The preview version of the map provides a better image quality than 'Export to file'

[miish3lov]

This is what I noticed while fiddling with the tool. The exported version is slightly more pixilated than the preview version. Here's a little comparsion

Preview

Exported

The difference becomes very visible when you use extremely small plot icons. Thankfully it's possible to just make a copy of the preview version from the temp folder.

[AHeroicLlama]

Thanks for the report - actually this is an intended feature, and is even documented in the last line of User_Guides/First_map.md.

The compression is targeted to keep image files small enough to get under Discords free upload size limit, as the export option is intended to be used to share maps online.
And as you correctly identified, the preview feature leaves images at their original resolution as this is intended to be previewed locally only.

I do have plans in mind for a future update to provide the option to control export compression levels, for anyone who wants to use them in further media (mods, video etc).

For reference, the export file option uses JPEG compression at 85% original quality.

[miish3lov]

The compression is targeted to keep image files small enough to get under Discords free upload size limit, as the export option is intended to be used to share maps online.

Really appreciate your work on this tool, please keep up the good work!

Makes sense to have it compressed so it's easier to share the exported images between ppl.
I prefer the native resolution of the map because I actually use them in game, meaning that I actually repack a ba2 file and have it replace the original map with a mappalachia map. Thus, I suggest the following:

Add a new export method (Export as a ba2 file.) Which allows the user to export the map as a ba2 file and easily replace it with in-game map by simply adding the ba2 file to fallout76custom.ini as a seperate mod. The way I do it is save the image as .dds in photoshop then repack it again in a ba2 file then add the mod to the game and boom, my map replaced with mappalachia one.

I'm a massive code illiterate so I'm sorry if this feature is not that easy to implement, just wanted to share my method :D

[AHeroicLlama]

Export to ba2 has been raised before, I haven't looked into it much but my instinct is that jpeg>dds>ba2 will be a lot of work for very few users.
What I expect to do more likely is offer a more direct way to export in raw quality and then provide a guide for packing into ba2 using a third party tool, so users can do that themselves pretty easily, as you say you already know how to do yourself anyway.

[miish3lov]

Export to ba2 has been raised before, I haven't looked into it much but my instinct is that jpeg>dds>ba2 will be a lot of work for very few users. What I expect to do more likely is offer a more direct way to export in raw quality and then provide a guide for packing into ba2 using a third party tool, so users can do that themselves pretty easily, as you say you already know how to do yourself anyway.

UPDATE: I made a simple tutorial on how to replace the vanilla map with your own mappalachia map, If you'd like to add it in the readme or perhaps nexusmods: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRThQGu9GIQ

[AHeroicLlama]

Thanks for raising this - a feature to provide user-customisable file format and compression levels is now built in a development branch under commit c58f967
All going well, this feature will be included in the next major release.

[AHeroicLlama]

This has now been addressed in release 1.5.0.0