[ANNOUNCE] Marble - Find Your Way and Explore the World [Archive] - maemo.org

earthwings

2010-12-22, 19:18

http://edu.kde.org/marble/logo/marble-logo-72dpi.png

I am happy to announce that Marble is now available in extras. Marble is a Virtual Globe whose mobile version features advanced routing capabilities.

Marble 1.0
Key features introduced by Marble 1.0.0 are

Online and offline routing (worldwide)
GPS tracking and route guidance
Many different map themes

The packages for the base version take up 4.9 MB. Support for map themes other than OpenStreetMap is provided in an extra package (6.6 MB). Further map data is downloaded automatically.

Online and Offline Routing

When an Internet connection is available, Marble can retrieve routes from OpenRouteService (Europe) and Yours (Worldwide). Additionally you can calculate routes directly on the N900 without the need for an Internet connection using the Monav backend. Offline routing requires additional country maps which can be downloaded conveniently from within Marble. See this tutorial (http://userbase.kde.org/Marble/Maemo/OfflineRouting) for further instructions.

http://nienhueser.de/marble/Screenshot-20101222-191840.png

Routes retrieved from OpenRouteService and Monav include driving instructions. During your journey, these instructions are highlighted appropriately.

http://userbase.kde.org/images.userbase/1/1b/MarbleMaemo-DrivingInstructions.png

GPS Tracking and Route Guidance

The internal GPS of the N900 is used to retrieve your current location. The track is shown in the map and can be saved for further analysis in other programs.

http://nienhueser.de/marble/Screenshot-20101222-171947.png

In route guidance mode, driving instructions are announced in front of turn points. The map follows you as you move; Marble adjusts the zoom value automatically according to your speed.

http://nienhueser.de/marble/MarbleMaemo-GuidanceModeKarlsruhe_small.jpg

Map Themes

A wide variety of map themes is supported, each consisting of one or more layers. The interactive legend can be used to adjust the current map theme to your liking.

http://nienhueser.de/marble/Screenshot-20101222-172822.png

http://nienhueser.de/marble/Screenshot-20110105-211009.png

Note that not all map themes can be shipped due to legal reasons. Google Maps or Ovi Maps themes are therefore not shipped, for example.

And More...

Translations for 50 languages are included. At the time of writing these translations are incomplete however; the final version Marble 1.0 (scheduled for 2011-01-26) will ship with completed translations.

http://nienhueser.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/MarbleMaemo-Portuguese1.png

Many more features are included, please check them out yourself.

http://userbase.kde.org/images.userbase/6/60/MarbleMaemo-RoutingBookmarks.png

Marble 1.1
Marble 1.1 brings gradual user interface enhancements, OpenStreetMap data sharing and introduces voice navigation as a technical preview.

Many dialogs have been replaced with the easier to use stackable windows. The turn instructions are now shown in their own window, fixing the scrolling issues that occurred in the routing dialog.

http://nienhueser.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/marble-maemo-stackable-turn-directions.png

All info boxes can now be locked (position becomes fixed) and hidden. This allows for example to get rid of the overview map if you don't like it. Some info boxes provide configuration options. These features are available via the context menu of info boxes. Click on an info box with the pen and hold it down for some seconds to open the context menu.

To make it easier to use Marble alongside other applications like Mappero, OpenStreetMap data is now shared using the /home/user/MyDocs/.maps/OpenStreetMap I/ directory. Existing data is migrated during the upgrade. You'll be informed about the migration (which can take some minutes if you downloaded much data) and have the option to cancel it.

One of the much requested features is voice navigation. Marble 1.1 introduces this feature as a technical preview. You can choose between sound output (turn points are announced with a sound) and speakers. We don't ship any speaker with our packages, but you can use TomTom voices: Download one of the free ones (some websites offer them for personal use), convert it with our web frontend and copy it to your N900. See this tutorial (http://userbase.kde.org/Marble/CustomSpeakers) for details.

http://nienhueser.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/marble-maemo-custom-speakers.png

We call the voice navigation feature a technical preview because there are two known problems: The volume is not adjusted correctly and the voice output does not indicate the distance to announced turn points. We'll fix these issues once we identified the problem in the phonon backend.

Please note that the Marble 1.1 relase is not (as usual) aligned with the other KDE application releases. For this reason new and changed strings have not been adjusted by our translation teams. Practically the translations shipped with Marble 1.1 are still much better than those in Marble 1.0 due to bugfixes in the translation conversion tools.

Marble 1.2
Marble 1.2 introduces offline search and comes with two speakers for voice navigation pre-installed. Further speakers can be downloaded from edu.kde.org (http://edu.kde.org/speakers.php).

http://edu.kde.org/marble/screenshots/1.2/marble-offline-search-mobile.png

Marble 1.3
Marble 1.3 is able to show elevation profiles for routes (worldwide). The required data is downloaded from a KDE server and cached locally such that subsequent calculations of elevation profiles work offline. Two new overlays show GPS information (speed, altitude, direction, precision).

http://nienhueser.de/marble/marble-maemo-1.3-gpsinfo.png
http://nienhueser.de/marble/marble-maemo-1.3-elevation.png

Marble 1.4
Marble 1.4 brings some gradual improvements to the existing features.

Support for OSRM (http://map.project-osrm.org/), MapQuest (http://www.mapquest.com/) routing backends
The voice navigation mode now also supports routes retrieved from OpenRouteService
Much more voice navigation speakers to choose from (installed automatically as needed)
Support for additional turn types, more voice commands

http://nienhueser.de/marble/marble-1.4-routing-backends.png
http://nienhueser.de/marble/marble-1.4-public-transport.png

Additionally we have

Kinetic spinning can be switched on/off (in the main menu)
Bookmarks are also shown in the map now

http://nienhueser.de/marble/marble-1.4-bookmarks.png

Roadmap

Timeline

Marble 1.4 is available in extras since the end of August 2012.
We will keep releasing further versions as long as a significant amount of users remains. Marble 1.5 is planned for January 2013.

In parallel we're working on a MeeGo version using QML (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=82196).

Lots of helping hands were involved to develop the current version. Would you like to get involved? Please do! (http://edu.kde.org/marble/getinvolved.php)
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs1160.snc4/150222_122259034500885_112069922186463_135343_2632 98_n.jpg

Further Reading

Marble package overview (http://maemo.org/packages/view/marble/)
Marble website (http://edu.kde.org/marble)
Garage website (testing version) (http://marble.garage.maemo.org/testing/)
Userbase tutorials (http://userbase.kde.org/Tutorials#Marble)
Posts on my blog (http://nienhueser.de/blog)
Marble for the N9 (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=82196)

http://www.kde.org/stuff/swlabels/part_of_the_kde_family_horizontal_190.png

Venemo

2010-12-22, 20:41

Hey!

This looks awesome, and from the feature set, I bet it is awesome indeed!
At least everyone's wishes about navigational features on the N900 have become true!

joerg_rw

2010-12-22, 20:54

Hey, I used Marble on my desktop for quite some time now.
Incredible it comes to maemo :-D

Can't wait to install it and contribute with my usual 'rant'

keep up the good work
jOERG

ddiscodave

2010-12-22, 20:55

Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!! Thank you !!!!!!!!

gsever

2010-12-22, 21:13

Looks great!

Further map data is downloaded automatically.

Can all the maps preloaded for complete offline navigation?

marxian

2010-12-22, 21:21

Looks great!

Can all the maps preloaded for complete offline navigation?

It would appear so:

When an Internet connection is available, Marble can retrieve routes from OpenRouteService (Europe) and Yours (Worldwide). Additionally you can calculate routes directly on the N900 without the need for an Internet connection using the Monav backend. Offline routing requires additional country maps which can be downloaded conveniently from within Marble. See this tutorial for further instructions.

