Raw maps are binary files with native data from DF. A drainage raw map, for example, will contain only the drainage value for each world position. They're not graphical images, so you can't open them with a image viewer. To open them you need a hex viewer.
You can use them in external tools for reconstructing the DF world. If you combine elevation-raw maps with biome-raw and vegetation-raw maps you've all the data needed for displaying the world in 3D in a basic way.
As the world is exported in embark coordinates, you get a x16 zoom respect to
the data that you can get from exportlegends,
which exports it in world coordinates ( 1 world tile = 16 x 16 embark tiles)
They have a .raw extension, so a drainage raw map will be called drainage.raw
A raw map has the following fields:
- One int32 (4 bytes) with the world witdh in embark coordinates
- One int32 (4 bytes) with the world height in embark coordinates
- A int16 (2 bytes) sequence of values. Each value corresponding to a embark coordinate, starting from [top,left] and ending at [bottom,right]
For a 129x129 DF world, the generated raw file is about 8,5 Megabytes.
If you want to generate the drainage raw map, load a game and type the in the DFHack console:
exportmaps -drainage-raw
You can also chain options, so
exportmaps -drainage-raw -elevation-raw
will generate the drainage and the elevation raw maps.
The available maps are the following:
| Command | Map generated |
|---|---|
| -temperature-raw | TEMPERATURE |
| -rainfall-raw | RAINFALL |
| -drainage-raw | DRAINAGE |
| -savagery-raw | SAVAGERY |
| -volcanism-raw | VOLCANISM |
| -vegetation-raw | VEGETATION |
| -evilness-raw | EVILNESS |
| -salinity-raw | SALINITY |
| -elevation-raw | ELEVATION |
| -elevation-water-raw | ELEVATION RESPECTING WATER |
| -biome-type-raw | BIOME |
| -biome-region-raw | BIOME |
As you can see with the biome-region-raw, you can create new maps different to the ones generated by DF.
This map will have the region id of each world coordinate.