[Announce] modRana: a flexible GPS navigation system - Page 51 - maemo.org

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MartinK	2011-02-04 , 20:58
Posts: 1,548 \| Thanked: 7,510 times \| Joined on Apr 2010 @ Czech Republic	#501

Originally Posted by petur

Which brought up an idea: How about latitude integration in the routing? The guys I'm meeting with are all using latitude so being able to route to them seems like a fun feature (I know this will not help me this weekend, but maybe next year)

So its a Google provided location sharing service ? Looks like they even have native pure-Python bindings for it

But still, I think I can't manage to integrate it to be ready tomorrow

Originally Posted by skykooler

martinK: I have been using modrana a lot over the past few weeks, and I have a few suggestions for what would make it perfect in my opinion at least.
Determine point reached distance based on speed (so the radius at 60 mph is three times that at 20 mph).

Add customizeable callout distances. E.g. I might want a callout at 50 yards, one at 500 and one at 2000 but other people might want them in different places.

This is planed, together with setting time-to-turn style triggers (eq. dependent on recent average speed) - which would probably do the same as automatically enlarging the distance based on current speed.

Originally Posted by skykooler

Have eSpeak say the number of yards that triggers it, not the actual number of yards. For instance, if a callout is at 300 yards and eSpeak is triggered at 297.4 yards, have eSpeak say 300 anyway.

Aesthetic thing: Split numbers at the two digit mark, so for example 422 is read "four twenty-two" instead of "four hunderd and twenty-two".

Originally Posted by Mentalist Traceur

While I don't personally use modRana (currently on Navit), I just want to say, while I agree with Skykooler's ideas - make them optional, and selectable in settings. Some people might like the precision of it announcing the exact distance at announcement, instead of the triggering callout amount. Same for the aesthetic thing - different people will have different preferences for what the way they want to hear numbers said. (Last I checked, not all of the English speaking world likes saying numbers in the above mentioned technically-gramatically-wrong manner.)

Modrana is a flexible GPS navigation system, so a few more items in options wont hurt

But I will certainly add some rounding for longer distances, say over 100 meters - it is really not needed know if the nex turn is comming in 422 or 427 meters and takes too long to pronounce (so its more likely to actually miss the turn).

Originally Posted by skykooler

I don't know whether this is possible: Load the traffic layer from Google Maps?\

If its just a normal transparent PNG layer (like the street overlay one), this should be quite easy to add (basically just adding the correct URL) and could be used with the map overlay feature.

Originally Posted by skykooler

MartinK: In terms of hardware acceleration, have you looked at glitz?

This is probably too low-level and there seems to be no easy way to interface with glitz from a GTK/Python based program as modRana. Also, modRana might be already using some form of acceleration (X render ?) as it is using the Xlib surface, which should actually use available (i guess 2D) acceleration, according to the documentation. I haven't yet found a way how to check which backend it is actually using, but since map rotation, overlay and scaling are already quite usable, I would say some form of acceleration is used.

I have made short survey into available acceleration methods a while ago.
First I have looked on plain OpenGL (this is what CloudGPS uses), there is even a short (working) Python example in the Maemo wiki. But it uses xlib directly and I haven't found any way how to integrate it with the rest of modRana, that uses GTK+Cairo. Also, OpenGL ES (1.1 & 2.0) available on Maemo (and also on most other devices with mobile GPUs) is generally not compatible with the OpenGL available on "normal" PC - and I would like modRana to stay as multi-platform as possible (BTW, it runs just fine on Linux PC, even through X forwarding

.
Next I looked at Clutter - this is what Maemo 5 uses for all those fancy animations

There are Python bindings for clutter 0.8 - which are outdated and have a nasty bug preventing GTK integration

Fortunately, I have succeeded in compiling bindings for clutter-1.0, that are not that ancient and don't have that GTK related bug.
Simple performance tests look promising - I can make multiple tile images move smoothly across the screen (although there is some tearing from time to time), with simultaneous rotation and scaling...hmm looks like I can do this even with full page manga scans

Of course, it remains to be seen how it performs in a real life scenario.
Also, Clutter supports both OpenGL ES and "normal" OpenGL all the work done towards acceleration would be usable across multiple platforms.
tl,dr: modRana will use Clutter to make dragging the map smoother

Originally Posted by skykooler

I would be glad to help if you would like.