It looks excellent. I'll definitely give it a try. Now we know where Nokia can stick their half-baked Ovi Maps. :)

zimon

2010-12-22, 21:36

CrashCrashCrash

~ $ XDG_DATA_HOME="${MARBLE_DATA_HOME:-/home/user/MyDocs/.local/share}"
~ $ export XDG_DATA_HOME
~ $ LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/opt/marble/lib:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}"
~ $ export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
~ $ PATH="/opt/marble/bin:${PATH}"
~ $ export PATH
~ $ gdb /opt/marble/bin/marble
GNU gdb (GDB) 6.8.50.20090417-debian
...
(gdb) run
Starting program: /opt/marble/bin/marble
(no debugging symbols found)
....
Unsupported date format character at 1 (%-d.%-m.)
....
Dec 22 23:26:56 Nokia-N900 marble[3998]: GLIB CRITICAL ** GLib-GObject - g_object_get: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed
Dec 22 23:26:57 Nokia-N900 marble[3998]: GLIB CRITICAL ** Gtk - gtk_widget_set_sensitive: assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed
Dec 22 23:26:59 Nokia-N900 dbus[766]: WARNING: match destination=':1.539' added by :1.539 (pid=3998, uid=29999) who owns services:
Dec 22 23:26:59 Nokia-N900 dbus[766]: :1.539
(no debugging symbols found)
Time elapsed: 1088 ms
Model: Time elapsed: 1 ms
ReadSettings: mapThemeId: "earth/openstreetmap/openstreetmap.dgml"
Updating Settings ...
(no debugging symbols found)
Unsupported DBUS type: 0

Program received signal SIGSEGV, Segmentation fault.
0x400fc4a0 in QString::toLatin1() const () from /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4
0x400fc4a0 <_ZNK7QString8toLatin1Ev+0>: ldr r3, [r1]
(gdb) bt
#0 0x400fc4a0 in QString::toLatin1() const () from /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4
#1 0x400fc718 in QString::toAscii() const () from /usr/lib/libQtCore.so.4
#2 0x448c9c58 in QNetworkSessionPrivateImpl::syncStateWithInterface () ()
from /usr/lib/qt4/plugins/bearer/libqicdbearer.so
#3 0x41047a60 in QNetworkSession::QNetworkSession(QNetworkConfigura tion const&, QObject*) () from /usr/lib/libQtNetwork.so.4
#4 0x4100b48c in ?? () from /usr/lib/libQtNetwork.so.4
#5 0x4100b48c in ?? () from /usr/lib/libQtNetwork.so.4
Backtrace stopped: previous frame identical to this frame (corrupt stack?)
(gdb)

Also fapman crashes (http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=901754&postcount=552) when APN Dummy is used with Bluetooth or USB networking. (libicd-network-null package)

Possible bug and report (http://bugreports.qt.nokia.com/browse/QTMOBILITY-912) in Qt4.

gsever

2010-12-22, 23:17

Works for me.

There is a download region option which allows to download maps possibly for offline using.

Here a guy bundles an iso with full bluemarble data. I am looking something similar to this --full OpenStreetMaps bundle or Satellite view imagery.

http://www.cornelius-schumacher.de/marbleinabox.html

For offline routing monav is used which also downloads seperate routing files --wish there was a way to download the Conus pack at one click instead of fetching states separately.

Any idea, where these maps are cached on disk?

Thanks for the simple/clear instructions at http://userbase.kde.org/Marble/Maemo/Installation and for the offline use.

Maruzko

2010-12-22, 23:40

Marble.

OMG, this sounds and looks awesome.
Offline maps AND offline routing AND voice navigation.
Will try it soon.

zvogt

2010-12-23, 01:58

Marble.

OMG, this sounds and looks awesome.
Offline maps AND offline routing AND voice navigation.
Will try it soon.

I see written turn-by-turn directions, but I see nothing that leads me to believe this app provides a voice navigation feature.

While initially this looks promising, it still has a ways to go before being ready for smooth operation on the N900. I've also experienced several crashes after only minutes of use. And the menu scrolling is really rough. Menus seem to aggresively snap between the top and the bottom, and scrolling to a point in between is virtually impossible.
Another feature I don't see is the ability switch the units from kilometers and meters to miles and feet.
But I'll reserve my final judgement until version 1.0 is released.

earthwings

2010-12-23, 11:09

Thanks for the positive feedback everyone, appreciated :-)

@gsever; Yes, that's possible. Note that you need both one or more offline routing maps (downloadable by country in the configuration dialog of monav in the routing dialog) and the map tiles. They can be downloaded using the "Download Region" dialog. It allows to download either a rectangular region (visible map region) or tiles along the route.

Maps are downloaded to /home/user/MyDocs/.local/share/marble/maps/
We have plans to share the OpenStreetMap tiles downloaded with other applications by reusing the /home/user/MyDocs/.maps/ directory. This may already be doable manually if you use ext4 for the flash memory and create an appropriate symlink in /home/user/MyDocs/.local/share/marble/maps/earth/openstreetmap => /home/user/MyDocs/.maps/OpenStreetMap I.

@zimon: When does that crash happen exactly? Could be a Qt bug indeed given the rather long backtrace in Qt libs.

@Maruzko: Audible announcements aren't done yet, only textual ones. I hope to have it soon though, either via tts or via prerecorded audio files. It can't make it into 1.0 though as that one is feature frozen.

@zvogt: Can you give some details when crashes occur? Which map theme and which projection are you using? What have you done at that time, e.g. zooming, panning, calculating routes or similar.

The driving instructions view in the routing dialog indeed has the scrolling problem you describe. Qt doesn't handle the two scrollable widgets nice here. The only workaround is to use the keyboard for navigating through the driving instruction at this time. I hope the competing scrolling will be fixed in Qt.
I'm not aware of any other menu with such a problem though. Please report if there are others.

I'm working on supporting imperial units now. It won't get a GUI though, but rely on the locales used. One thing I'm not sure about is which distance values should be presented in feet and which in miles. Looking at other applications, there doesn't seem to be a consistent way: Sometimes only miles are used, sometimes values shorter than one mile are presented in feet. Is there some "correct" way to do it?

zimon

2010-12-23, 11:12

@zimon: When does that crash happen exactly? Could be a Qt bug indeed given the rather long backtrace in Qt libs.

Almost right after the program is started.
I see the window "Marble" and a picture of compass quickly before the crash.

joerg_rw

2010-12-23, 17:18

regarding crash on start, a
rm /home/user/MyDocs/.local/share/marble/routing/route.kml
helped to work around a known bug. http://websvn.kde.org/?view=revision&revision=1208604

/j

gsever

2010-12-23, 17:21

zimon

2010-12-23, 18:20

regarding crash on start, a
rm /home/user/MyDocs/.local/share/marble/routing/route.kml
helped to work around a known bug. http://websvn.kde.org/?view=revision&revision=1208604

/j

I have that routing directory empty. Never got that far it would create there something. I do get Marble working with GPRS APN, but I'd like to download maps when connected through Dummy APN with USB-cable or Bluetooth, as I do for example with modRana and Mappero.

earthwings

2010-12-23, 23:14

Thanks for the response earthwings.

I was wondering if full continent data be loaded through say http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Planet.osm for offline use. Where does monav fetch the data from? I might do manual or wget based download to get the whole US routing data instead of selecting state by state --which 50 is a big number for a manual operation :D

Initially any .osm file can be used, but it must not be too big. Monav has a file size limit of 4 GB for its output files IIRC. Therefore you cannot loat the whole planet. Restricting it to the US may work though to create a large monav map. There are two tools needed for it, one is the Monav preprocessor from the 0.2 release of Monav. Use it to generate a gps grid and contraction hierarchies files. The second tool is written by me and generates metadata used by Marble in .kml format. It includes the outline polygon of the map and upgrade information. You can omit that one without major problems (most severe limitation will be that you can only use one map for monav then because the data boundaries are unknown).

I haven't released that tool yet, but I'll do that early next year together with a tutorial describing how to create such maps. Can't do it right now because it's stored locally on a system I don't have access to currently.

If I get a hold on .osm data for the US together with a .poly outline for it, I can do the preprocessing as well and include the full US map in conjunction with the other downloadable country maps. Unfortunately cloudmade doesn't offer that data. I'm not sure if my server has enough free space left as well.

