Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Love the new POI interface. Very nice, and makes it much easier to enter POIs. I've added several, and they all seem to work nicely. Well done! I also have been using modRana as my primary GPS for about 3 weeks, since my Magellan decided it wanted to pretend to be an N900 and spit out it's micro-USB connector (ripped right off the board... and it even had posts and everything....)

So, I have two old request, and three new requests to throw on the "to do" queue I hope? :)

Old:
1> Provide a user-editable replacement table/script for text->speech. (I'm still getting "park saint" and "lilly doctor" for park st and lilly dr. ;) )

2> Add a way to rename track logs (and/or route saves). It would make saving a track log that much easier. And yes, sometimes people save tracks and would like to use them as routes later. Having modRana "remind" me of a turn when driving in the dark can be quite helpful, even on a route I know well.

New:
1> Add a way to disable GPS while downloading maps. (Preferably a toggle button on the download page itself.) When I download maps, its usually for a large area overnight. No need to run the GPS while getting 500k tiles... You may also want to "nice" the process for grabbing tiles if you're getting a lot of them. (eg >20K)

2> A tool to create/look-at/modify the database for maps. (Remove/add map tiles at a set level, etc.) I'm sure I can load any SQLLite editor and use select commands to remove the entries by hand. But it would be easier to do this in a UI. (eg remove all tiles except those in levels 12 & 18.)

3> Repeat texts over voice a little more often for long spans. My old Magellan would tell me the instructions 3 times, with a 4th warning when the turn came. Once when I started on the path (after the previous turn), once at 5 miles out, and once at 2 miles out. Then it would "ding" or say "turn right/left" when I hit the fork. Seems right now I sometimes get a message mid-road, but not always. And the repeat before the turn is happening a hundred yards or so before the turn. Not helpful when going 60mph and it's telling you to exit at the exit you're passing. :)

This app has really come a long way in a little time. It's seriously at a level where it's better than the OVI maps already, which is saying something. Major thanks for all the work you've put into this. Is there a "donation" link somewhere I can hit? :)

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Unfortunately, the first log ends with
"Clicked, sending set:Menu:None
Menu knows menu changed"
but phone rebooted itself with modrana running. :/

The second log ends with
"Sending message: notification:7 tracks loaded in 6570.00 ms#1"
after it rebooted itself the second time with modrana running. So, i can confirm 100% modrana is causing reboots, but unfortunately not offer any details on why.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

There is text document somewhere in /opt/modrana...
named
directions_filter.csv
Yes, graphical user interface for it would be welcome.

There is a way to set name to the log _before_ you record it. Yes, an option to rename existing logs could be useful.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

There actually a CSV file that does this since a few versions back:
/opt/modrana/data/directions_filter.csv
Its content is like this:
Basically just a target and substitute, separated by semicolon, one pair per line. You can just edit this file and add your own lines for now, but I guess that doing this from the GUI should be quite easy to add.
NOTE:
I don't really know how the package manager handles installed files, that were user modified, so I'll advice to backup your changes to this files in case it is overwritten by the next version.

Also, EVERYBODY:
Tell me which substitution pairs should I add to the default set !

OK, renaming should be quite easy to add. Storing driving directions for tracklogs should be also doable by basically storing the routing messages in GPX description tags :D

OK, I have added a ticket for this. A (by default disabled) sound notification of a finished batch download. Preferably a creepy "Sir, your tiles are ready." espeak message :D

Why not :) This might be quite complex to add, but fragments like showing how many tiles per layer are stored or visual map source management might show quite soon. Tile update could be also integrated into this (most map servers supply "last modified" in tile metadata, this might be used to update old tiles).

There should be two warnings per point, but it is possible that some warnings are just skipped. This is because Espeak can of course say only one message at a time, therefore messages that come while it is speaking are just skipped, as they would be obsolete by the time it finishes. This might happen when there are many turns in short succession.

Why are there just two messages ?
The first on triggers in predefined distance, supplied by Google together with the routing messages (make sure you are in the car mode when getting the route), the second once you enter the "capturing radius" of the turning point.