Thanks, any for of help would be really appreciated !

Originally Posted by slender

@MartinK
Beautification is probably last step but to make it easier do you have SVG file of your buttons. I found Ranas .svg file but it differs little from Modranas.

http://svn.openstreetmap.org/applica...le/rana/icons/

It would be easier to edit buttons if there is vector file. Making svg where icons are grouped by by screens makes theme editing also bit easier.

Take a look at /opt/modrana/data/gui_source/icons.svg in the latest modRana version

All icons are derived from this file, since the latest version there is even a script generate_icons.sh that automatically generates a few icons from the file to PNGs automatically.
ModRana now actually supports SVG icons (also JPEG and some more exotic ones too) but I have found that the re-rendering takes too long vs using appropriately sized pre-rendered PNGs. It took over a second just to render the icons for the main menu - they are cached after that, but a first time render is needed up to four time (fullscreen, non-fullscreen, rotated fullscreen, rotated non-fullscreen) and the PNGs look just as good

Originally Posted by 白い熊

Other than that, the loading of the tiles seems to be SUPER SLOW, i.e. I'm not sure if it has to do with the database being big or what, when I've downloaded lots of tiles, but just zooming in and out, I get the "Loading" on all tiles for like 10 seconds at a time, what's up with that?

I'll look into it, might be the background tile loading thread being starved for CPU time or indeed some db issues.

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Last edited by MartinK; 2011-02-04 at 21:04. Reason: add forgotten quote

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petur	2011-02-06 , 12:04
Posts: 650 \| Thanked: 497 times \| Joined on Oct 2008 @ Ghent, Belgium	#502

Originally Posted by MartinK

So its a Google provided location sharing service ? Looks like they even have native pure-Python bindings for it But still, I think I can't manage to integrate it to be ready tomorrow

Yes, it is a Google service with a public API. It would need to log into it (ie provide credentials).

I'm only interested in showing them on the map, not sending in your own position (already having the latitude daemon doing that - its map part sucks though), and be able to get a route to one of them (click on one and use that as some kind of temporary POI)

Not urgent, I'm not needing it in the near future, would have been nice here on Fosdem

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petur	2011-02-06 , 12:25
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Originally Posted by MartinK

tapping on buttons no longer disables centering

Martin, I found this to work fine when standing still, but when walking or driving I still sometimes leave centering mode. So I guess the vibrations are bigger than your treshold :/

Any way to increase this or make it configurable or whatever solution you can come up with?

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MartinK	2011-02-06 , 12:45
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Originally Posted by petur

Yes, it is a Google service with a public API. It would need to log into it (ie provide credentials).

I'm only interested in showing them on the map, not sending in your own position (already having the latitude daemon doing that - its map part sucks though), and be able to get a route to one of them (click on one and use that as some kind of temporary POI)

Not urgent, I'm not needing it in the near future, would have been nice here on Fosdem

Provided the authentication step is not too complicated, it shouldn't be too difficult to add support for this (including routing to the reported positions)

Originally Posted by petur

Martin, I found this to work fine when standing still, but when walking or driving I still sometimes leave centering mode. So I guess the vibrations are bigger than your treshold :/

Any way to increase this or make it configurable or whatever solution you can come up with?

OK, I'll add an options for this, after I'm done implementing multi-page menus -> the options sub-menu is full

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extendedping	2011-02-06 , 14:39
Posts: 838 \| Thanked: 292 times \| Joined on Apr 2010	#505

this app has saved me now on several occasions much much thanks. Just quick question, is the ability to talk your destination into modrana planned or even possible on the n900?