You can get a list of all available monav (offline routing) maps easily btw: wget http://edu.kde.org/marble/newstuff/maps-monav.xml -q -O - | grep payload | sed -e 's/<[^>]*>//g' -e 's/^ //'
The "installation" in Marble simply extracts them in /home/user/MyDocs/.local/share/marble/maps/earth/monav/, you can do that manually or with a script as well.

@zimon: I'm afraid the only way is to wait for a bugfix in Qt. At least that's what I'd expect it to be from the backtrace.

Shinigamijim

2010-12-24, 18:02

i manage to get dirrections working offline mode, but i cant see anything like it tells me where to turn or where to go but i just see the map like in satelite view... idk maybe because im from peru ( south america ) i follow the steps but no imagines.

Venemo

2010-12-25, 20:12

After trying the app, I only have one criticism: Performance!
It is slower than Fennec, and while the UI looks beautiful, it is daunting to use because its response time is a bit slow.

Apart from this, I'm happy for this feature-rich app!

itaychi

2010-12-28, 10:47

thanks for making marble available for us!

I'd like to add to what Venemo said - performance is less than ideal.
but what is missing the most for me is the option to download map tiles for an entire country - for example i'd like to download map tiles for all of Israel to make that offline routing more useful.
that's what will make marble really useful for me.

abill_uk

2010-12-28, 11:18

If earthwings can progress this through the bugging stages from the pure feedback i think this app may well indeed once working with voice and capable of complete country mapping could leave OVI standing.

Keep the maps free to download and a full set of instructions and this looks like gold !.

One request though is to make sure this app does not make hidden charges in any way and can be clear on when offline and online.

VERY VERY good work please please carry this through !.

earthwings

2010-12-28, 16:18

A new version 0.90+svn1209861 is in extras-testing. Changes since the last one:

Fix a crash on startup when restoring a route and GPS is enabled at startup
The OSM map theme with Mercator projection is now the default for new installations
Use miles instead of km in driving instructions and the map scale if the system is configured to use imperial units. Routing dialog tbd.
Fix a crash when using the "Plain Map" theme
When GPS is active and the user activates the screen saver, do not wake up the screen every thirty seconds

@Shinigamijim: Make sure to activate guidance mode as describing here (http://userbase.kde.org/Marble/Maemo/GuidanceMode). Note that you need a GPS fix. If you get "info" icons instead of arrows indicating the turn type, then the route comes from OpenRouteService. Disable it in the configuration to make sure only Monav is used.

@itaychi: You can set the map region (visible part of the map on the screen) to Israel and then use the "Download Region" dialog to download tiles from the visible area in different tile levels. That may not be ideal, but works well in practice. You can repeat that approach several times with different regions and/or tile levels.

@abill_uk: Marble is free and it will stay like this. Here's a short excerpt from Marble's (preliminary) OSGeo incubation application:

12. Does the project support open standards? Which ones and to what extent? (OGC, w3c, ect.) Has the software been certified to any standard (CITE for example)? If not, is it the intention of the project owners to seek certification at some point?

Supporting and promoting the idea of Free Software, Free Maps and Open Standards is Marble's primary mission.
We support open standards such as the OGC KML standard, GPX, OSM and the usual ones that are common among Free Software developers.
Marble's internal data structures are modelled after KML. Internally all data is passed as a KML document.

13. Is the code free of patents, trademarks, and do you control the copyright?

Marble itself is free of patents and trademarks. The only related trademark is KDE which is held by the KDE e.V..
Marble's copyright is held by its authors and the code is released under the LGPL 2+.

tackat

2010-12-29, 20:20

Yes, our Marble project is fully based on Free Software (LGPL) and we also take care that the data and the open standards we use is created in that spirit. We are also very picky about licensing, so we check the Terms of Use of the data we use very thoroughly. That's also the reason why we don't display Google Maps/Google Earth or Ovi Maps data. Marble is technically capable of displaying both but the Terms of Use (and our distribution policies) don't allow for usage inside Marble, so we don't ship with these maps (no problem, since OpenStreetMap is great!).

While we promote Free Maps and Free Software our licensing model (LGPL) intentionally allows for usage of Marble's framework in proprietary applications. And it allows for usage of "closed maps".

But our heart is with Free Software and Free Maps - and with Marble being a community project! So if you consider getting involved then join us!

http://edu.kde.org/marble/getinvolved.php

If you're a Facebook user don't hesitate to join our Facebook group which has all the latest bleeding edge news about Marble!

http://www.facebook.com/marbleglobe

Wikiwide

2011-01-02, 13:30

Have just tried with USB Networking - crash, crash, crash.
Updating settings...
Unsupported DBUS type: 0
Segmentation fault

Have had enough seconds to see OpenStreetMap tiles, though.

Thank you!

grinsekatze

2011-01-04, 13:02

This is more of a minor issue. I'm using a mixed locale on my N900:

LANG=en_US
LC_CTYPE="en_US"
LC_NUMERIC=de_DE
LC_TIME=en_US
LC_COLLATE="en_US"
LC_MONETARY=de_DE
LC_MESSAGES=en_US
LC_PAPER=de_DE
LC_NAME=de_DE
LC_ADDRESS=de_DE
LC_TELEPHONE=de_DE
LC_MEASUREMENT=de_DE
LC_IDENTIFICATION=de_DE
LC_ALL=

With these settings I would expect Marble to start with an English UI, however i get the German translation. I have Marble installed from extras-devel.
EDIT: Scratch that, seems to be a bug in Qt: http://bugreports.qt.nokia.com/browse/QTBUG-1313

zimon

2011-01-04, 17:08

Could it be possible to get Marble use the same local stored maps as modRana and Mappero?

modRana's developer has created sqlite3 database and "standard" to store map tiles. Would be good if other map applications in N900 would also support this sqlite-database. Having lots of tiles as separate files will waste space and energy (in general and in so many ways).

From http://nlp.fi.muni.cz/trac/gps_navigace/wiki/DataStorageEN#Datastorage

NOTE: Because of the FAT32 file-system used in MyDocs, you should consider enabling sqlite tile storage (in options->map->tile storage). FAT32 uses very large per-file clusters, which together with map data that consists of thousands of individual tiles causes huge waste of space. Sqlite can store thousands of tiles in a single file and thus avoids this issue.

stickymick

2011-01-05, 12:38

Got the update last night. Notice a slight performance increase, but still some issues with scrolling in the menus.
I take it this update doesn't include OpenGL as yet?

And when can we have a Mars map? :p

P.S Or will we be able to add our own maps in future?

earthwings

2011-01-05, 20:53

extras-testing now has 1.0 RC2 with the following changes:

- Add the Hike & Bike Map and the Osmarender map themes to the marble-maps package.
- Fix an upgrade problem in the marble-maps package (package manager reported a conflict).
- Disable the Guidance Mode button (left most of the four large buttons on the bottom) when no route has been calculated.
- Don't show the position indicator anymore when GPS gets disabled.
- Improve the look of the Map View Dialog and make it more responsive.
- Update translations
- More optimizations that double the rendering speed for maps scrolling (compared to Release Candidate 1).
- Fix a crash when using the Plain Map theme.

Thanks to all the Marble developers involved.

@Wikiwide: It's a Qt bug, I'm afraid, nothing I can do except than waiting for a fix in Qt.

@zimon: Yes, I plan to add that. At least the "standard" way with png tiles in directories. Not sure about sqlite.

@stickymick: The new version (1.0 RC2) has some speed improvements for scrolling maps, the map views dialog is faster as well.

Actually we do have a map wizard now (trunk) in the Desktop version of Marble that let's you create your own maps :-)

Android_808

2011-01-05, 23:28

earthwings

2011-01-06, 02:41

You can add custom maps, but it's not as easy as I'd like. I'm currently using google maps tiles as the OSM tiles have several roads incorrectly named near me. I could register and change them at some stage.

There is a gitorious project called marble-restricted-maps or something. Downloaded archive from there, copied files into a local settings folder (can't find in latest version) and it appeared in map options but didn't work. Put it in /opt/marble/share/marble/data/maps/earth/. You need to make sure folder name matches theme name.