A quick way of adding more messages might be by just adding the more messages of the first sort with multiplies of the predefined triggering distance.

A more robust but more difficult is to use a custom current speed depended triggering distance estimation. Then it might be possible to even specify a rough time interval (say 120s,60s,20s before turn) for the warnings.

Thanks! :) I have added a donation button to the modRana project website. And there is a donation link on the bottom of the first post of this thread.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

"set:Menu:None" means that you just went to the map view. BTW, does the freezes or reboots always occur while looking at/manipulating the map or also while in menu ? BTW, were you in fullscreen when the reboot happened ?

This message occurs after batch loading of tracklogs is completed. Batch loading is mostly used by the track drawing code, to quickly load all tracks that need to be drawn. Maybe you can try if modRana reboots when there are no tracks with enabled drawing ?

BTW, I find it still pretty weird that just a simple application can freeze, let alone reboot the whole device...

I have tried some little stress testing (PR1.3, vanilla):

• started a 1,7 K tile download
• did a "draw all on tracklogs", including one 2000 km long one
• let it sit a while

Nothing strange happened, the device only got slightly warm. I have also used it to play music the whole time, without a single hiccup (they really did a great job at this in PR1.3!).
I guess I'll have to do more testing then.

(This does not mean that I have never seen modRana freeze the device, but its quite a while since this happened to me last time. On the other hand, my N900 recently restarted while the Nokia pano ap was processing a new panorama.)

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

I've had panaroma lock my device in the same way. I think the defect is in the OS, but unfortunately manifests itself in unpredictable ways while using apps.

Both times the reboot happened while the screen was locked. It takes long enough to trigger that i've never had it happen while actively using modrana. I share the logs to show that nothing unexpected was happening. In the first case it showed the menu message because i closed out the menu after enabling the log. The second log reflects just the initial loading of the tracks i have, which it does every time.

I will try disabling the tracks and see if it helps. I first starting seeing the freezes/reboots when i started using the track feature, but that wasn't long after i started using modrana, so that may not mean anything.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

How so? I looked for a way to do it, but didn't see a way to.

Awesome to know there's a file to change the filter. Btw: If user changes happen, the app manager will make a backup and then replace it with the package contents by default. apt-get will prompt and ask what to do. :)

Will do, once I play with it, make some changes and test. :)

Awesome. :) Was hoping both would be easy. I've been renaming them in xterms for now, but having it in-GUI would be nice. Also having it save routing messages in the GPX seems a sane thing to do, just in case it's used as a route again. Is there a way to load a GPX as a route? I see a way to load it as a track log, and to activate the track, but not a way to call it a route so that voice directions can be started?

This is good. I think part of the random reboots some of us are seeing are related to GPS usage. :( I've had 3 random reboots since the PR 1.3 update, once while using the camera (with geo tagging on), once in Modrana while getting lots of tiles, and once while running bariosquare, all use GPS. If we turn that off during a long download it would also save battery quite a bit. :)

That all sounds great. :) I'm just thinking it would be handy for cases where +/- gets bumped and it caches some tiles outside the range I normally use, etc. In the old method I could just nuke the offending folders. Not so easy with a database.

I've seen that behavior, but that's not what I mean. For example, theres a trip I take weekly that routes me onto a highway for about 20 miles, then another for 5. This past weekend I took it with ModRana on. On getting onto the highway there was no notice about how long I was going to be on (except for the very small text in the re-route box). At 1.6 miles before my exit, it told me the display text. And again as I was on the exit ramp minutes later it re-read the display text, then told me to exit, then read the new text for the upcoming turn. The next segment was 5 miles, and I got no further warning until I was in the turn that I should turn.

Optimally, I would have preferred a read of the text near the beginning of the highway entry, at about 2 miles before exit (did that part well once), and just before the exit. :)

I know it can be tough to guess at how far before an exit to announce. Generally I've found the value (750 * (mph/10)) yards works well. ;) But putting in an announce point about 2 miles before a turn on any segment over 2.5 miles would seem a pretty easy thing to do, which would help a lot for those of us using it for longer stretches.

