Generating world maps in map items

Hey, I was looking at making a plugin to generate a map wall like this with a command but I can't find a way to generate a map for an area. I found org.bukkit.map.MapCanvas.drawImage(int x, int y, Image image), which isn't helpful unless i can get the map image from somewhere. Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

*push*

 

http://forums.bukkit.org/threads/class-render-custom-images-in-minecraft-v1-2.241941/ this is a resource where you can print an image from the internet on a map, I'm not sure if you want to print an image from the internet on a map, but if you don't you can still look at the source and you might find out how to draw something on a map

 

I know how to draw an arbitrary image on a map, but my question was if there's a way to trigger the natural Minecraft map generation on map items, as if triggered by a player at a point.

 

I'm curious about this, too .. I think there must be a way, but I haven't been able to figure it out myself.