It also works in the home folder. You need to put it in /home/user/MyDocs/.local/share/marble/maps/earth/googlesat (or googlemaps or whatever other map theme you like).

Two things I'd like to see:
1. Guideance to say turn left or right. Need to check but at the moment I've only had "drive right on xxx"

Yes, voice output is on the TODO list with rather high priority ;-)

2. Changelog on repository/garage site
That's available at http://marble.garage.maemo.org/testing/ at the end of the site.

gabby131

2011-01-06, 02:53

overflowing with joy and thankfulness.

thank you very much. :)

Android_808

2011-01-06, 14:43

when i tried via .local it appeared as a theme but wouldn't set/save changes when selected. it just reverted to osm.

ddiscodave

2011-01-06, 14:54

cannot install.... keep getting conflicting errors.... any ideas?

earthwings

2011-01-06, 16:27

@Android_808: Strange, works fine for me. Maybe one of the theme files got corrupted when you copied it to the device, or permissions were somehow messed up.

@ddiscodave: Select marble-maps alone first and update that, then it should work. That error is resolved after upgrading to the latest packages.

If the package manager still refuses to update, you can also open a terminal and do a

root
apt-get install marble libmarble marble-plugins marble-data marble-maps

zimon

2011-01-06, 16:39

@zimon: Yes, I plan to add that. At least the "standard" way with png tiles in directories. Not sure about sqlite.

When there is thousands of little files, map tiles, it will for sure slow things down to access them from FAT32-system rather than from sqlite-engine from database-files.
modRana's author has documented (updated) the sqlite-database for map tiles in the previous mentioned URI.

tackat

2011-01-06, 17:20

zimon: We'll consider it.

stickymick: You can download maps for Mars for Marble right here:

http://edu.kde.org/marble/maps.php

There are even maps for Venus and the Moon :-) Using the Desktop KDE version you can download new maps via KNS ("File->Get New Maps"). If you run Marble trunk you can even help us beta testing the new Map Creation wizard which is currently in the works, see:

http://userbase.kde.org/Marble/WizardMap

For some early piece of documentation of an early revision of the feature. :-)

earthwings

2011-01-09, 10:22

earthwings

2011-01-26, 22:06

Marble 1.0.0 (http://edu.kde.org/marble/current_1.0.php) has been released together with KDE 4.6 (http://www.kde.org/announcements/4.6/) earlier today. The N900 packages are in extras-testing for some days now. If you have some time to test them, please vote for them so that we can get them into extras. Thanks :)

Packages to test:

marble (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/marble/1.0.0/)
marble-maps (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/marble-maps/1.0.0/)
monav-routing-daemon (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/monav-routing-daemon/0.2.release-2/)

Changes since 1.0 RC2:

Usability improvements in the Tracking dialog.
Updated translations. Marble comes in 44 languages. The Tracking Dialog is not translated, please don't report bugs against that.
Ensure that altitude information is stored in saved GPS tracks. Remove current location placemark.
Work around Qt Bug 1313: When using different language and regional settings, the language settings must define the GUI language, not the regional settings.
Fix a crash in globe projection at high zoom levels (street level).
Enable caching for the routing info box. Increases the overall render speed by about 50%.

Shinigamijim

2011-01-27, 02:08

nice good work, i cant tey see it but ill update asap!

acrux

2011-01-27, 14:18

...The N900 packages are in extras-testing for some days now. If you have some time to test them...

Great software, many thanks for a N900 version :)
Had some testing and it seems to work OK, if only...
So I tried to download OSM map tiles for a region about 300x400 km. Set the tile level range 0 - 10 and it worked OK. Then I set the tile level range 10-11. The estimation was 2816 tiles and 36 MB. Started the download and put phone on the table. After about 5 minutes I wanted to check the progress, but the phone was totally unresposive - the screen stayed black and no buttons had any effect on it :confused: However, the phone was not completely dead, as when I tried to call it I heard calling tones. But of course no signes at the phone about incoming call. So I had to pull out the battery...
Any ideas? :)

bugzy

2011-01-27, 22:04

So I started poking around after trying marble for N900 and found that there may be some future modular integration with OVI maps. According to:
http://techbase.kde.org/OviSprintDiscussionNotes
http://dot.kde.org/2010/11/10/kdes-marble-team-holds-first-contributor-sprint

and the video at
http://blip.tv/file/4354030

this is already possible. I can't begin to imagine what this means for Meego and the N900s future. In any case thanks for the great work, thus far.

earthwings

2011-01-27, 22:42

Great software, many thanks for a N900 version :)
Had some testing and it seems to work OK, if only...
So I tried to download OSM map tiles for a region about 300x400 km. Set the tile level range 0 - 10 and it worked OK. Then I set the tile level range 10-11. The estimation was 2816 tiles and 36 MB. Started the download and put phone on the table. After about 5 minutes I wanted to check the progress, but the phone was totally unresposive - the screen stayed black and no buttons had any effect on it :confused: However, the phone was not completely dead, as when I tried to call it I heard calling tones. But of course no signes at the phone about incoming call. So I had to pull out the battery...
Any ideas? :)
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.

acrux

2011-01-28, 08:26

Guess you were using the OpenStreetMap map theme, right?

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:

MartinK

2011-01-28, 10:21

This sounds like something triggering the infamous freezing bug (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9150).

acrux

2011-01-28, 11:58

This sounds like something triggering the infamous freezing bug (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9150).

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... :(

MartinK

2011-01-28, 14:37

So I did one more test, thist 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... :(

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...

acrux

2011-01-28, 14:45

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...

In my case the GPS was off...

artwine

2011-02-09, 18:06

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?

artwine

2011-02-10, 16:06

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 ?

tackat

2011-02-17, 13:03

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.

avidscavenger

2011-03-26, 07:05

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.

joerg_rw

2011-03-27, 12:19

soeiro

2011-04-02, 15:07

earthwings

2011-04-03, 10:02

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).

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

int_ua

2011-04-10, 01:24

earthwings

2011-04-11, 21:01

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?

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 (http://nienhueser.de/blog/?p=309) is scheduled for 2011-04-15. If you or anyone else wants to help out testing the packages, please see see here (http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/marble-devel/2011-April/002084.html).

lucky88shp

2011-04-12, 01:43

lucky88shp

2011-04-12, 01:44

earthwings

2011-04-12, 20:45

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?

Did you give our tutorials (http://userbase.kde.org/Tutorials#Marble) 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).

lucky88shp

2011-04-13, 00:26

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!!!

earthwings

2011-04-13, 20:04

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.

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 (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/monav-routing-daemon/0.2.release-2/) 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 :)

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!!!
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.

Mentalist Traceur

2011-05-07, 03:16

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?

earthwings

2011-05-10, 13:12

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 (http://maemo.org/packages/repository/qa/fremantle_extras-testing/?org_openpsa_qbpager_packages_in_repo_page=4) in extras-testing. Ideally we'd get them into extras before i push Marble 1.1.1 to extras-testing. Thanks :)

Patroclo

2011-05-13, 13:12

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

earthwings

2011-05-15, 11:07

@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 (http://userbase.kde.org/Marble/MapThemes) 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 (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/marble/1.1.0/) 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!

Vlad_on_the_road

2011-05-17, 20:46

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

tkatchev

2011-05-24, 06:36

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. :)

mmarks

2011-05-24, 07:53

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.

earthwings

2011-05-24, 11:52

@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 :)

mmarks

2011-05-24, 12:14

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?

earthwings

2011-05-24, 12:24

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.

mmarks

2011-05-25, 07:16

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

acrux

2011-05-25, 09:37

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....

niqbal

2011-05-25, 12:19

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

acrux

2011-05-25, 13:48

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

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...

earthwings

2011-05-25, 23:01

@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 (http://kde.org/announcements/announce-4.7-beta1.php) 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 (http://nienhueser.de/blog/?p=321) (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 (http://nienhueser.de/marble/maemo/). 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.

