - 2nd December 2010

Fixed map switching (eg, using +/- buttons) for latitude/longitude maps (affected maps will need to be re-imported).
Fixed moving a single map to another map set (no longer moves all maps when a single map has been selected).
No longer requires strict order of MMPXY and MMPLL lines in .map files.
Corrected Pulkovo 1942 datum's DY value (requires re-install of app to take effect).
Added alternative common use descriptions for eur50 and eur79 datums for .map users (requires re-install of app to take effect).

3.1 - 11th November 2010

Fixed incorrect sizing and positioning of map images on hi-res (iPhone 4) screens.
Fixed positioning of waypoints (and joining lines) on hi-res (iPhone 4) screens when in hi-res mode.
Fixed unecessary battery draining use of GPS after turning off auto waypoint recording and closing/sleeping.
Fixed auto waypoint recording when sleeping immediately after recording started.
Fixed overlap of routes table with top toolbar on iPads.
Fixed occasional black tiles in ozf2 map images.

3.0 - 30th October 2010

Added .ozf2 image support for much faster processing of imported files and uses less memory. (Thanks to Nikolay Gekht for the generous provision of C# code to work from.)
Installation of map and route files can be done via iTunes while connected via USB (much faster than HTTP over WiFi).
Devices with a high resolution screen now get the map displayed in full resolution (1 image pixel = 1 screen pixel). Eg, The iPhone 4's 'retina' display now shows 4 times as much map area on the screen as the iPhone 3's standard display, without any loss in image quality.
Automatic waypoint recording now continues while running in the background. Ie, after pressing Home button or Sleep button. (Use this feature to reduce power consumption).
Map images are now rendered asynchronously (ie, using a background thread) and drawing maps no longer causes stutters in scrolling or zooming.
Added suppport for import of KMZ (compressed KML) route files.
New option in settings to restrict map switching to only switch between maps in the same map set.
New options in route view (replacing old "Unordered Collection" setting) to show/hide lines and to show/hide points for each route when displayed on the map. (Waypoints with a name will always be shown when their route is displayed.)
New option in settings to allow use of low resolution display on high resolution screen.
Triple tap on the map now sets zoom scale back to 1:1.
Maps can be organised into map sets.
Exporting routes with 'showLines' on now includes the complete series of 'Point' placemarks as well as the 'LineString' placemark (and named 'Point' placemarks). The 'Point' placemarks can hold more useful information than the 'LineString' placemarks. These are coalesced back into a single route if imported back into Bit Map.
Follow mode button now shows a '?' instead of a tick/check mark when there is a location services error.
Rounding for boundaries of UTM maps when importing with .map calibration can now be customised in settings (previously was fixed to 100 metres). '0' metres for no rounding.
Import warnings are now combined into a single alert at the end of importing, instead of one alert view (requiring one button tap) for each warning as it is generated.
Added support for the "Pulkovo 1942" datum ("pulkovo").
Original copies of untiled map image files are now kept stored on the device (in addition to optimised versions) for future proofing (ie, they might automatically be re-optimised in future versions if necessary without having to manually re-install them).
When quitting/suspending Bit Map while a route is auto-recording, the waypoint saved at quit/suspend is no longer given a "Bit Map Terminated" title.
Proximity sensor is no longer used to disable screen during automatic waypoint recording. (Now sleeps normally when not connected to external power instead).
The Acquire (+) button is now on the main bottom tab bar (when not viewing map) and will now acquire uploaded maps and routes together in one tap of the button. The old Acquire (+) buttons have been removed from the maps and routes views.
Better handling of maps which do not pass core data validation after import.
Attempts to rebuild the database from stored map image files/directories in cases where the database is unusable for any reason (experimental).

2.5 - 10th August 2010

Fixed a crash on launch bug that affected a small number of users related to internal composing of the routes table.
Fixed a crash on deletion of only map.
Fixed setting internal scale of new latitude/longitude maps as used for map switching (+/- buttons now work correctly). Affected latitude/longitude maps will need to be re-installed.

2.4 - 23rd July 2010

Fixed border trimming (according to .map specifications) for top/bottom borders. This will also fix location accuracy problems for maps with top/bottom borders that get trimmed on import. NB: Affected maps need to be re-installed.

2.3 - 14th July 2010

Added an alert on first 2 launches warning of requirement to re-install all maps on next major release (version 3.0).
Fixed a problem with merging of two maps when maps with same name and grid are installed which resulted in two maps which shared image data (and deleting one would remove some images from the other).
Fixed the message about making toolbars re-appear from displaying at every launch of the app for some users.
Fixed a crash on reading some .map files with unusual characters or encodings.

