Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Hm, strange. That sounds like a memory problem that causes the system to swap.
I just ran a memory profiler (massif) on the Desktop version which executes the same code. The memory usage stays at the same level while downloading tiles, so I don't expect a problem here.
I'll give it a try on the N900 as well, though I used that feature many times without a problem so far.
Guess you were using the OpenStreetMap map theme, right?

@bugzy: Technically Marble support Google Maps, Ovi Maps and other non-free map providers. Ovi maps needs to change their terms of use before we can integrate it properly (e.g. ship with the default packages), however.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Yes - OpenSreetMap. It has happened here twice now. However, today I tested it again (redownloaded the tiles - about 40 MB total) but kept the phone screen on to check in what stage the freeze happens, but nothing - everything was OK.
But if I selected a bigger range of tiles - say about 300 MB and started to download them, then after some 10 - 15 minutes laying on the table the phone has frozen again... :confused:

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

This sounds like something triggering the infamous freezing bug.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Hmm, and I was even not aware of it... That could have inclined my phone selection toward Nokia N8 ;)
At least I found a way to reproduce it reliably :D

So I did one more test, this time selecting another map region (where the town "Nokia" is situated :p) retaining the scale and selected again about 300 MB tiles to download and the freeze followed after about 15 minutes... :(

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

I thing I remember someone getting rid of the freezes during tile download (in modRana) after disabling the GPS for the duration of the download...

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

In my case the GPS was off...

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

I have the same problem. (And I have also GPS off)

I want to ask: Is there some way to workaround this problem? I cannot download any larger block of tiles due to this hang.
E.g. Is it possible to download tiles from marble on desktop machine (using marble from kdeedu 4.5.1 or 4.6.0 on Linux or marble-qt for windows) and then copy all tiles to n900 for maemo marble 1.0.0?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

I tried to download tiles by marble for windows and I found more problems:

(1) Download is incredibly slow (servers are probably very busy)

(2) When I tried download tiles for whole Czech republic, level 13 total downloaded tiles takes about 180M, but level 14 takes only about 30M for the same area. When I watch size of folder with level 14, it seems that some tiles are deleted during downloading others in some interval... (?)

(3) Due to OSM tiles-download policy http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tile_usage_policy there is not possible/legal/recommended to download level 18 or so...

So I wonder, what is the way to pre-load map for whole country for offline usage with marble?
It seems to me, there is no other way than setup some local renderer and dowload .osm xml file for it. Is it possible to run a mapnik server - ondesktop or even n900 directly? Or use something like http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Maperitive ?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Hi artwine,

Unfortunately we don't have any influence on (1).

Regarding question (2): Marble has a limit for the amount of tiles that can be downloaded. This hard disc cache limit is configurable. If the amount of downloaded tiles exceeds the hard disc cache limit then Marble will start to delete tiles in the background. I think the UI for this kind of setting has been disabled on Maemo. But you can still configure it using a text editor by changing the config file (~/.config/kde.org/Marble\ Desktop\ Globe.conf ): Just change the following line (under [Cache]) up to your needs:

persistentTileCacheLimit=300

Regarding (3): Yes, our implementation of this feature has been developed working together with the OSM server admins. So it should be fine.
Creation of tiles for a whole country from an .osm file is out of the scope of the Marble project. But we do have plans (and work) to display .osm files as vector graphics.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

FWIW the "Unsupported DBUS type: 0" problem isn't limited to Marble - I get it on two other applications: groove and quickflickr. This is the only thread that I can see where anyone has mentioned the problem. And it obviously is not widespread. If anyone had any ideas about what might be causing it I'd be happy to follow them up. Right now I'm at a dead loss.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Umm, grep sources for "Unsupported DBUS type:", use gdb to place a breakpoint on that function in marble?

/j

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

A quick question: is off-line routing and searching for names (addresses, streets or things) supported when using the monav-routing-daemon?

When off-line all my searches never finish (even when putting in the name of the current city).

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Currently that's not supported, sorry. Same for Marble 1.1 which will be available in about two weeks (see first post). I hope to get it done for Marble 1.2 (July); help is of course welcome. Just join #marble in Freenode or send a mail to marble-devel@kde.org.