Awesome! Ironically, this will be the third GPS app I've made a contribution to for the N900. When put together I probably could have purchased a cheep dedicated GPS online. :rolleyes: Ah well.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Yes, really looks like an OS issue, but I wonder if there are some possible workarounds.
I'll add more priority to finally implementing the "is the window visible" detection, which would enable stopping the drawing pipeline when the screen is locked or when modRana is running in the background and its window is not visible. Mappero reportedly works like this.
This might help, if the lockups/restarts are graphics or load dependent and should also save some power :)

There is a "enter name" button next to the "tools" button in the log menu for this.
It is currently only possible to name the log before hitting the start button, not after logging is running. This is quite impractical, so I guess I'll add rename-while-logging when I get to it :)
Good to know, thanks ! :)
BTW, what about the graphical front-ends ? I wonder whether they show the prompt too...
Normal GPX files normally don't have the needed routing info, so its not possible to use them for a meaningful turn-by-turn navigation.
For navigation you basically need:

• some points from the track designated as turns
• routing messages for turns - "turn left", etc. - this is what espeak reads
• optionally some additional info, like recommended trigger distances for the voice messages, estimated remaining time, etc

Provided I manage to cram all theses needed info together with the track when saving a route, the resulting GPS file should be usable for navigation in the same manner as the online routes.

I have summarized the possible improvements to a new ticket.
Basically:

• make the remaining distance text bigger and easier to read
• maybe also add a graphical indicator, to show howm much remains from the current segment
• add more routing mesages
  • a "next turn in N km" after entering a new segment (without turn description, as this might trigger right after the last routing message for the previous turn - it might be confusing to hear two different routing messages in such a short order)
  • hardcoded message triggers at 2 and 1 km from the next
• near term support for current-speed-aware trigger distances

Did I forget something ? :)

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Just to chip in, I have not used modrana in a while (have not taken a long drive) but I too experienced multiple lock up have to remove the battery issues. I think if I recall it happened mostly when calculating a route.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Ah.. I was talking about renaming the saved gpx files made for when you get a route from online, not the logs you make yourself, though that is handy to know too. :)

I know HAM does not. I don't use FAM, so I don't know about that one. HAM makes a backup of the existing file (with a .dpkg-dist extension) and replaces it with the one contained in the package. (This is why the PR1.3 update reset lots of people's customizations for LED patterns and camera setting...)

Yeah.. I picked that up from last time... Though even if you saved it as a track log with just and indicator of turn points (even without text) it would be enough to "bing" or such when coming close to a turn. But finding a way to save the turn text and such would be nice as well.

What format does it come in from the route server as? Maybe you can just save it in that format (with it's own extension) for later loading. I wouldn't mind having a difference between routes and logs, especially if I can make a route (say on Goggle maps) and export it in some way that modRana would understand.

Looks nice, except for one tweak. I was thinking the alerts would be more like 10k and 2k out, vs 2k and 1k. When you're going 100kmhr, 2k isn't much warning, especially on a multi-lane highway. It can take 3 or 4K just to get over to the proper lane sometimes.

This is all "icing on the cake" as it were. I love where it's at right now (esp with the POI stuff working so well).

In the not too distant future (Thanksgiving-ish) I may have some time to work on porting a tile server to the N900. If so, it could act as a local server (backup) for non-networked usage. I've made some pretty extensive changes to an opensource tile server for a group I've been working with, and think it may be pretty doable to get it up and running on here. :)

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

This might actually be a separate issue, at least sometimes.
ModRana does not actually calculate routes, but asks an online service. ModRana currently waits for a reply and the GUI freezes while it waits.
The reply usually comes instantly on a good connection, but it can take a while on a slow one. This means that the modRana interface might freeze for up to 30 seconds (current connection timeout value) if the query or the result gets lost.
Thats clearly not ideal and I am going to implement the queries in a separate thread. There should also be a "getting route" overlay with a cancel button.