Again thanks, this app to me shows how this community succeeded where nokia failed...

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zimon	2011-02-06 , 18:28
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Originally Posted by extendedping

Just quick question, is the ability to talk your destination into modrana planned or even possible on the n900?

If, then this speech recognition, I think, should be done in a separate module, which communicates with DBUS and other applications could use it also.

My modrana is currently full of old traces and I do not know how to clear them from the map.

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MartinK	2011-02-06 , 19:06
Posts: 1,548 \| Thanked: 7,510 times \| Joined on Apr 2010 @ Czech Republic	#507

Originally Posted by extendedping

this app has saved me now on several occasions much much thanks. Just quick question, is the ability to talk your destination into modrana planned or even possible on the n900?

Again thanks, this app to me shows how this community succeeded where nokia failed...

Originally Posted by zimon

If, then this speech recognition, I think, should be done in a separate module, which communicates with DBUS and other applications could use it also.

Looks like pocketsphinx, including python bindings is available from extras

So technically, it might be quite easy to integrate - but it remains to be seen how accurate it is.
BTW, any idea how to actually use it ?
I was thinking about:

adding a button to the text entry popup, that would enable to enter text by speaking
voice commands for some actions (reroute, zoom in,zoom out,...)?

I'd have to check how does it actually works - eq. if I can have it run all the time and try to find commands in the text it produces or to have some trigger action that enables it fore limited time, CPU usage, etc...

Originally Posted by zimon

My modrana is currently full of old traces and I do not know how to clear them from the map.

Go to tracklogs, select some category and some tracklog from it. Then go to its tools menu and tap the "no tracks visible" button.
I know, it is unnecessary complicated, but will be improved soon.

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wumpwoast	2011-02-08 , 03:18
Posts: 110 \| Thanked: 127 times \| Joined on May 2010	#508

ModRana is a wonderful tool, the closest approximation to a non-network-aware GPS device I could ask for. I'm currently on travel, using the device without network access to roughly plot around an unfamiliar city.

There are a handful of things that would really help this tool work better for my use-case, either as features or options.

1) The GPS device is a battery muncher. When the screen is locked, or the proximity sensor is on for either pocket or phone-call or media playing, the GPS should turn off.

2) For trip planning, and for dealing with coarse-accuracy GPS, it is helpful to set your position manually on the map. While this feature exists, it should be on the top-level menu, not deep-nested behind the POI menus.

3) It would be nice to have a "display all" or "display group" functionality for POI records. Right now you can only see one at a time on the map.

4) Saved POI searches / overlays would be similarly useful.

5) Being able to add POIs right on the map itself would be useful. Long-touch w/context menu or swirly-touch seems to be a way to do this.

Sorry if some of these have been discussed already!

Justin

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	woody14619	2011-02-08 , 05:14
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Originally Posted by wumpwoast

1) The GPS device is a battery muncher. When the screen is locked, or the proximity sensor is on for either pocket or phone-call or media playing, the GPS should turn off.

See, I would not want this. There are many times I lock the display to save battery. I still want verbal commands when in that mode, which are only possible if the GPS is left on. Same with taking calls. Just because I answer a call with a hands-free set doesn't mean I'm not driving any more. I'd hate to miss an exit because I was taking a call and the GPS was off...

Originally Posted by wumpwoast

3) It would be nice to have a "display all" or "display group" functionality for POI records. Right now you can only see one at a time on the map.

4) Saved POI searches / overlays would be similarly useful.

These two I like, but lean more toward 4. Making all POI's visible if their location is on screen (at a reasonable zoom level) would be nice. Maybe having the ability to set if a POI should always be visible as a setting would be nice, for those that don't want that?

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slender	2011-02-08 , 13:04
Posts: 2,829 \| Thanked: 1,459 times \| Joined on Dec 2009 @ Finland	#510

MartinK

I just noticed that Icons in icons.svg file are 110x110 but in full screen Modrana they are ~200x160. So why aspect ratio changes? Should SVG icons be ~138x110.

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