Simple replacement for Lumix Map Tool (Python)

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For its GPS-enabled camera TZ-31, Panasonic offers to download additional geographic data from the accompanying DVD. Unfortunately, the software for copying the data to the SD card is for Windows only. When I examined the content of the DVD and the SD card after a transfer of European data, I recognized that there is nothing much to implement in order to have a similar platform independent tool.

Note: As pointed out in a comment, my script does not seem to be compatible with the new TZ40, because the directory layout for this camera seems to differ from the TZ31.

How to use it

I host the code of this mini-project on GitHub (download it here) All you need to do is

  1. Download maptool.py and MapList.dat.
  2. Open up a command-line and run the tool. For example: 
    python mapdata.py --regions="6;7;8" --mapdata="/media/dvd/MAP_DATA" --sdcard="/media/sdcard"
  3. Important: The tool will delete the subdirectory PRIVATE/MAP_DATA on the SD card, thereby removing any existing maps.

You get more information about the program options when you start the tool with option –help.

In order to adapt the above command for your setting, you should insert the DVD shipped with your TZ31 and plug in the SD card of your camera.

  • –regions: each global region is assigned an integer between 1 and 10. If you install the official MapTool, then you can browse the regions from within the program or by opening the HTML files which are stored in the program files of the MapTool. As this tool here is meant to work independently from Windows, I extracted the region ids for you (see also –help):
    1 – Japan
    2 – South Asia, Southeast Asia
    3 – Oceania
    4 – North America, Central America
    5 – South America
    6 – Northern Europe
    7 – Eastern Europe
    8 – Western Europe
    9 – West Asia, Africa
    10 – Russia, North Asia
  • –mapdata: the path to you map data which is normally stored in the subdirectory MAP_DATA of the DVD
  • –sdcard: the path to the “root” of your SD card

Links

  • [1] Downloadable code on GitHub

10 comments

  1. Pingback: Getopt template for Python | Sven Logan's Blog

  2. Hi Sven
    I am not a Linux user but can’t get the Panasonic software to recognise the cd drive to access the data.
    From what you found can in install manually by copying files. ?
    Is ther a config file needed on camera etc. ?
    Regards
    Craig

    1. Hey Craig,

      As far as I know, there is no configuration data necessary on the camera. The quickest solution to your problem would be to copy the whole MAP_DATA directory from the DVD to the PRIVATE folder on the SD card (so as to have PRIVATE/MAP_DATA on the card afterwards). The downside is that you will then have map data from the whole world on your SD card, which takes about 5.5GB of memory.

      Another alternative is that you install Python on your system and run my tool. I have not tested it on Windows but instead of the Unix-like paths, like /media/cdrom, Windows paths like D:/ – or however your DVD drive is called – should work as well.

      Kind regards
      Sven

      1. Worked great thanks Sven.
        Used up heaps of my sdcard but I can always get a bigger one or work out what to delete for certain regions.
        Thanks again.
        Craig

  3. I just found this thread – I was having the same issue wanting to install map data from the DVD for my Lumix TZ40 without Windows. However, your script doesn\’t seem to be compatible with this version of the DVD. I tried copying the entire MAP_DATA directory to PRIVATE/MAP_DATA on the SD card (3.8 GB in this version, not 5.5 GB). However, the camera doesn\’t recognise it… when I try to zoom into the map, it still says \”Copy the map data from the supplied DVD to the SD card\”.Also, your script doesn\’t accept \”10\” as input for the region id, because your regular expression in line 88 is a single digit… so the example \”1;6;10\” in the help text is not accepted.

    1. Hi Matthew,

      Thank you very much for your comments!

      I fixed the “two digit” bug (current verison is online on GitHub). Unfortunately, I could not figure out how the map data are stored on the TZ40; I would appreciate if you let me know when you find out!

      Best,
      Roland

      1. Hi,

        On my Lumix TZ41 I had to copy the Map data to
        “PRIVATE/PANA_GRP/PAVC/LUMIX/MAP_DATA/”.
        After I had copied the complete folder from the dvd to that destination on the SD Card, the maps where recognized by the camera.

        Kind regards
        Falk

        1. Copying all of MAP_DATA to this path worked for my TZ-40, too.

          I also tried replacing MapList.dat with the version that came on the DVD in MAP_DATA directory and running the script, but this didn’t work: even though the Python script returned without any errors, on the memory card MAP_DATA was created empty.

          Still, being able to have all maps on the card is better than nothing. Feel free to contact me if you need additional information about the directory layout used by the TZ40 for the next version of the script.

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