2.2 - 2nd July 2010

Performance improvements when using large datasets, due to converting to 'CoreData' modelling and persistence with a database backend. NB: First launch of this version will be slow for users of previous versions due to converting data to new format.
When importing using .map files, unsupported projections and cross-zone UTM maps are automatically approximated to a latitude/longitude grid with a warning to expect reduced location accuracy (instead of importing with no location awareness at all).
Zooming and map switching centres view on the focal waypoint (or route) if the previous view was centred on one as the result of a search.
UTM maps which cross letter designated zones but are all included in the one number designated zone now show locations correctly for the additional letter zones (so long as they are in the same hemisphere as the map's designated zone).
Quitting and launching Bit Map while auto waypoint recording is on will store waypoints at the termination and launch time (if an accurate enough location is available), with a waypoint title indicating the terminate/launch action.
Moved location for internal data storage, in preparation for exposing Documents directory for iOS 4 file sharing import of maps/routes through iTunes in future versions.
Runs cleanup tasks on entering background (iOS 4) in addition to terminating (iPhone OS 3).
Fixed idle timeout disabling while connected to a power source and viewing map.
Corrected auto map switching when moving off edge to switch to finest available map instead of coarsest available map.
Improved handling of .map files with more than 4 MMPLL/MMPXY lines.
Fixed problem interpretting some .map files with an underscore (_) in the filename.
Fixed "(null)" value in display of UTM zone in the maps manager.
Fixed incorrect last speed reading.
Improved memory management during image optimisation.
Fixed occasional memory-related crash when trimming borders off images according to specifications in associated .map files.
Fixed positioning of GUI elements in landscape orientation of Point Editor view on iPad.

2.0 - 3rd June 2010

Latitude/Longitude grid maps are now supported.
Compatibility with some OziExplorer '.map' files removes the need for tedious file renaming to match map region when such metadata files are available.
Map view now covers the entire screen with the toolbars disappearing automatically after 5 seconds. Tap the map once to make the toolbars re-appear. The toolbars and status bar are now translucent so that even when present they don't completely obscure their portion of the map.
The toolbars on the map view have been been re-organised to include most of the features that might be frequently needed, avoiding the need to switch to other views for most common tasks.
The save waypoint and auto-waypoints buttons are now available even when there's no active route, and will automatically create a new route to save waypoints to if there is no currently active route (if the is already a current active route, the auto-waypoints button will present an alert with option to append to the current route, or create a new route).
New toolbar buttons (+/-) on the map viewer to switch immediately to the next finer/coarser map for the current focal location.
New toolbar buttons () on the map viewer to switch immediately to the next/previous map in the list of available maps.
Follow button now switches to another map (if available) if the current location not on the current map.
Waypoint can now be deleted from the waypoint edit view (eg, to cancel creation of a new waypoint).
Includes a built in web browser for finding and downloading maps and KML which avoids having to find and type in long complicated URLs when downloading from a web server.
Search for waypoints/routes by name then tap one of the found items to view it on the map.
Power alert when starting auto waypoints can be disabled.
Accuracy indicator (translucent red circle) correct after zooming in/out without switching maps.
Automatically fails over to manual speed calculation when the OS' speed detection doesn't produce useful values and the accuracy of the last two locations is good enough to allow it.
The datum name is now optional for maps that use the WGS84 datum (or any datum that is very close to it, such as GDA94).
Different horizontal/vertical scales are now handled correctly.
Includes a bundled map of the world (existing users can get this map using the 'Bundled' button in the Maps Manager).
Maps can be re-ordered in the maps manager table (use the 'Edit' button to enable to re-order controls).
Name of current map is displayed on screen while toolbars are visible.
Export/Import of Routes to/from KML files now correctly encodes/decodes characters which should not be included directly in XML, fixing potential corruption of exported KML files.
Fixed a freeze/crash bug when importing KML files.
Point Placemarks and point in LineString Placemarks with invalid coordinates are now ignored when importing KML.
Fixed a problem with routes with '/' in their titles.
Fixed a crash when importing some KML files to routes/waypoints.

1.7 - 15th April 2010

Added an iPad optimised interface, including 4 times the map viewing area on the iPad screen.

1.6 - 9th April 2010

Email individual routes.
Waypoints now support a seperate 'Name' field as well as a 'Note' field. These are both compatible with KML import/export and are included in the KML 'Name' and 'Description' elements, respectively. Text from the sole 'Note' field of previous versions is imported into the 'Name' field in this version. Text from 'Name' fields is used for labels on the map.
Waypoint coordinates can now be specified/edited manually in the waypoint detail/edit view.
The waypoint saving buttons (save and auto) are now overlayed on the map view, whenever there is an active route (ie, a route to which new waypoints will be saved). These buttons are not displayed when there is no active route to save waypoints to. These buttons are no longer included on the routes view.
The map view's options text overlay now displays the UTM zone and grid reference of the current location according to the current map datum instead of in latitude/longitude (and still displays the latitude and longitude for the WGS84 datum, and the estimated recent and average speeds). Displays the grid reference using the WGS84 datum if there is no current map datum available.
It's now easier to have no active route (ie, no route to which waypoints will be saved) by using the 'Deactivate' button in the route detail view.
Tapping rows in the routes table no longer activate/deactivates routes (now done with the new button in the route detail view), and only adds/removes routes to/from the map view.
Landscape orientation now works in more views, facilitating more accurate text editing using the larger landscape keyboard.
Settings View can now only be dismissed by either a "Cancel" or "Done" button and it's no longer necessary to select a tab bar item to dismiss settings.
Prevents sleep while auto waypoint recording is on after Bit Map is quit and restarted.
Removed long delay whenever routes view disappeared if several thousand waypoints were stored.
Removed long delay when saving a waypoint if several thousand waypoints were stored in a route other than the active route.
Rearranged details display in routes table to be easier to understand, and to better fit the screen width.
Added a default screen to be displayed instead of blank black before first map appears.
Fixed rare occurrances of different map being displayed between quit/start of Bit Map.
Fixed a crash when emailing routes as KML files, which only affected some particular routes/waypoints.
Fixed lack of image optimisation and potential crash when importing a single non-zipped map image file.
Waypoint edit view shows point number from 1-based rather than 0-based series.
Restored ability to run on the older iPhone OS 3.1.2.