Soppa

2011-05-26, 09:05

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

Soppa

2011-05-26, 11:38

niqbal

2011-05-27, 07:28

mmarks

2011-05-27, 08:40

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

mmarks

2011-05-27, 10:22

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!

rob42

2011-05-27, 12:41

hi
having problem loading uk map - press install , looks like its going to work .but it either sits there saying 0/204 mb or flicks back to the selection screen.
is there a manual method?
thanks

earthwings

2011-05-27, 13:33

I'll look into the voice navigation problems. Reading that so many people are having issues I wonder whether there's some regression in Marble.

@rob42: I just tested the UK map, downloads fine here on the N900. For a manual installation, download united_kingdom_motorcar.tar.gz (http://files.kde.org/marble/monav/united_kingdom_motorcar.tar.gz) and extract it in /home/user/MyDocs/.local/share/marble/maps/
You can also download and extract it on a different system than the N900, mount it via USB and copy the extracted files over.

rob42

2011-05-27, 13:46

cheers earthwings

earthwings

2011-05-29, 09:36

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
Hi Soppa,

do you remember what you did to fix the ogg issue? Any additional packages to install (or remove)? Which of the extras repositories do you have enabled?

@all: There seems to be a problem with playing mono .ogg files on the N900 now. It's a bit strange because that used to work fine some months/weeks ago. Converting mono .ogg files to stereo ones makes them work in Marble, however. I'll try to find the source of the problem. If I don't find it, I'll make the web converter do a conversion to stereo to work around the problem.

There's an easy way to test if you're affected: Choose "Play a sound" in Marble's routing config dialog. If that works (plays a sound to announce a turn point), but a converted speaker file does not work, you're likely hit by that problem. If playing the sound does not work either, you may be missing the ogg-support package.

Update: Screw the mono vs. stereo theory. Some .ogg files play here, some do not, but I don't see where things go wrong yet.

Update 2: I got it running again. Unfortunately I'm not sure what exactly fixed it. Here's a couple of things to try:

Try to play one of the .ogg files from the voice in the media player. Not working?
Make sure ogg-support and decoders-support are installed. Still not working?
Downgrade ogg-support from the extras-devel version (1.0.7-rc1) to the testing version (1.0.5). Still not working?
Move /home/user/.gstreamer-0.10 away. Still not working?
Reinstall all gstreamer0.10 packages

acrux

2011-05-29, 15:53

I have been running my N900 with extras-testing enabled, I have installed extra -decoders-support and have had no problems with playing voices in Marble. I'm using the TomTom estonian female voice.
Today I made a new test with Marble 1.2 Beta 1 & Monav 0.3. Reinstalled the map (Estonia) and tried it IRL.
Now the guidance was correct, but it only said "turn left(right) after 800 meters" no more. Somewhat it "liked" that 800 meters :D It also seems, that the route recalculation is available, as I intentionally passed the right place and after some messy commands it at last again correctly said "turn right after 800 meters)...

Soppa

2011-05-29, 18:20

Hi Soppa,

do you remember what you did to fix the ogg issue? Any additional packages to install (or remove)? Which of the extras repositories do you have enabled?

I downgraded the ogg support to the extras version, like you. However, I still just get the first voice announcement when starting the navigation, turns and other directions are still silent. I'm using the yoda sounds, however I don't think that's really relevant, the problem seems to be elsewhere. Even without the voice navigation this app is great, kudos to the developers.

niqbal

2011-05-29, 19:15

Hi Soppa,

do you remember what you did to fix the ogg issue? Any additional packages to install (or remove)? Which of the extras repositories do you have enabled?

@all: There seems to be a problem with playing mono .ogg files on the N900 now. It's a bit strange because that used to work fine some months/weeks ago. Converting mono .ogg files to stereo ones makes them work in Marble, however. I'll try to find the source of the problem. If I don't find it, I'll make the web converter do a conversion to stereo to work around the problem.

There's an easy way to test if you're affected: Choose "Play a sound" in Marble's routing config dialog. If that works (plays a sound to announce a turn point), but a converted speaker file does not work, you're likely hit by that problem. If playing the sound does not work either, you may be missing the ogg-support package.

Update: Screw the mono vs. stereo theory. Some .ogg files play here, some do not, but I don't see where things go wrong yet.

Update 2: I got it running again. Unfortunately I'm not sure what exactly fixed it. Here's a couple of things to try:

Try to play one of the .ogg files from the voice in the media player. Not working?
Make sure ogg-support and decoders-support are installed. Still not working?
Downgrade ogg-support from the extras-devel version (1.0.7-rc1) to the testing version (1.0.5). Still not working?
Move /home/user/.gstreamer-0.10 away. Still not working?
Reinstall all gstreamer0.10 packages

I got the voice working finally. install extra-decoders-support and then downgrade ogg-support to v1.0.5

apt-get install --reinstall ogg-support=1.0.5

now i went logically. First made sure converted speaker ogg files were properly played on my laptop then i transferred them to device. Made sure to check them first with media player, once the files were being played properly. I put that speaker in marble and well so far so good. I only got it working like an hr ago, so i'll get back to you with some test runs tomorrow

Speaker i am using is English-Vicki(GB). Hope it keeps on working ~

Testing:Worked better than i thought it would. Still work is needed. But i enjoyed the ride alot after hooking n900 to car speakers. Now all i need is a car dashmount :)

niqbal

2011-05-31, 11:37

i download region (map tiles) for use in offline mode. Where is this download file kept? + does it get deleted automatically?

mmarks

2011-05-31, 11:53

Hi all,

Still trying to get marble working as my everyday sat nav.
I can (I think) get the voice working but it seems to repeat the same instruction and breaks up.
Does anybody have a GB voice that they have converted and works that they could post up so I can download it and try again?

Also, I wondered if I was missing something as I haven't seen the following facilities (maybe they don't exist - yet!)

Direction of travel upwards when navigating (rather than north up all the time)

Auto zoom in when close to an instruction or junction

Auto recalculate route

When I zoom in, the track track is often well off the road, can marble have some sort of 'align to road' option

And finally, will there become a way of downloading the maps for offline use? I know I can download a map for offline routing and can download maps section by section, but I would ideally like to download 'Ireland' for both offline routing and offline map viewing/navigation.

I know there are a lot of asks here, having tried (I think) every sat nav out there on N900, Marble is the closest to being ideal. with these additions, it would replace sygic, ovi maps and any other on the N900 and be just as good in daily use as tomtom or google maps etc.

Thanks in advance,

Mike

niqbal

2011-06-01, 13:25

mmarks

2011-06-01, 14:57

niqbal

2011-06-01, 15:38

Hi niqbal, just replied to your pm and noticed the post (so ignore my pm reply!).

thanks for the files, I will try them and report back.

What I meant about noth up or direction up is the ability, when navigating for the route to always point upwards, that way left and right turns are on you left and right.
At the moment the pointer follows the map direction so could be going down the screen if I am travelling South and up the screen if I am travelling North. Does that make sense?

Also, do I need to do anything for the auto-recalculate route to start working or will it do it by itself?

Mike

now i get it. Yes you are right, but this functionality is missing for now. It doesnt keep the car (or navigator) in the middle of the screen .. this is what i meant by zooming in to road level. This is exactly the functionality i mentioned to earthwings. When guidance mode should start, it should drop down to road level with u in perspective. So map is relative to you. Like u said, when u have to turn left in say 800m u should be able to peek at the map and see which left. Ideally after hearing a beautiful voice telling u to turn left lol

Routes are automatically recalculated and this functionality is solid. Make a route map, and zoom in to see little nodes on route, then u can move nodes to tell it exactly which path u want to take. It will automatically keep rerouting while u change nodes

niqbal

2011-06-05, 10:22

Marble 1.1.8 + Offline Routing Daemon 0.3
Feedback as i find my way through Marble

Home Location/Bookmarks works with Routing dialog but in Goto dialog - they end up taking u around the world somewhere lol (does not work, period)
Zoom in sufficiently on flat map and it kills the app everytime
Fullscreen mode is very nice. Two things, a keyboard shorcut OR an icon to toggle between fullscreen mode on/off would be better.
Tracking Dialog Settings are not saved. This is seriously annoying bug.
In Routing Dialog drop down menu, Clear Route needs to be added rather than manually kills nodes
Auto Zoom-in function is a mis-hit. It doesn't work properly. Ideally, it should be at road level all the time but its atleast two to three times zoomed out further back just showing you which highway or road you are on.
Voice is unpredictable. Its giving correct directions but they are mostly a little too early. Say turn left in a km or so and as soon as i turn on that road, it tells me to Turn Left in 800m. Its working but shouldn't it ideally tell you to turn left when you are actually at the left turn. Once i heard, Bear Left when i was about to turn left and it made me happy. But its a mis-hit for now.
In Routing Dialog, when a saved route is opened, map should automatically move to show route now. it stays stagnant instead
Legend -> Hillshading checkbox not available/missing

rob42

2011-06-06, 09:57

Morning
am having a problem with the sounds for this - have download and installed as instructed with oggs and mp3 but still no voice.
also the auto re calculation of a route - if I come a across a diversion marble doesn't recalculate a new route from the change unlike sygic.
have I missed a setting or can this be added.
thanks

earthwings

2011-06-08, 20:40

@acrux: 800 meters is the distance at which a voice command is played (unless turn points come up in short distance). I changed the behavior for beta 2, see below.