Update: Here's a bug report to follow: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=267026

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Can I make it use
~/MyDocs/.maps/OpenStreetMap I
instead of
~/MyDocs/.local/share/marble/maps/earth/openstreetmap
for downloading and reading tiles?
Mappero, AGTL and ModRana are all using and sharing it and I already have about 1Gb of images there. And Marble is just doubling that space with the same data in other directory.
I wish it was some filesystem that supports symlinking, but it's FAT by default, so I can't make a link.
Any suggestions?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

That's not possible with Marble 1.0, but Marble 1.1 will use the shared OpenStreetMap 1 directory. Your data will be moved automatically during the upgrade, therefore the package manager may take longer than usual while upgrading Marble. Make sure the N900 is not connected via USB while upgrading, otherwise the tiles can't be moved (the installation will still continue and use the shared directory in that case).

Marble 1.1.0 is scheduled for 2011-04-15. If you or anyone else wants to help out testing the packages, please see see here.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

So i just installed Marble, but I cant seem to make routing work in general, bot offline and online!!! I tried a million times but it just does not create directions for a route that i create. It finds my current position without problem and the gps say "fine accuracy" yet the routing dont work. PLz help...I reinstalled but still no luck. .

Well.... where does the config file for Marble stored, so I can delete it and then retry everything?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

So i just installed Marble, but I cant seem to make routing work in general, bot offline and online!!! I tried a million times but it just does not create directions for a route that i create. It finds my current position without problem and the gps say "fine accuracy" yet the routing dont work. PLz help...I reinstalled but still no luck. .

Well.... where does the config file for Marble stored, so I can delete it and then retry everything?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Did you give our tutorials a try? Eventually you'll find some useful information there. For offline routing, take a look at the notes about the correct monav-routing-daemon version to install. Make sure to install offline maps for your country as well.

The YOURS server used in Marble 1.0 unfortunately does not work anymore since some weeks. I replaced it by a different one in Marble 1.1, which will be available soon.

The OpenRouteService should work (assuming you have an internet connection and Marble is not set to offline mode). At times their server does not work, however. Maybe you hit it at an unfortunate time. Note that OpenRouteService only has maps for Europe; requests for routes e.g. in the USA won't give any results.

In summary, here's a checklist:
Monav:

• Install monav-routing-daemon 0.2-release-2 from extras-testing
• Install an offline map for your country

Yours: Unfortunately the server used in Marble 1.0.x does not respond anymore; Marble 1.1 will use a different one
OpenRouteService:

• Internet connection must be available
• Marble must not be in offline mode
• The route must be within Europe

If you want to delete Marble's configuration file then remove /home/user/.config/kde.org/Marble Desktop Globe.conf. Other interesting files are /home/user/MyDocs/.local/share/marble/routing/route.kml (the last route) and /home/user/MyDocs/.local/share/marble/bookmarks/bookmarks.kml (all bookmarks).

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

THANK YOU!!!
The monav-routing-daemon 0.2-release-2 from extras-testing solved the problem!! I knew it was the routing daemon not working. Anyways, I got a problem scrolling through the directions. Everytime i try to press and drag to go slightly downwards or upwards, it goes to the end. I have to select a specific turn direction first and then carefully drag in desired direction and even then many times it ends up goin to the end. Its very annoying, hope you can fix that. Cant wait for voice guided directions!!!

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Great to hear :) The situation is a bit annoying as I can't delete the version in extras-devel and it's considered newer by the package manager. Maybe you can give it a thumbs up now that it works for you, just three are missing to get it into extras. Thanks.

Update: Thanks for voting, everyone: monav-routing-daemon is now in extras :)

Yepp, that's indeed quite annoying. Marble 1.1 opens the directions in a new window, making it much easier to select the right one. 1.1.0 should appear in extras-devel and extras-testing on Friday or Saturday, so a solution is near.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

So a new version of MoNav just appeared in devel recently - is this one supposed to work for routing now, or do we still need to stay on the testing version to keep offline routing?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

In short: Please wait for Marble 1.1.1 which will appear around 2011-05-15 in extras-devel/extras-testing.

Longer answer: The new monav-routing-daemon version is based on the recent release 0.3 of monav. Fortunately it is able to read the "old" format of maps, but still requires a bit conversion work on the client side. I made the necessary changes in Marble's git master and will backport them to the 1.1.1 release which is planned for the end of the week. Marble 1.1.1 will work with both monav-routing-daemon 0.2-release (extras) and 0.3-release (extras-devel, soon -testing).

I'll also generate new monav offline maps using the 0.3 release in the next weeks. They'll include data for offline address search, a feature that will be available in Marble 1.2 and later (around July). You can upgrade the maps directly in Marble once they're there. I'll announce that here once done.