1.5 - 11th March 2010

Worked around problem with using Internet Explorer to upload map and KML files to Bit Map.
Waypoints can now be used as indexes to quickly view those points on a map. Tap on a waypoint (while viewing route details) to view that point on the map, even if the route is not currently displayed. If the current map does not include that waypoint, the map will be switched to another map that does, if a suitable alternative map can be found. (Turns off follow mode). This allows for the possibility to import KML files with a list of locations (eg, a street index), and then to tap on one of those locations to view that location on the map without having to manually scroll/zoom to find it.
Waypoint rows in the route details/edit view now have the note in the main (large) text, and the coordinates in the detail (small) text, to better suit the new Waypoint Indexing feature.
Routes view's "Edit" button is no longer needed to access each route's detail button to view each route's details. Makes access to the Waypoints indexing (and route & waypoint details in general) much quicker.
Route detail/edit view's "Edit" button is no longer needed to access each waypoint's detail button to view each waypoint's details. Makes access to the Waypoints details much quicker.
The 'active' route (to which any new waypoints will be added) is now indicated by having a black background in the routes view's table (instead of a tick/check mark). The font colour indicates if it is currently displayed on the map or not (instead of the background colour, used for all the non-active routes).
Tables with 100 or more routes or waypoints now display a numerical index to more quickly skip through the long lists of items.
Blocks sleep while processing large KML files.
Much faster parsing of large KML files.
Fixed processing of zipped KML files.

1.3 - 3rd March 2010

Import KML files to Bit Map routes (eg, import routes and placemarks from Google Earth).
Receive maps (and KML files) directly from desktop/laptop computer without having to upload to a web server first.
PDFs have been added to the list of image formats that Bit Map can use for maps.
More touch gestures recognised in the map viewer:
- one finger single tap: scroll map so that location of tap is in centre of view
- one finger double tap: zoom in 2x current zoom scale (if already zoomed in 4x, switch to finer scaled map if available)
- two finger double tap: zoom out 2x current zoom scale (if already zoomed out 4x, switch to coarser scaled map, if available)
Waypoint notes can now be edited (or added) after the waypoint has been stored.
KML 'timestamp' and 'timespan' elements now supported.
Spaces in download URLs are now handled as expected (substituted for correct URL escape sequence, and converted back for the filename/map name).
When in 'Follow' mode, and automatic map switching is set to 'on' for when moving off the edge of a map, manually switching to a map that does not cover your current location no longer switches immediately back to a map that does, but instead simply turns off 'Follow' mode. Ie, you can now browse maps that you're not currently on, without having to manually switch out of 'Follow' mode or change automatic map switching settings first.
Added support for "OID" (Old Israel Datum).
Better handling of cancelled acquisitions (ie, touching 'Cancel' button while downloading/receiving files).
More informative feedback about progress during the long optimising phase of acquiring new maps.
Coordinate values in file names can now include decimal points (ie, accepts floating point numbers, not just integers)
Improved memory management:
- Files are now written while being downloaded avoiding problems downloading some large files. It's now possible to download many map sheets in a single zip file to be automatically combined into one large map (tested with 63 scanned map sheets in a single 401 MB zip file on iPhone 3GS 16GB).
- If zooming out (which loads more image tiles) causes a low memory condition, the additional image tiles are not loaded, and the zoom scale snaps back to 1.

1.2 - 4th February 2010

Current speed and average speed are now included in the optional map overlay (along with current coordinates). NB: Speed is only calculated if the last two locations had an accuracy of less than 50m, and average speed is reset to zero every time the current location has an accuracy of greater than 50m.
Option for routes to consist of an unordered collection of waypoints with no lines rather than an ordered series of waypoints connected by lines.
Proximity Sensor is only enabled while automatic recording of waypoints in enabled (to allow users to disable screen as a battery saving feature). In earlier versions it was enabled even when not auto-recording waypoints, which led to screen blanking at undesirable times.
Fixed a crash which affected some users when displaying a WGS84 map.

1.1 - 28th January 2010

Record waypoints and routes (waypoints can be recored manually or automatically)
Display waypoints and routes on map
Email waypoint and routes as KML files which can be used by a variety of desktop mapping and geographical applications including Google Earth
Optionally display coordinates over map, including accuracy

1.0 - 10th December 2009

Initial Release