OK, I can make it to show a pre-filled entry box when saving online routes, like when saving online POI.

I get them from the GoogleMaps module as a nested python dictionary. IMO, it would be quite easy to serialize it to and from a file. But I'd rather integrate it with the current tracklogs, than add a third way to represent a track to modRana :)

Good point, I'll also add a 10k trigger then :)

Well, that sounds very interesting ! :)

I already see quite a few things to do with it: :)

• using tiles from the local tileserver without saving them (provided the rendering is fast enough) could save quite a lot space as the vector data for the map server should be quite small in comparison to saving tiles for a whole area
• automatic switch to the local tileserver when the remote on becomes unavailable (+ manual override)
• download and manage vector data for the tileserver directly from the device
• different tile styles (night, bike optimized, etc) - if the server supports it
• generate tiles with transparent background for using as overlay - (I have actually yet to see an OSS tile layer with total transparency :)

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Hmm.. interesting. I get why you'd want to filter it down, but if you already have support to read in the other format... How hot would it be to be able to actually use that "send to phone" button on Google. ;)

The problem isn't in the tile generation, but rather the overhead in the search for objects in the spacial area. (Said another way, drawing is fast, querying a spacial area on a database with millions of objects isn't.) One optimization I've been working on is a way to pre-feed it a shape file for caching that data for use in subsequent requests. That's handy, since it can then create a sub-set of the data it needs for a given segment and use that for future requests without doing another request. For modRana, you could make a crude shape file for route (say route +/-2k) and use that to speed up the process quite a bit.

Even if it's too slow to do real time, it could do things like filling gaps the existing tile cache for a route. With a little adaptation, it could take the route shape, find existing/missing tiles, and generate just the missing ones. If you have even partial coverage, it may be able to keep up that way at least.

I've worked with two that have it, including the one I'm working on now. In PNG format, you can even make RGBA files, with A being the transparency level. (So you could make maps with 100% background transparency, 40% road transparency, and features (like rail road tracks or labels) at 0% so they stand out.

The hard part is getting/massaging the vector data into a format that it likes. And vector data isn't always small... the global vector map I'm working with right now is near 7G. Nothing compared to tiles, I know.. but... :p

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

I was testing the latest version of modrana extensively on the road today. It worked surprisingly well. Didn't have problems with downloading new tiles on the fly and keeping direction.

The biggest problem was the GUI rotation is not working. No matter, if set to automatic, portrait, or landscape, it was landscape. Which is a problem when driving, as you want to see far ahead, so you should be able to set it to portrait.

Am I right in assuming that this feature is not implemented yet and just has an options menu entry prematurely. Or is there a problem?

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Further testing, I think modrana has a serious problem with rerouting.

When routing is running and there's the blue box saying 'tap me to reroute', I'd tap it, it says rerouting, then it seems a new route is retrieved from google - not sure about it, as it was the same route I was following - but then the interface in stuck, i.e. the car position is updated on the map, but the display doesn't react to touches...

The N900 doesn't freeze though, as I could close modrana via the X button in the corner.

The above "freeze" occured many times in a row as I tried. so it's not a random error.

Also, maybe there is some problem with routing: i.e. I routed to some point, I was already driving there, as I know where it's at. I was on this long, many km stretch without turns. After I got on it, hit 'start navigation' from the closest point which was some 200 m already past, as I was on the road, and now as I kept driving, the blue box kept showing me next turn, which was the first turn, i.e. to get on the longest stretch of the road, and the distance to it was growing, i.e. ran up into several km.

So maybe it should not be closest point to start nav from, but closest next point, as then as in this case it can lead to strange results.

Finally, I think if you route to somewhere, navigation should be started by default. i.e. you shouldn't have to press the option to start navigation.

Please don't take this as criticism, Martin. I think you are doing the greatest job and this app kicks ***.

Edit: BTW, these three stars were added automatically by the system, replacing the text I typed, WTF?