Update: It would be nice to get more votes for the two Marble 1.1.0 packages in extras-testing. Ideally we'd get them into extras before i push Marble 1.1.1 to extras-testing. Thanks :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Please, maybe I am not clever enough, but I cannot discover how to have a map different from the openstreet. I have Marble 1.01.
Thank you

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

@Patroclo: Did you install the Marble Maps package yet? The Marble - Virtual Globe package only contains the OpenStreetMap theme and many other themes are in the Marble Maps package. Once that is installed, open the Map View dialog in Marble's application menu and click on a different map theme to load it. I'm creating a tutorial page on map themes currently. It will show screenshots for these steps when I'm done.

@All: I just pushed Marble 1.1.1 to extras-devel. It contains a couple of minor fixes and improvements as well as the support for monav-0.3 I mentioned above. I'd like to promote it to extras-testing, but that'd mean that all the votes for Marble 1.1.0 for extras promotion would be useless. So if anyone who tested Marble 1.1.0 can give it a vote that'd be great. I just need one more vote for 1.1.0 to be able to promote it to extras. Afterwards I'll promote 1.1.1 to extras-testing. Thanks :)

Update: Got enough votes, thanks!

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Just tested Marble for the first time. It's is so awesome ! Thanks for your work.
Waiting for the POI to be added now :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Compared to other openstreetmap renderers, Marble's maps look blurry and "chunky". It looks like the tiles are being rescaled.

Fortunately, I found this bug:

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=199259

which includes a fix. :)

Is there a timeline for getting this fix into a release for the N900?


P.S. Thank you, Marble is amazing, the best cartography app I've used. :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Looks great and I hope to have a fully useable sat nav system with this.
One question whilst I am playing with it, how do I search for an address. I don't mean for navigation or routing, but just type in an address and show it on the map?
Also, does it support POIs?

Thanks in advance.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

@Vlad_on_the_road: Great to hear you like Marble :)

@tkatchev: Marble 1.2 will show OpenStreetMap themes sharp. I'll release a first beta in the next days (not in extras-devel, but still with a one-click installer for those interested to test it). Marble 1.2.0 will be released at the end of July. If the beta versions show little bugs, I'll push a release candidate to extras-devel some time before that.

@mmarks: In Marble 1.2 you can use the "Go To..." dialog for that. In earlier versions you have to use the routing dialog for it (note: after searching you can close the routing dialog and all results are shown on the map). Support for points of interests will come with Marble 1.2 as well, see http://userbase.kde.org/Marble/Search and http://nienhueser.de/blog/?p=321

@all: Thanks for the quick votes for Marble 1.1.1 to get it into extras :)

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Many thanks for your response, I shall look forward to testing the 1.2 release.
From what I've seen so far it looks very good, haven't tried voice navigation yet - I'll try that on the way home tonight.

I downloaded the Ireland maps over wifi, does that mean that it won't require a data connection when driving now?

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Calculating routes in Ireland works fully offline then. Losely speaking, the offline routing maps contain the street network for a country needed for route calculation. They do not contain the map images used to display the map. These depend on the map theme you're using (Map View dialog). You can download them in advance however with the "Download Region" dialog. See http://userbase.kde.org/Marble/Maemo/OfflineRouting for details.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Hi there,

Tried the routing last night on the way home (and this morning).
Didn't work at all last night, kept telling me no route found. I installed monav and the routing worked.

Tried again this morning and routing was working but no voice. I followed the web page to download some tomtom voices and converted them (they are now ogg files I believe) and put them into the appropriate directory /home/user/MyDocs/.local/share/marble/audio/speakers/ameteur Radio

But no voice. Do I need an ogg decoder installed for it to work or have I done something wrong?

Looking forward to getting this working.

Mike

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

I got the voice guidance working with marble and marble maps latest versions (1.1.1) and monav (0.3). I used the Tomtom estonian voice.
But as this is more a technology preview I guess that it is not ready yet ;)
I have made some tests during last 2 weeks and most of the "commands" were wrong (sounded in wrong places) or at least confusing. Tried to understand if there is some systematic error or shift in them, but until now I have no idea....

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

First of all to the developers of Marble for Maemo team, a huge thanks. It is an exceptional application. I have installed marble (1.1.1) + marble maps + monav routing daemon(0.3). I downloaded the maps for my country and went into offline mode, did a route guidance worked very well.