@Soppa: Hm, that sounds strange. I upgraded ogg-support to the new version 1.1 in testing yesterday, which broke it again for me. Then downgraded, still broken. Then I reinstalled decoders-support (apt-get install --reinstall decoders-support), still broken. Rebooted, waited for tracker to finish indexing (tracker-status reporting 'Idle'). Still nothing. After another reinstall of decoders-support it worked again. It may be related to both decoders-support and ogg-support sometimes hanging during installation (dbus communication errors are reported).

@nipbal: Thanks for the testing. Some bugs are already fixed, see below. The tiles for the OpenStreetMap theme are stored in /home/user/MyDocs/.maps/OpenStreetMap I. Other themes store them in /home/user/MyDocs/.local/share/marble/maps/$planet/$theme. You can delete files there to increase the available space. Automatic housekeeping (which limits the total size of downloaded tiles, deletes oldest) is disabled in Marble currently.

@mmarks: Auto map rotation is not supported at the moment. Auto zooming is there (activated automatically during guidance mode, manually in the Tracking dialog), but could use some tweaking. Map matching is done internally of course, but the track only shows the raw GPS position so far. Guess that's a feature to add in one of the next versions. Downloading country (image) tiles is problematic because of the size needed for higher zoom levels. In my opinion the only sane way to do that is to use vector maps (there's a GSOC project going on at the moment to implement it in Marble).
Routes will automatically be recalculated in guidance mode (left of the four icons on the bottom of the screen).

@rob42: Which version of ogg-support is installed on your N900? "apt-cache policy ogg-support" executed in the terminal tells you, package manager might do as well.
For route recalculation -- is guidance mode enabled? That's the left of the four icons on the bottom of the screen.

@all: I updated the packages on my server to 1.1.85 (1.2 Beta 2). If you installed beta 1, you can upgrade from the X-terminal: apt-get update; apt-get install marble. See here (http://nienhueser.de/marble/maemo/). Remember: This is software with beta quality.

Changes since beta 1:

Better transport type and upgrade handling in monav configuration. Bike and pedestrian offline routing maps are available for Germany on the server now
Store the last transport type used and tracking options (auto center, auto zoom) and restore it after a restart of Marble
Searching in the Go To... dialog can be cancelled, Bookmark selection fixed
Fix crash at high zoom levels (spherical and flat map projection)
Filter duplicate results in offline search for overlapping region databases
Distinguish between announcement and actual turn during voice guidance. Previously each turn type was announced up to 850 meters in advance. Now a second, different voice command (or sound) indicates the turn up to 50 meters in advance.
Clear action in the Routing dialog

Feedback is (as always) welcome. Enjoy :)

Mentalist Traceur

2011-06-08, 21:50

earthwings

2011-06-09, 07:44

I don't get the point of keeping beta software out of -devel and -testing. Those repositories exist for the whole purpose of bug testing unstable software.

I for one sit on the -devel repository because I'm willing to bug test and have software break every update.

You're right, but looking at the download statistics it seems that the majority of users have extras-devel enabled. If I push these betas to extras-devel, several thousand people will install them. I want the more obvious problems to be fixed before doing that.
I guess one of the RCs will go to extras-devel though.

I see your point that this defeats the purpose of extras-devel a bit, but I'd blame it on Nokia for including the (disabled) extras-devel in the default firmware while leaving extras-testing entirely out. IMHO that's where the extras promotion process is broken: For the average user it's easy to use unstable software, but hard to use/test supposedly more stable testing software. This results in a long extras promotion (see extras-testing queue) and too much usage of extras-devel by non-testers.

Mentalist Traceur

2011-06-09, 19:59

I see your point that this defeats the purpose of extras-devel a bit, but I'd blame it on Nokia for including the (disabled) extras-devel in the default firmware while leaving extras-testing entirely out. IMHO that's where the extras promotion process is broken: For the average user it's easy to use unstable software, but hard to use/test supposedly more stable testing software. This results in a long extras promotion (see extras-testing queue) and too much usage of extras-devel by non-testers.
Actually, extras-devel isn't included by default (enabled or disabled).

If you reflash the N900 and then look at the catalogues in Hildon Application Manager, only Maemo.org's Extras is enabled. Extras-Testing and Extras-Devel aren't even there. FApMan, as far as I know, doesn't add them (disabled or not) either.

Nay, the great flood of end-users to -devel is self-caused by the users themselves. The second part is that the promotion process is sometimes a PITA for users - you can't use your talk.maemo.org sign on to vote, and it's not intuitive to find the voting pages. Plus some devs are lazy, and/or don't commit in the long-term, so they upload something to -devel but don't bother adding an icon and bugtracker link, or whatever other minor bits are needed to promote down to Extras.

niqbal

2011-06-10, 10:01

Feedback on Marble 1.1.85

Open Route should take you to the route on map but it stays stagnant.
GPS icon in Routing Info Box turn blue when on and white when off. If it stays on (blue) and marble is exited and restarted, it makes a gps connection but icon remains white even though gps is locked in.
Tracking Dialog does not save settings for Show Track. It stays enabled by default.
Voice worked much better, still quirky but better. It does tell you to turn left or right just before you reach the turn not during or after so thats well done.
Voice Guidance Icon when clicked should automatically toggle to Fullscreen Mode.
Icons should be worked on now. It is almost ready and i feel 1.2 beta should include better iconset. Ovi maps do have great icons, don't think you can directly use them in your software but still should give you a good idea of how icons should be laid out. Left transparent panel maybe with gps at top, then voice guidance, then zoom + |||| - then toggle fullscreen icon.

Mentalist Traceur

2011-06-10, 14:02

Voice Guidance Icon when clicked should automatically toggle to Fullscreen Mode.

I disagree. There's no logical reason in my opinion as to why anything completely unrelated to the screen controls should switch full-screen mode on/off.

niqbal

2011-06-10, 20:57

I disagree. There's no logical reason in my opinion as to why anything completely unrelated to the screen controls should switch full-screen mode on/off.

i will explain in detail. Question you need to ask yourself is when and why is navigation guidance mode icon pressed? Two fold answer to it.

one when we are done Routing our route, enabled Tracking settings, GPS is locked-in, a certain Zoom-level is set on map, Download Map Tiles in cache done (using offline routing mode), clicked on Offline Mode and now you are all set on your journey from a Source -> Destination; point being all the settings take place prior to navigating and they are very nicely laid out in drop down menu.

two, this mode is used when we are driving or perhaps biking etc i.e. navigating our way. We are on the route now. We have set the controls and now we want marble to take auto-pilot and guide us while we concentrate on the road. By toggling to full-screen it gives a clear, unclustered and bigger map view in range making it easier to peek and know which next turn is coming up. Also forcing a touch to ideally either pull a car on the side or stop biking before making any necessary changes/adjustments to the route.

Lastly, in my last post i mentioned a fullscreen icon which i also told earthwings on irc chat. That would give freedom to use however one feels fit.