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

<offtopic>the forum will replace any word that is not appropriate with these stars.</offtopic>

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Hmmm, in fact I'm fairly certain the problem lay in navigation, not rerouting.

Tested further, and now didn't even get to the blue box, saying recalculate. When I enter the data I want to route to, I see the route, now hitting 'start navigation', gets me into the same "freeze", i.e. the car position is updated, until it runs of the map, as it's not autocentered after touching the screen. But then modrana doesn't react to keypresses.

It's not really freezing the system, as the CPU load doesn't rise, modrana can be closed, but it's dead to input.

Left it like that for a couple of minutes, in hopes it'd pick up, but didn't. Before, the blue box also didn'h display right away, but in the end it did, but not now. Same problem a couple of times, so it's a recurring behavior.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

You mean this ? I guess its just a preformated SMS containing an URL to the results ?

The batch download feature already basically creates something like a shapefile + downloads only tiles, that are not available locally. It should be quite easy modify it, to create an actual shapefile, send it to the tileserver and then request only the tiles it needs. It also works not only for routes but for any arbitrary location + bounding box.
Also, if your tileserver provides tiles through http, the current asynchronous download code could be used (it would wait for the tiles to be ready without blocking the GUI, etc.).
The only downside would be, that the tiles would be actually stored and would take up space.

The other possibility I see, provided the tile rendering is fast enough once an area is cached, is to integrate something like an "area manager":

• mark an area for caching (like a 4km bbox around your area)
• modRana creates a shapefile, sends it to the tileserver
• tileserver notifies modRana once it finishes caching
• tiles for the area would be generated on the fly and cached in a ringbuffer, say max 1000 tiles (provided that the server does some caching, this might not be needed)
• users would get an "this are is not activated, do X to activate" error tiles outside of the cached area
• I assume, that a smaller area means a faster working tileserver, so there would be a "total area" counter + warnings if the area is bigger than a given size
• it would be possible to list,name, delete, shrink or enlarge active areas

Well, thats not bad at all ! To have a map of the whole planet in your pocket :) Well, this probably means the OSM coverage is still lacking in some areas if it is only 7 GB :D

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

re the file doenload feature.

are we downloading the map ?????

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Automatic/manual GUI rotation is implemented and should be working.

ModRana currently waits for the routing results to arrive, so the GUI does not update before the new route arrives.
I'am actually working right now on making the routing asynchronous + cancellable.

Yes this is known and happens the way you describe (missing the nearest point while moving during reroute).
I am thinking about this fix:

• find nearest turn
• check if the distance from the nearest point increases for 5 seconds
• if it does, switch to next turn

This should catch most cases of this occuring.
Let me know if you can think of some cases when this would fail, or if you find some other algorithm for this :)
OK, I can add an option for this, something like "start automatically on new route" to the options->navigation submenu.

This looks like a partial crash of the modRana, there might be something in stdout about it. BTW, you can enable modRana stdout logging from "options->debgu->log stdout to file". ModRana wil then create a log of its stdout output to the MyDocs/modrana_debug_log folder on each start.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Hmmm... so something weird going on on my side then...
This'd be the way I'd think of it, the only question is about the number of seconds, i.e. 5 might too big of a time delay while moving in a car, but it's not too big of a deal. But if you'd have a succession of quick turns, you might be a turn behind constantly, so you might wanna pick a shorter interval.

Please do, I think this is really the default behavior for navigation, so if you can have an option to set it to this, then great.

OK, I'll try to experiment with this to see what's cookin', also might get some clues as to what's up with the rotation on my side...

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

All the available OVI maps data (which includes POIs) takes up about 5.5GB of space.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Hey Martin:

Happy Nameday :O)

OK, thanks to this I was able to really see what's going on, quite helpful.

Autorotation depends on python-osso but modrana doesn't have it as a depend. You should update the package info. Once python-osso is installed, works no prob.

With the partial crash, I think I see what's going on and why it gets stuck:
and it basically goes on and on with the same instruction.