Now how can i (in an offline mode), just load marble app and start driving and it will start to navigate with me.

Second, during navigation why doesnt it automatically zoom in to road level. I noticed it kept at a certain zoom level (as much as i gave it before starting from home). How can zoom levels work automatically during navigation?

Third, since automatic zoom wasnt working, i zoomed in manually to abt road level. But map never moved with me. It tracked my movement fine but map was not moved.

so in summary, how can i start marble app and it zooms in at road level and start to navigate with me?

City: Islamabad
Country: Pakistan

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

After route calculation you have to press the left button of the four buttons located at the down-right section of the Marble screen. Then it asks your confirmation and the guidance mode starts. Also - your GPS should be working for that - the second left button toggles it in and out...

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

@mmarks: Did you select the voice you installed in the configuration dialog? Once that is done it should work. If that doesn't work, are you running some other application in the background that uses the audio output (e.g. a music player)? Are ogg related packages installed? I do have ogg-support and gstreamer10-ogg installed here.

@niqbal: You can enable automatic centering of the map and automatic zooming in the Tracking dialog (available from the application menu). Use the bottom two controls below "Re-center" (older versions) or "Map Adjustment" as shown in the screenshots in http://userbase.kde.org/Marble/Tracking
The guidance mode enables both when turned on and disables both when turned off.

@all: You may have heard that KDE 4.7 Beta 1 was released today. Here's what's new in Marble on the N900 (compared to 1.1.1):

Features:

• Bookmark Manager (available from the main menu)
• Offline Address Search (available from the Go To.. dialog from the main menu)
• Sharp texture maps
• Tracks can be loaded directly in the Tracking dialog
• Fullscreen mode (available from the map context menu)
• Distance announcements in voice guidance commands

Performance:

• Texture map rendering is slightly faster
• Opening of very large routes is much faster
• Placemark rendering is faster
• Routing, more specifically guidance mode, are much faster for very large routes
• Guidance mode now uses lazy recentering to save some battery power

Known Issues:

• Clearing a track leads to inconsistencies that may result in a crash e.g. when loading a track afterwards. We're working on a fix.
• The overview map slows down rendering a bit currently. Hide it for faster panning/zooming.
• Voice guidance mode is still rather quirky
• After installing an offline routing map with offline address search data, Marble needs to be restarted in order to detect and use the newly installed offline address database
• The user interface does not announce upgradable maps properly. You can install a new version on top of an old one without a problem though. This bug affects all versions of Marble. Will be fixed in Marble 1.2 Beta 2.

I prepared packages for the N900 which are available in the testing repository on my server. I don't expect severe bugs, but there are rough edges (see known issues), so I won't push them to extras-devel. Still I'd like to get some testing to squash remaining bugs before the release. If you have some time and are not afraid of using a shell on the N900, please have a look. Note that you need to install (or upgrade) monav offline routing maps to get databases for offline address search. See the list above for countries whose maps are already updated with offline address search data.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Hello, and thanks for the developers, this app is exactly what I was hoping for on Maemo.

For some reason I can't get the voice files from tomtom converted with the online converter, none of the ones I downloaded from the provided link seem to convert. If anyone has a proper english (don't care which voice, even Schwarzenegger would do :) ) sound files, could you please upload somewhere?

Solved: Had to use the .zip file instead of the .chk

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Hmm, I can't get the voice guidance working properly.

I'm using the openstreetmaps and openrouteservice for the navigation, I've extracted the voice files and am able to select them from the menu dialog. However nothing is spoken, I just get the directions on the screen. The voice files are in English, the directions are in Finnish on the screen. I tried to select device language as US English, but that doesn't seem to make any difference, the routing instructions still appear in Finnish and no voice is played. Any ideas what to check?

edit: fixed now, apparently my ogg support was broken

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

@Soppa , i was able to add the voice files + added it in marble Configure menu but heres the issue. I start guidance mode, voice says 'are u ready, why don ....' voice gets killed. I cant seem to work it out. Using another speaker didnt start voice at all, just stuck at starting guidance please wait ..

my question is which voice files are u using that are working for you? so i can try the same. I am using Leicester_Sound downloaded it free from two links given in CustomSpeakers tutorial

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

Niqbal - I have exactly the same issue - would love to know the solution.

Re: [ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World
 

I have ogg support installed and downloaded & converted the ameteur radio voice - I don't get any voice prompts at all in marble. I aslo tried the new update (1.1.80 I believe) and that didn't help either!