ChristianK

Locus: too much Elevate Themes in Themeswitcher

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Hi, we recently changed the scipted delivery of the Elevate/Elements Theme while installing the maps from this website.

Up to now the Elevate Theme was downloaded, unzipped and installed to [internalMemory]/Locus/mapsVector/_themes/elevate/
From now on the Theme is downloaded and the zip file copied to [internalMemory]/Locus/mapsVector/_themes/ AND it is not unzipped couse Locus can handle the Theme as zip much faster than a bunch of scattered grapfics.

Reason: Android11 is dead slow while reading lots of graphics but can handle them fine if inside a zip-file.
Noone knows why they have changed this, but – yeah….

So: if you already have the Elevate Theme as unzipped version in [internalMemory]/Locus/mapsVector/_themes/elevate/
AND
Install the new, faster, zipped Android 11 Elevate Theme you have:

TWO Elevate and TWO Elements Themes in your Locus Themeswitcher.
Nice, indeed – and I cant solve this by scripting cause I can’t delete files on your divices.

However: Its easy to solve this problem:
Install a FileManager like the Totalcommander https://play.google.com/store/search?q=totalcommander&c=apps , go to [internalMemory]/Locus/mapsVector/_themes/ and completely delete the “Elevate” folder.

Edit: With new Android Versions it’s possible that the theme is in the PrivateAppFolder, or wherever ……

 

Have a nice summer
Christian

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ChristianK

It’s Summer ….

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… which also means for the OAM team that the sports gear will be taken out and various projects planned for the winter will be tackled – be it with the bike, in the mountains or whatever.

The main thing is to get out into nature again!

You will probably meet me in June/July in Norway/Sweden/Finland, my beloved Scandinavia, on a white scooter. Unfortunately, I am no longer able to cycle for health reasons – anyway, never mind.
The Eurovelo NR1 leads through Norway along the most beautiful back roads along the coast, and thus also on the scooter, to the Nordkapp – of course also on this tour with the OpenAndroMaps and the BRouter.

The major summer update will therefore be rendered 2-3 weeks later, in mid/late July.

I am leaving on this holiday with a healthy conscience because…
The OAM project is on solid ground:

  • I have eliminated all programme fragments
  • many scripts have been rewritten from scratch and made clean
  • cleaned up the structure
  • the all tools have been changed towards licence-free
  • simplified the web hosting and paid for it 2 years in advance
  • all changes are _immediately_ transferred to a backup box at Hetzer via RSynch
  • Tobias and Michael, my two companions, have all the access data and a completely set-up test system.

Have a nice summer
the OAM team

 

/2 Comments/by
ChristianK

LOCUS: IMPORTANT Update to Version 3.56.5 / 4.5.7

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Google has once again complicated access to the SD card in Android 11 = it takes forever to decompress a render theme with the many individual files it contains for storrage on the SD card.

 

It is absolutely necessary that
Locus Pro users update to version 3.56.5
Locus 4 users update to version 4.5.7
even if they are NOT using Android 11.

 

Version check: LocusApp > Main menu > AppInfo

From next week on we have to save the render themes as zip on the smartphone and NOT unzip them. This requires the new Locus version, no matter which version of Android is used and no matter if the SD card is used or not.

/2 Comments/by
ChristianK

Merry Christmas with the new V5-Maps

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The already announced new map generation is now ready to be released for download.
With this new generation, fundamental design weaknesses such as common hike/cycle route names or fragmentation of MTB routes in some cases have been resolved.

The new features meant a deep impact on the production structure of the maps.
New hardware on which the new V5 Mapsforge Writer from EMUX runs smoothly and a complete rewrite of most software was necessary.

Here are the new features in a nutshell:

  • The MTB routes are now rendered independently and according to categories (like the cycle routes) – this means that interregional MTB routes such as in the UK or the Granittrail in the Waldviertel are prominently highlighted.
  • Overlaps between bike and MTB routes are now neatly resolved.
  • Short names of MTB/bike/hike routes are now separated
  • The links between route nodes (NL) are now rendered later on
  • Dozens of OSMC hiking symbols are added….