Mentalist Traceur

2011-06-11, 06:33

i will explain in detail. Question you need to ask yourself is when and why is navigation guidance mode icon pressed?
It's not that I can't see your reasoning for the suggestion, it's that I think other things (not forcing one demographics' preferences upon others, mainly) matter slightly more.

Two fold answer to it.

one when we are done Routing our route, enabled Tracking settings, GPS is locked-in, a certain Zoom-level is set on map, Download Map Tiles in cache done (using offline routing mode), clicked on Offline Mode and now you are all set on your journey from a Source -> Destination; point being all the settings take place prior to navigating and they are very nicely laid out in drop down menu.

two, this mode is used when we are driving or perhaps biking etc i.e. navigating our way. We are on the route now. We have set the controls and now we want marble to take auto-pilot and guide us while we concentrate on the road. By toggling to full-screen it gives a clear, unclustered and bigger map view in range making it easier to peek and know which next turn is coming up. Also forcing a touch to ideally either pull a car on the side or stop biking before making any necessary changes/adjustments to the route.

Lastly, in my last post i mentioned a fullscreen icon which i also told earthwings on irc chat. That would give freedom to use however one feels fit.
I can certainly see your point. However, someone might want to change route mid-drive, or maybe change some settings, or whatever. Alternatively, 'forcing a touch' to ideally pull/stop a car/bike over to make changes/adjustments is a normative claim - I.E. that it's a good thing to force people to do that.

At any rate, I agree with you that that's something that would convenience a bunch of people - however, I do NOT think that it should be the automatic hard-coded thing, that pressing a Voice Guidance Icon should also full-screen the program - it's fine as an option, even as the set-on-by-default behavior, but I think that if implemented, it should be disable-able through some settings menu.

Alternatively, simply having a full-screen button should suffice, honestly.

niqbal

2011-06-11, 07:51

It's not that I can't see your reasoning for the suggestion, it's that I think other things (not forcing one demographics' preferences upon others, mainly) matter slightly more.

I can certainly see your point. However, someone might want to change route mid-drive, or maybe change some settings, or whatever. Alternatively, 'forcing a touch' to ideally pull/stop a car/bike over to make changes/adjustments is a normative claim - I.E. that it's a good thing to force people to do that.

At any rate, I agree with you that that's something that would convenience a bunch of people - however, I do NOT think that it should be the automatic hard-coded thing, that pressing a Voice Guidance Icon should also full-screen the program - it's fine as an option, even as the set-on-by-default behavior, but I think that if implemented, it should be disable-able through some settings menu.

Alternatively, simply having a full-screen button should suffice, honestly.

it would be counter-productive on my part to force my suggestions. I certainly don't want to come across like that. But there is one thing we both agree upon, a fullscreen icon to toggle between on/off mode. It is not there right now.

when both icons (guidance mode + fullscreen) are available to me on screen, i can click on guidance mode then fullscreen mode and off i go. If i want to make changes, i can click on fullscreen icon to come out of it and make changes mid-way. Not a good idea at all but if someone wants it, why not. Its like google maps on android, it shifts to fullscreen mode and remove the icons too leaving just directions and when you click (hmm i am forgetting was it a click) anyways, those icons reappear and you can make changes.

EDIT: oh also i feel icons in general need work to make marble look and feel better. i do believe it has got the functionality or most of it down (voice guidance is at an early stage for now) just a bit of tweak here and there and 1.2 can come out

joerg_rw

2011-06-11, 14:56

guys, the solution is obvious: have two states stored persistently: the fullscreen state in normal mode and the fullscreen state in guideance mode. So it's still possible to set guidance mode fullscreen by whatever complicated way thru menus or whatever, have only one button for guidance-off in guidance mode, and still get maximum flexibility.
Alternatively you can have a "config visible buttons" thing, just like you can configure your toolbar in any normal KDE program.

Sure there MUST NOT be anything like fullscreen mode for any state hardcoded.

/j

acrux

2011-06-11, 19:39

Distinguish between announcement and actual turn during voice guidance. Previously each turn type was announced up to 850 meters in advance. Now a second, different voice command (or sound) indicates the turn up to 50 meters in advance.

Yes, the new behaviour is much better and is quite usable already now.
Many thanks for your continuing improvement of Marble :)

Latest ogg-support from extras-testing broke voice guidance here too.
To get it back I did:
1. downgraded ogg-support to 1.0.5
2. reinstalled decoders-support
3. disabled extras-testing repository
4. apt-get autoremove
5. reinstalled decoders-support - bingo

earthwings

2011-06-12, 23:36

I filed a bug report (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12260) now for the ogg-support problems. Let's see where that goes.
We'll also start a contest soon to create new speaker files in various languages. I'll announce that in the next days. I hope to get some nice contributions this way such that we can ship a default voice navigation speaker with 1.2.

Also asked our designers to help out with better icons. Possibly this won't make it until 1.2 though, they're quite busy.

Thanks for the testing btw. Git master already contains some fixes for the issues mentioned above.

earthwings

2011-06-15, 18:44

Today we're starting the Voice of Marble contest to collect voice guidance speakers from the community. We're looking for an english speaker to be shipped with the Marble packages. And we're looking for alternative speakers for each language supported by KDE -- at least one each, and that's a lot! Please participate in the contest and spread the word among your friends. The five best contributions will get a cool Marble T-shirt as a little present :)

Interested? Please head over to the Voice of Marble wiki page (http://community.kde.org/Marble/VoiceOfMarble) which contains all the details you need to participate. The deadline for submissions is July 15th. I'm looking forward to your contribution!

niqbal

2011-06-17, 19:50

Yes, the new behaviour is much better and is quite usable already now.
Many thanks for your continuing improvement of Marble :)

Latest ogg-support from extras-testing broke voice guidance here too.
To get it back I did:
1. downgraded ogg-support to 1.0.5
2. reinstalled decoders-support
3. disabled extras-testing repository
4. apt-get autoremove
5. reinstalled decoders-support - bingo

you are overkilling it in my opinion. a simple

apt-get install ogg-support=1.0.5
restart

should suffice

Mentalist Traceur

2011-06-19, 08:48

I'd like to report one issue I've had on my device as of a couple of updates ago (shortly around the time that the first beta build of Marble with offline routing was put up by earthwings on his server, and it was said that maps with MoNav routing daemon internal routing data would start to roll out soon after):

The Georgia map (the United States state "Georgia", not the country) always reports itself as needing an update every time I launch Marble. I currently have MoNav maps for almost every United States state installed, but this problem existed before, when I had at most a fifth of them (I've been slowly downloading them in alphabetical order, basically, over the span of a couple of weeks).

I've tried pressing the update button, waiting for the map to download, etc, multiple times. I've also tried leaving it alone between relaunches of Marble and/or rebood. I have not so far tested what happens if you "install" the map again over the install interface instead of update it through the update interface, or removing the map and then installing it, or manually deleting the Georgia MoNav map files through command-line, and then trying to install again. I tried briefly looking at the Marble site for info and didn't find any mention of such a bug, but it's quite likely I'm just not finding it.

- Edit -

To be very precise, after I update the map by using the updatUI button, it shows itself as no longer needing an update until I close Marble. But when I open Marble again, the update button for Georgia is clickable again.

I HAVE updated other maps through the this way, and they worked fine. I also believe that once very early on when this issue first appeared, Georgia's map actually updated when using the update UI, so it's not the actual UPDATE that's bugging out, it's Marble reporting that that map needs/has an update. - it just seems that wherever Marble(/MoNav?) stores its maps' update status, the value for Georgia has gotten stuck on 'update available'

earthwings

2011-06-19, 09:04

@niqbal: It's the same here -- downgrading ogg-support only brings it back after reinstalling decoders-support twice.

@Mentalist Traceur: Good catch. There was a name clash with the country Georgia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)), whose map is two days newer. Marble downloaded the american state, but compared its version to the country. I updated the data on the server, it should be resolved now.

