ChristianK

New hybrid maps of England/Scotland/Wales under the Christmas tree

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Anyone who has ever been hiking in the UK is familiar with the fantastic Landranger maps by OrdnanceSurvey(c).
For many years the dataset of these maps was under strict copyright – this has since changed and large parts are now freely available and can be added to other map series.

Details can be found in this thread from the forum:
https://www.openandromaps.org/oam-forums/topic/ordnance-survey-crag-detail-for-uk-maps

You can find this dataset from OrdnanceSurvey here:
https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/products/vectormap-district

Specifically, the OrdnanceSurvey layer with the cliffs/rocks is now integrated into the OpenAndroMaps maps, a milestone in terms of the visual appearance and usability of the OAM in this area.
The integration of complete foreign layers was quite a challenge, but – if you look at the result – it is worth every single work hour.

The now integrated crags-layer require the latest version of the Elevate Theme:
https://www.openandromaps.org/en/legend/elevate-mountain-hike-theme

Highly recommended is the Voluntary-Theme by John Percy whose look is very, very close to the OrdnanceSurvey Landranger maps it looks really fantastic.
https://www.openandromaps.org/oam-forums/topic/ordnance-survey-crag-detail-for-uk-maps#post-51501

 

This layer is now available for the following maps:

Great-Britain
UK-LakeDistrict
UK-Scotland
UK-Shetlands
UK-Wales

 

Thence…..

Another year has passed. This year even with largely open borders again, so my long planed Trip to Norway was without a headache this time.
I enjoyed it and in the hope that we will make 2023 a good year again let’s start planning our activities for 2023 over the Christmas holidays.
For this purpose you will find a completely new set of maps in the download section.

 

Thank you again for supporting the OAM
and I wish all of us a happy and peaceful 2023.

The team of OpenAndroMaps
Tobias, Michael, Christian

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ChristianK

USA+CDN now with 1″ Contourlines

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Viewfinderpanoramas.org has released high resolution 1″ elevation data for North America.
This means that for the USA and Canada a new OpenAndroMaps map set with more accurate contour lines is now available.

The file sizes have of course increased but the added value of information for hikers and cyclists outweighs this by far.
Especially ditches and ridges can be estimated much better with the 30m grid of the 1″ data than with the previous 90m grid of the 3″ elevation data.

The following maps were split to keep file sizes in reasonable limits:

BritishColumbia complete > BC/North + BC/South
UtahColorado > Utah + Colorado
CarolinaGeorgiaFlorida > CarolinaGeorgia + Florida

 

Best regards, Christian

/1 Comment/by
ChristianK

No longer need for “downloads.openandromaps.org”

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The download.openandromaps.org has been disabled and should not be necessary anymore since all links lead directly to the actual download server
https://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/misc/openstreetmap/openandromaps/

This subdomain was a relic from the early days of OpenAndroMaps before the University in Göttingen took over the hosting of the maps. In those days the download sources changed regularly (Megaupload, GDrive, etc..) and to provide a constant URL the downloads.openandromaps.org was set up – which itself never hosted any files but only forwarded to the actual hosters.
With GWDG as our longtime, free!!! map hoster, the subdomain has not been needed for quite some time.
If GWDG should ever withdraw their support for the OSM project, there is no alternative anyway, since the monthly traffic volume for OAM alone is in the terrabyte range.

So, no more downloads.openandromaps.org.

Please just use the links from the website and update your bookmarks

If any links on the OAM website are dangling in the air and still point to downloads.openandromaps.org – please post a message.

 

LG, Christian

 

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ChristianK

Problems with new webserver, Sorry

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Issue solved for now.

However, such a VPS is a maintenance-intensive, unstable, insecure thing.
… we need a performant webspace, managed by Professionals …

It would be my next goal to find a financially feasible solution.

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ChristianK

OAM Website moved to new server

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We have moved our site over to a VPS (again..)

I try to make the serviceability of this project as simple as possible in order to ensure a smooth handover to my CO-admins in case of….
However, a simple webspace for a website with 4000-6000 page views per day plus BBPress plus multilanguage is just too flimsy.

The delivery of the pages via cache was quite OK, but an important point – namely the interaction with our community, i.e. you, via forum was simply unbearably slow.

A managed server or a premium enterprise webspace is impossible to finance, so we decided to go for a VPS – with all its pitfalls.

Same time the major autumn update of the OAM maps is running, which will be uploaded one by one the next days.
And, by the way: Subscribing to forums and forum topics is working again!
If you have problems with the site please clear browser-cache and cookies for openandromaps.org

We wish all enjoyable tours in the hopefully sunny autumn.
Best regards, your OAM team

/3 Comments/by
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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