What needs to be done on your side: An update to the render theme – when installed directly on Android in Locus, the theme is installed/updated automatically.

Thank you for your feedback during the beta test, where a profound bug was discovered and fixed.

 

Have a peaceful Christmas,
We wish you good health and beautiful walks in the winter-snow

The team of OpenAndroMaps
Tobias, Michael, Christian

 

/6 Comments/by
ChristianK

Emergency relocation of OAM-Website

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Unfortunately, the cloud server has completely crashed, and restoring the existing backups did not help either.

I have now moved the website to a normal web space and will try to get the whole thing up and running again tomorrow.

At the moment, there will probably be problems with the redirects – this mainly concerns the direct install on Android.
This will also be taken care of tomorrow in the course of the day.

Sorry for the trouble.

PS: The registrations and forum posts of the last 24h are unfortunately also lost, sorry.

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ChristianK

New Render-PC in operation, new V5-Beta-Maps

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Many thanks to all the donors who
made the new equipment possible

The new rendermachine is running since this morning and is currently being fed with the latest Planet-File. The aim is to put new maps under the Christmas tree for our community. At the same time, these maps are being completely renovated.

Test maps and a beta version of the new Elevate redertheme are available here:

https://www.openandromaps.org/oam-forums/topic/elevate-updates-and-test-versions-news/page/5/#post-45699

Whats new, in a nutshell:

  • The MTB routes are now rendered independently and by category (like the cycle routes) – this means that supra-regional MTB routes such as in the UK or the Granittrail in the Waldviertel are highlighted prominently.
  • Overlaps between bike and MTB routes are now neatly resolved
  • Short names of MTB/bike/hike routes are now separated, this is only now possible with the fast rendermachine and Mapsforge V5
  • The connections between route nodes (NL) are now rendered later at higher zoom levels for better overview
  • Dozens of OSMC hiking symbols are added
  • etc..
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ChristianK

Excel becomes LibreOffice-Calc at OAM

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Many people might ask themselves: “Why Excel for an OSM map project?
Well, with OAM there is a stock of around 270 maps to manage with the most diverse settings.

For example, map symbols for petrol stations and drinking water sources in urban areas appear only at much higher zoom levels than in Scandinavia – for this, there is also the ELEMENTS theme by Tobias, which takes this into account. This means that different tag mappings have to be created and assigned to individual maps.
But also such trivial things as map centres, languages, fineness of elevation data, allocation to render queues (load balancing) have to be managed. Corresponding start-up programmes for each individual production step such as conversion of file formats, creation of boundary polys, elevation data, sea areas, inheritance of bike/MTB/hike routes etc,etc. – belong to !automated! production.

Last but not least, the web pages must be regenerated after each update.

This is impossible to do manually, so far Excel-VBA programmes in combination with PERL scripts have done most of the hard work.

 

For about 10 days now, I have been sitting in front of the computer every free minute and porting VBA to Starbasic. Porting means cleaning up 9 years of organically grown programmes and simply rewriting them, leaving out my beloved PERL for pure administration jobs.
In addition, a flexible folder structure was implemented to allow porting to other machines and effective load balancing/caching.

 

With the switch to a free office package and the cleaning up of the programmes, it is now much easier for my co-authors to familiarise themselves with map production in OpenAndroMaps. 

 

The first maps rolled out today from the LibreCalc generated start scripts, the automated creation of the download pages will be addressed next week.

 

New rendering machine: Thank you very much for your donations – most of the parts for the PC have arrived and are awaiting assembly, which will be started after the next map update if there are no unexpected problems with the software port.
For me this is a great reassurance as it means that the test computer will go to @Michael and thus 10 years of accumulated knowledge about vector maps will be preserved.

