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

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

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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

 

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ChristianK

More maps with 10m Contourlines

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The elevation data for Europe are now very accurate in many areas thanks to flight laser scanning.
Wherever these data are freely available, @Sonny collects them, checks them and interweaves them with Jonathan de Ferranti‘s Viewfinder panoramic elevation data in the areas not yet scanned.

The result is a constantly growing set of elevation data, the best that could be achieved without paying licence fees at the moment.
The accuracy is good enough to make sense for contour lines at 10 meters vertical distance. (which was definitely not the case so far).

To make a long story short:
The following maps are now available with 10m contour lines (more will follow):

Alps, Alps_East, Alps_West, Pyrenees, Austria, CanaryIslands, Corse, Czech_Republic, Great_Britain, UK_Scotland, Ireland, Madeira, Mallorca_Ibiza, Malta, Sardegna, Sicilia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Luxembourg, UK_Wales, UK_LakeDistrict, UK_IsleOfMan, UK_Shetlands

Baden-Wuerttemberg, Bavaria

 

 

New and updated Maps:

The Alps-West now also includes the neighbouring Rhone Valley.
New map: BalticStates (Estonia, Latvi, Lithuania as complete map)

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ChristianK

New Country and State-Borders

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More and more boundaries are grouped in relations and thus cannot be reliably processed by the MapsForgeWriter. In the meantime this is like a TikTokChallenge = who manages to create as many completely unnecessary relations as possible. At the islands of the Canary Islands and Madeira, every beach on even the smalest islands is occupied by countless border relations – these have to be filtered out with great effort.
That’s why I have now written this relation resolution from scratch for

boundary=administrative and Admin_Level=1 to 4
Means: national borders and federal states.
…and try to filter out the nonsense relations…

Extreme improvements were made for maps of South America, here even national borders were missing.

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Tobias

Elevate: Locus special version deprecated

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As Locus has a very good mapsforge support for V4 maps since version 3.38 and doesn’t need a special file structure also, a special Locus version of the map style files isn’t necessary anymore.

Elevate LE, which is necessary for the legacy V3 maps, is still available as separate download on the Elevate page.

Double Elements: as Elevate now has a new clean file structure, with quick install the old Elements file remains in the theme folder and can still be chosen with the map style choser (in addition to the new version).

This can be solved easily:

  • The simplest way (installations from 03/10/19): just press long on the old Elements icon with the black sun and choose delete (as in the screenshot below)
  • For installations between 30/09/19 and 02/10/19: delete both Elements installation by two long presses on the desert symbols, and install Elevate again via quick install
  • Delete with a file explorer all not needed files in the directory “/Locus/mapsVector/_themes/” on the internal SD card (or which custom theme directory was chosen in Locus); all files and folders with “ele” in the name except the folder “Elevate”; if you delete too much, just use quick install again

 

/4 Comments/by
ChristianK

Last update for the old “V3” Maps

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For most of you there are no changes ’cause 95% of OpenAndroMaps users already use the multilingual maps.

As already announced some time ago, we are now finally switching to the multilingual maps and drop support for the old V3-Maps. These have been around since 2015/16 and I think that 3 years is sufficient to say goodbye to old specifications and open new resources for new developments.

The development of the Mapsforge vector library is progressing and we would like to share with you the advantages and new features. We are working on a new version of the OpenAndroMaps which will be enhanced and modernized especially in the field of cycle- MTB- and hiking routes.

For this it is necessary to drop old Balast.

The 270 V3 maps will be updated in the next 3 weeks and will be available for download by January 2020.
Of course, the download pages will also be adapted accordingly. For now the separate download button for the POIs will be kept – although the POIs are included in the ZIP archives of the maps.

EndOfLife V3-Karten

Best regards

Team of OpenAndroMaps

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Tobias

Elevate 4 Update, additional license and discontinuation of Elevate 2

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There’s a new Elevate update after a while. With Elevate 4.3 there are new optional overlays: in the city map style small ways like paths and tracks can be switched off, so the map will be more clear and is better usable for motorists. In hiking resp. cycling/MTB it is now possible to mark paths and tracks where the usage by foot/bike is permitted – this is important in countries where usage is forbidden/private in the first place. Also in cycling now ways are marked especially which are allowed for cycling, but are maybe too steep/rough. And as always some smaller changes.

Some time ago an additional license was added, so Elevate can now be used commercially (but then changing it isn’t allowed). As Elevate is now the main mapstyle for OpenAndroMaps and not the Andromaps mapstyles, and not an additional exclusive one.

Elevate 2 is now deprecated and won’t be updated anymore, as it was already announced in the forum. Most apps, like c:geo recently, now support mapsforge rendertheme V4 mapstyles with mapstyle menus, therefore the parallel development doesn’t make much sense anymore.

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ChristianK

2018 – Contourlines, Cycle-Lanes, Peaks, Places, Mapborders….

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Finally its snowing, not that much but more like a real winter than the 20°C we hat here in Austria in October.
So outdoor cycling and season is more or less over and time to look back and report the improvements for OAM Maps in 2018.

Most innovations and improvements are the result of suggestions from the forum.
So I recommend to take a look at the forum area from time to time.
Click here for the forum topic “Elevate News” where @Tobias constantly reports the numerous improvements of the Elevate / Elements rendertheme.

This works without registration. If you want to register please make sure to use a “reputable” email address – the spam filter is strict cause otherwise I have to delete not 5 but 500 fake / spam registrations every day.

So here are the most important improvements for the OpenAndroMaps 2018:

– Mapborders: Skipped / missing Relations (white lakes eg.)

The problem was that rendering of OSM Objects like roads, forrests, lakes, rivers,.. was completely skipped when these objects exeeded the mapborders.
@Steffen, a “C” programmer who supported the OAM Team with his knowledge for several times, compiled a special Version of OSMCONVERT that  now _really_ works on Windows7/64 and preserves these objects. So now lakes are blue even when these exeed the map-coverage. Most important is this for the Great Lakes in Canada an Africa.
And – now its possible to simplify map borders with a better coverage cause map borders now can cut through lakes without loosing details.

– Map-Coverage:

For most of the 280 maps the coverage / mapborders have been simplfied.
This looks much better, the problems for rendering objects at the borders are reduced – lots of work but for 90% done now.

– Priority for rendering places and data-cleanup for peaks:

@Michael has finished a monster-project. He worked through all “places” in the OSM database and assigned kategories to places depending on the population of these places. This means assignement of places to zoom-levels now is much more accurate than before – this a huge improvement.
Second @Michael has worked through all “peaks” and cleared all foulty ele-tags like elevations set in “feet” cleared to “meter”, eliminated wired chars… – so now the algorithms from @MaxBe work on a clean databbase resulting in accurate rendering of peaks and saddles.

– Cycle Lanes / Oneway

Improved rendering of several more variants of cycle-lanes in conjunction with “oneway”

– Contourlines

@Sonny has firther improves the integration of free LIDAR (Laser) elevation data.
For detail maps of Great Britain we spipped from Viwefinder3 elevation data to the improved NASA SRTMV3 1″ Dataset with 10m contourlines:

  • UK_Scotland
  • UK_Wales (new)
  • UK_LakeDistrict (new)
  • Ireland

– Lots of minor improvements

Like rendering of house_numbers assigned to Relations,
Map of Pyrenees now covers whole Northern Spain from Atlantic to Mediterranean Sea so hikers on the Jakonsweg need only one, small map for Northern Spain,
….

 

The OAM-Team wish you a pleasant a Winter!

 

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