I'm in Russia now and using Mapnik as the source, it quite nicely has all the streetnames in Russian. I assume however that espeak does not know how to handle this UTF-8 text, since the lang isn't specified and so it seems it gets stuck on reiterating the same instruction. Nothing comes out of the speaker, i.e. nothing is said, and the blue box doesn't appear.

I was successful a couple of times in getting the blue box with instructions to appear, I assume this must've been where the directions were not in UTF-8, for a lack of a streetname in Russian or what have you. Nothing was said though. And then when I hit reroute, it'd say 'rerouting' and then get stuck, probably on the Russian directions.

If this is the case and programming in the language support would be too big of a task, I'd just recommend hacking in to skip saying the streetnames if they are in UTF-8 and just say 'turn' 'in' '80' 'meters' so that it'd still work and not have probs.

You must've the same probs in Czech though...

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

One would hope. The nice part is that it would allow one to customize the route in a GUI drag/drop environment on line, then send that specific route (with turn by turn) to the phone. Handy for those routes where one must re-route the default Google route because it uses a seasonal road that's closed, or has holes larger than your car. :eek:

And yes, I live in a place with both multi-lane urban highways, and rural seasonal "roads" that have 2m+ divots in the road. Lucky me, eh?

It has that as an option (via a cgi tie-in, so something like lighttpd may work), but can also gen them via command line as well.

And that's the million dollar question. For now, stage 1 will be make it work and see how quickly we can pump tiles. Then we can look at what stage 2 will be. :) Who knows, it may just work fast enough to be a raw server with minimal (ram) tile caching. Or, it could be so slow that it's unworkable completely. Won't know till it's setup. :)

Yeah... Not too bad. But eatting 1/4 of your free space to have local maps kinda sucks. I'm sure I can break it out by major area (Americas, Europe, Australia, etc), which will at least help cut it in half for most people. Can't wait to start on this project now... but have to wait to get free time to do so. Soon though! :)

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Hi Martin,
Awesome application, big credit to you for the time and energy that you are putting into this !!

I have been trialling ModRana in the past few days based on your advice (and PM), and brilliant assistance from another thread on Mapping, I have loaded Nautical maps as one of my repositories and use this (overlayed to Google Satellite) whilst out on the water to record tracks, mark fishing spots/POI's and understanding the depth/terrain of the current position (based on map data).

Some Questions:

1) How is the screen blanking controlled/determined? What conditions/setting would keep the screen on? (probably userguide related so let me know if I can find this already somewhere)

2) I have a POI DB with 2044 marks. Navigating through these easily is difficult in Modrana (long list). Is there an easy way to keyword search the POI's loaded or Display the nearest POI's to your location from the db ?

I'll keep testing and let you know of my thoughts. I'm thinking a 'Boat' mode could be cool, it would seem this is easily achieved with your customizable interface.

Well done, and thank you !

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Install the simple brightness applet, it has option that allows you to keep the screen on.

This thread is the user guide ;)

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Hey, thanks ! :D

OK, I have added python-osso to the dependencies :)

I think I have fixed the issue in the current unreleased version:
I looked through the routing API definition and found how to request directions in more languages, including Russian.
So I can get native directions in some language + make espeak use the same language for voice output. Google provides directions in more languages than Espeak supports. I have therefore added only languages that are supported both by Google and espeak.

These languages will be supported:
I have faked my current location to Moscow and tried to do some routing, no crashes so far + all the Cyrillic letters were displayed without problems, just the espeak Russian voice output could be better :)
That reminds me:
The espeak output quality varies per language, some languages may be barely usable, others are quite good.

The only problem was espeak reading Czech place names with english pronunciation, which is often quite funny :) But it worked even before without problems, most probably because our alphabet is basically just ASCII + čřžýáíéůú.

It might not be so difficult to implement, as it means basically just analysing incoming SMS for the right keywords and then loading the appropriate route (provided the message contents are not encrypted, etc.).
But it seems to be USA-only, so I would not be able to directly test/debug it there in Europe :)

The directions API used by modRana supports adding waypoints, but it is not yet accessible from the GUI.