 

There will be more detailed information about the new render machine.
Here in a nutshell: AMD Ryzen 5600G, 128GB RAM, ASUS MB, 2TB 970evo Plus as standard drive, 1TB Toshiba SSD for the planet extracts and height data, NOCTUA fans, new semi-passive power supply, as well as various used parts from the spare and new fans for the old case.
Should my time run out, this computer will also go to @Michael.

best wishes and stay healthy
Christian

 

/1 Comment/by
ChristianK

New System für Test and Development

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Dear OAM community,

Summer is slowly giving way to a colorful autumn and I have a new test system on my desk.
The old “system”, an ancient Lenovo T410 from the stone age has really become too small, even for testing purposes, and often goes into thermal emergency shutdown.
So I bought a used ASrock Deskmini which was used as a game server.
With a super-efficient Intel i3-8100T and 64gb of (new) RAM as well as some older spare parts plus a few new parts, a quite performant system was created, which is also quite environmentally friendly and quiet.
The 500€ that this system cost (260€ only the RAM) came mostly from reserves of your donations.

What is currently happening is the conversion of all scripts to Windows10 and here to a large extent to WSL, the integrated Linux environment of WIN10 which, believe it or not, is actually quite mature. Now finally the, often buggy and specially adapted, Windows versions of Phyghtmap, osmconvert, osmfilter and especially everything based on GDAL/Python – can run native and always UpToDate in the Linux shell of Win10.
The effort for the conversion is unfortunately considerable, Python2 scripts e.g. do not run any more and must be rewritten, Windows has also naturally again some new bugs.

A word to the users in the forum: I have made myself a bit rare in the forum, unfortunately my resources are limited due to my health. To say it clearly: My arteries are unfortunately quite dense.

Therefore, as soon as the conversion to Win10/WSL is completed, the production system will be updated to a new motherboard + an AMD RYZEN + 128gb RAM and the development system will be transferred to the production machine.
Unfortunately we still need about 1200€ – so if you have some money left over from your christmas bonus it would help us a lot 😉 .

The development computer will be handed over to @Michael who has been developing the OAM world maps for years and as an old IT-professional has the best prerequisites.
Michael will familiarize himself with the (by no means trivial) creation of the OAM maps and, in the long run, will also take over this task.

Health and nice autumn tours
Christian and the small team of OpenAndroMaps

/1 Comment/by
ChristianK

The summer is here = Traveling time for Admins

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Dear OAM community,

In a nutshell:
I had been struggling with health problems for quite a while this year. I would like to say  THANK’s to my comrades-in-arms Tobias and Michael who have kept up the support here.

I am now looking forward to a long overdue holiday trip which I will start next week and which will – hopefully – take me to the far north.

Which means that the next map update, any bug fixes and improvements will continue in August (at the moment the computer is runnig full speed and every map rendered until Friday will be uploaded). I hope for your understanding.

BTW:
Looking back on the first half of the year, a lot of improvements have been made to the maps – and Sonny has been busy adding the LIDAR elevation contours.
The Scandinavia_North map will be replaced by a Scandinavia_NorthEast map. From now on the maps Scandinavia_SouthWest + Scandinavia_NorthEast cover Scandinavia completely.

Until autumn, stay healthy and
(again) nice tours with the OAM
Christian

/3 Comments/by
Tobias

Elevate 4.5 adds improved mapstyle options and symbols

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Elevate 4.5With the new Elevate 4.5, there are lots of changes to the displayed POI symbols and captions. There are now more colors which depend on categories that are identical to the POI options. The categories have been resorted and all symbols have a more unified look. Also the mapstyle options now have category letters (R=Route, W=Ways, P=POIs, A=Areas). That all those changed symbols can be displayed at all I’ve renamed the symbol folder from ele_res to ele-res – the old one can be safely deleted.

You can download it here: https://www.openandromaps.org/kartenlegende/elevation-hike-theme

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