There are already some extracts available from Cloudmade and other sources.
They are quite nicely available for individual countries and continents , on the other hand a (possibly resource intensive ?) import from the OSM XML to the tileserver database would be needed.

Wow, modRana being used on a boat, well that's awesome :) I wonder how long before someone reports about using it in an aircraft :D
[QUOTE=janszoon;870784]
Some Questions:

1) How is the screen blanking controlled/determined? What conditions/setting would keep the screen on?
(probably userguide related so let me know if I can find this already somewhere)

Well, that's unfortunately true :D The modRana project wiki is currently horribly outdated, I just haven't got to updating it yet :) BTW, I someone wants to add something like a walkthrough, feature description, etc. to the modRana wiki, just send it to me and I'll add it :)

Just how did you add so many points ? :D

OK, I'll add both :)
Why not :)
BTW, modes work like this in modRana:

• each mode can have its own map GUI settings
• each mode can have its own widgets settings
• current mode is considered when when routing (foot mode -> walking directions, etc.)

Do you have any nice boat mode specific optimizations on your mind ? :)

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

I'll give it some thought.....started to put something together......might be some 'nice to haves' but I think the basics deliver a lot already..

:)

But in the maybe pile:

• Speed indicator (knots)
• Moon phase (info screen or search)
• Tides (info screen or search)
• Weather (info screen or search)
• Distance (point to point)
• 'Spot x' button takes you immediately to new POI based on GPS location (Rather than Menu >> POI >> New >> Based on position. A one click POI :-)
• POI alert/sound (as hands might be other things, an alarm of approaching POI or eSPeak ;-) eg POI near Fishing spot 1

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

This is great, however please note that the language of streetnames can vary from the directions language. You're probably aware of it, but for instance in the Moscow case, I'd not want the instructions in Russian, and might prefer them in English, but the streetnames are in Russian, so should be pronounced in Russian...

Well, at least that's what I assumed it was getting stuck on, i.e. somehow deciphering the Russian names...

Great, looking forward to this.

Hahah :O) oh no, you forgot some of the best ones, like ň, ť and ď! :O)

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Check out the Device State section of the wiki and osso_test_device_blank_pause.py for a way to keep the screen on.

On an unrelated note, I'm anxiously awaiting an offline routing mode. :)

-jkq

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Agree. There are different ways.
1. Use tracklogs which are close enough (10m?) to the start and end points as route.
2. Remember routes received from Google and reuse them.
3. Ask user to download OSM vector maps for wanted region and then use the vector maps for offline routing.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Something that free hiking and boating have in common besides the above needs is "free navigation" ie. not constrained by road or other vectors, simply a heading / distance display from current position to a POI (also known in most handheld GPS receivers as a waypoint). A question in another thread brought the fact that the n900 really has no hiking GPS app ala a garmin or some such handheld.

PS Apparently Advanced Geocaching Tool has direction and distance.

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Option 3 seems the most interesting to me. I'm not sure how1 and 2 will work with unexpected detours (miss a turn, road construction/closure, etc)...

-jkq

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Cool thanks. I like the Mappero approach which controls screen blank via a number of states and conditions. eg unblank screen if:
Full screen and moving
Moving
Receiving GPS data
never
Always

cheers

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

I installed roadrunner (speed camera proximity detector) and tried to run it alongside modRana yesterday. They didn't appear to coexist well - both apps remained running but modRana wasn't redrawing the map with current location. I didn't have time to check closely but I suspect RR possibly wasn't updating GPS co-ord's correctly either.

I had assumed that multiple app's would be able to concurrently access the GPS without interfering - apparently not, unless I did something wrong during the test.

As RR is really just a collection of POI's with a proximity algorithm and an interface to alert the user when he gets within 'x' Km's of any individual POI, I wondered whether it would be possible to build this into a future modRana release?

It would be nice to have a prominent icon displayed on screen and/or an espeak prompt warning of any speed cam's on the upcoming stretch of road. Would take modRana one step closer to emulating a dedicated in-car navigation system. Thoughts?

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

So your'e saying you need testers? :)

I have scripts for pulling the Cloudmade stuff already for postgres. I'm sure I can adapt it. :)

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

modRana V0.18-1 has just been released! :)

Whats new ?

• directions and voice navigation are now multilingual
  • the dsitance anouncements and "you should be near the destination" are in english for now
• online routing and POI search are now asynchronous
  • it works in background and you can normally work with the GUI while it runs
• an option for autostarting navigation has been added
• you can now turn the GPS on/off (the hardware, not just position updates)
• a POI can be now set as current position (do this with GPS off, your position would be updated back at once otherwise)

More later :)

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Not the original poster, but, I had the same problem. I had read this thread and much of the wiki, downloaded the maps, and took my n900 with me while driving to jury duty today. I had a vague idea of where to go but didn't know the specific route.

Opened the modRana route option, entered the route, it showed on the map, but I couldn't find a way to "start" the navigation routing. Finally pulled over to the shoulder of the road and stuffed the sim back into my Android phone. Google nav got me to jury duty.

While I had read much of the documentation and played with modRana at home, I hadn't navigated with it until I was in the car. Once I was in my car, I wasn't really in a position to dig through either this thread or the wiki to figure out how to activate the navigation.

When I got home I set up a route to my local deli and walked there. The navigation route worked fine at that point and I can see how to turn it on.

I do realize this is free, alpha software and you're only just starting to polish things up. But, it would be REALLY REALLY helpful to be able to turn on navigation from the Route page (rather than pre-program the Route and start it through "Route => Current Route => Tools".)

If POI is meant to be the way to type in addresses and get to them on the fly, then, it should (somehow) be made clear through the screens. Right now, I don't see anything that looks like it's meant for "on the fly" navigation.

There needs to be a way to suddenly activate GPS routing at a minimum for those "oh damn" moments when you're shifted to a detour you don't expect (edit: and didn't have modRana running till you were detoured -- I don't mean re-routing an existing session). Or, when you're out at a place you do know and are asked unexpectedly to drive somewhere you don't know.

Related to this, a way to *easily* chose start and end points (either for routes or POI) from your Contacts list addresses would be awesome. Something simpler than typing the address in by hand, which again necessitates pulling the car over when it may not be safe/convenient. I'm borrowing this from Android's Google Nav, which is the service I've been using. It doesn't seem like all that big a deal until you start to use it and it seeps into your GPS-expectation-subconscious ;).

Again, I do realize this is development software that one person is working on, not one of Google's pet "eternal beta" products that has a dedicated team updating it on a full-time basis. Reading over this thread I can see how modRana has been progressing over the past few months to really seem like it's catching up to Google Nav in performance.

Awesome software, hope you'll consider the suggestions, off to click the paypal support link!

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

Apparently this doesn't solve the UTF-8 international problem, just tried to navigate somewhere in Moscow, same as before. The "watch out for cliffs..." blue box is not displayed, nothing is said, and the prog gets stuck on repeatedly "saying", though nothing is said, one direction instruction, as apparent in the following debug:

I'm sure that you need some ssml tag to specify a different lang for the street name if it's in Russian and any other language for that matter, as the above routing command in modrana specifies the whole text is in English, which it isn't. But not sure whether this causes the lockup loop. What could be the prob?

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

If you go to Options > Navigation, you can set it so that routing starts automatically when you select where to route to...

Re: [Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system
 

PS, I just checked to make sure it wasn't a problem with routing or something on my N900, anyhow routed from point to point in Prague, from Vaclavske nam. to Zlute lazne, no prob.

Didn't hear the directions, since I'm not in Prague now, but the "watch out..." box appeared, and I could touch reroute and it said "rerouting"...

Thus it seriously must be something with the UTF-8 text in Russian, as it doesn't get stuck in the GUI-nonresponsive state while routing in Czech Republic...