@all: Please remember our Voice of Marble (http://community.kde.org/Marble/VoiceOfMarble) contest which started a few days ago. We don't have any female submissions so far, please spread the word! :)

Mentalist Traceur

2011-06-19, 09:25

@Mentalist Traceur: Good catch. There was a name clash with the country Georgia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)), whose map is two days newer. Marble downloaded the american state, but compared its version to the country. I updated the data on the server, it should be resolved now.
Wow that was fast. At this moment the update icon is no longer clickable for Georgia on my device, so I'd call that a success. (What's cool is that I haven't even closed Marble, merely been downloading other maps. Nice to see it checks update availability at times other than just start-up. :) )

@all: Please remember our Voice of Marble (http://community.kde.org/Marble/VoiceOfMarble) contest which started a few days ago. We don't have any female submissions so far, please spread the word! :)
I'll see if I can get at least one submission with a female voice to you guys soon.

Mentalist Traceur

2011-06-21, 02:28

New "bug" report - I can't install both Georgia the state and Georgia the country MoNav maps at once. I know it probably didn't seem likely that someone would want to have maps of everything, but I'm odd like that. Plus, it's always hypothetically possible someone using the N900's version of Marble (or more likely, Marble for some successor), would need both maps. Anyway, just wanted to report that.

earthwings

2011-06-21, 18:48

A female speaker for voice guidance would be very welcome, thanks!

I just updated the asian Georgia map on the server. When you give the installation another try (the american state doesn't need a reinstall, only the asian country), both should work at the same time now.

Mentalist Traceur

2011-06-22, 01:30

Yep. Georgie-the-country installed alongside Gerogia-the-state just fine now. Thank you!

earthwings

2011-06-23, 08:00

Marble 1.2 RC 1 (1.1.90) is now available in extras-devel for testing.

Changes compared to Marble 1.1.1:

Features:

Bookmark Manager (available from the main menu)
Offline Address Search (http://nienhueser.de/blog/?p=321) (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)
Voice guidance improvements

Performance:

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

Known Issues:

The N900's main volume settings are ignored in voice guidance. This seems to be a bug in phonon.
ogg-support from extras-testing and extras-devel breaks voice guidance. Try to avoid that version if possible. If you experience this problem (no playback of voice guidance commands despite a speaker installed and configured), please vote for this bug (https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12260).

Note that you need to install (or upgrade) monav offline routing maps to get databases for offline address search.

Please report bugs in our bugtracker (https://bugs.kde.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=marble&rep_platform=Maemo%205) or here. Happy testing :)

A default english speaker for voice guidance -- the "Voice of Marble (http://community.kde.org/Marble/VoiceOfMarble)" -- will be included in the final packages. Please participate in the contest such that we can offer a wide variety of speakers for download. The speaker files will be released CC By-SA 3.0. We'll offer them not only in Marble's format, but also in TomTom format for usage on such devices. Other applications could also easily use the files.

Mentalist Traceur

2011-06-25, 19:07

Alright, so as the resdient only-person-who'd-ever-think-it's-a-good-idea-to-install-offline-routing-maps-for-the-whole-world, I can confirm that cramming your N900 with hundreds of different routing maps isn't the most optimal thing to do for performance (more so than it probably has to be). Now, I haven't tested actual routing much yet (was very glad to see the new version in the Devel repos though, with offline address search as I understand it) but the more I've installed the more abysmally slow Marble's MoNav configure menu has gotten. (Marble itself is a bit more memory intensive now but isn't actually slow yet, at least for map display - I haven't tested routing in a while.)

Now, that's obviously logically sound - it has more files to check/verify for map updates, etc. However, it is insanely memory hog-ish - to the point where with Marble running by itself (not actively installing a map, just on the MoNav configuration menu, usually after having installed a new map), causes out-of-memory errors - I.E. you go to launch Conversations and it tells you there's not enough memory and you should close some applications (I've only ever had this happen when I turned swap off once), and doesn't launch conversations.

This leads me to believe that Marble/MoNav keeps more data than necessary cached at once when checking for updates and/or installing maps (the entire map list, with all the versions/relevant data?). Wouldn't it be possible to load part of the map list, check it against the server, keep in memory only the data for maps that need updating, and then free the memory of the rest of that part of the map list, then load the next part, etc?

I'm going to keep reporting my experiences here - while this isn't a common use-case, I think me installing every single MoNav routing map on my N900 would be useful for seeing how Marble handles that extreme of things.

Fellfrosch

2011-06-25, 20:42

I,m totally impressed by marble maps. The first time i've downloaded this application it was in a beta state and I thought what crap. It,s is slow like hell and there is nothing special on it. Yesterday i installed it again and I was really amazed what happend since the last time. It became a fantastic application and is now definitly the best map application on the N900. I would like to support you. But because i have no programming abilities the only way to do this is tol donate. Please tell me how to.

Mentalist Traceur

2011-06-25, 23:10

Hmmm, actually, I just went through an interesting experience: Yesterday I found two "blank" maps in my MoNav configuration list. They had the date set as 01/01. Pressing the delete button didn't delete them (the "Are you sure you want to delete this map" or whatever question box popped up, but that's it). I didn't mention it in the above post, because the general issue - increased slowness and the like happened before that, AND I wanted to see if I could dig up the source of the issue myself before bothering you (earthwings and the rest of Marble's devs).

So I did some digging in the Marble MoNav routing folders directory: /home/user/MyDocs/.local/share/marble/maps/earth/monav/...

Turned out some of my maps had missing pieces. Namely europe/russia had almost nothing in its directory (I had installed the Russia map from the Asia continent first, but there's no Russia map in the asia directory - the same is the case with Turkey - I presume you have only one map for Russia and Turkey on the server, and both Asia>Russia/Turkey and Europe>Russia/Turkey point to the same map?), and England and Scotland were missing the "marble.kml" file.

When I deleted the europe/scotland and europe/england directories, they two "blank" maps in the MoNav configuration list disappeared, so between that and the contents of marble.kml files in some of the other directories, I presume said file handles map .tar.gz archive name, and somehow that has to do with its displayed name and date-uploaded, as well as the "transport type" of a map (Motorcar and/or whatever other types will eventually be enabled). I also reinstalled the Russia map from Europe>Russia, which put all the files in the Russian map's directory that the other directories have - but I don't know if the initial Asia>Russia download just glitched, or if it actually has different data in that download.

At any rate, after I got rid of those two folders (Scotland + England), I actually got SOME increase in MoNav configuration list load speed. It's not as badly slow on initial open now - although the download and install speeds are still noticeably slower than they were when the amount of routing maps was a lot less. And there's still "not enough memory" complaints from the N900 when you try to launch something like Conversations (though it seems to be able to launch it when a new message comes in, so I THINK it's really the OS being overprotective.).

Actually, regarding Scotland/England - are those maps supposed to be there, or does the Great Britain map include everything that Scotland/England includes?

niqbal

2011-06-26, 04:46

Mentalist Traceur

2011-06-26, 06:02

ya latest update to 1.1.9 gave me couple of headaches too. i had to clean install and install new offline maps for it to work properly. It might be due to some changes at marble maps server
Well, for me the latest update didn't require any updates of MoNav navigation maps. Might be because I've been downloading maps quasi-non-stop (I'm almost done. Just gotta finish off Oceania [I'm on the Ps] and then cap it off with Antarctica) for a few weeks now, when I get the time to do so, so it's possible my maps were already up to date.

(My N900-derived productivity nose-dived as a result this last week, as the slowness during install increased.)

This was before and independent of any specific Marble version, too.

earthwings

2011-06-26, 09:19

Installing a whole lot of offline routing maps is something I'd like Marble to handle fine. When calculating routes, it determines the right country by checking the bounding boxes of all countries and then queries the monav backend. There are some heuristics (checking large countries first, trying the last used country before all others) to speed it up, though even iterating through all countries should be fast.

I think the culprit for increased memory usage is a change in the bounding boxes that happened in the last map update. I switched from cloudmade to geofabrik as the map data source. The latter provide detailed bounding box polygons which are unfortunately quite large for some countries. The largest one, Indonesia, for example has a size of 7 MB (!). In the current implementation these bounding boxes are loaded into memory. If you happen to have all ~300 maps installed, this sums up to around 75 MB which is a problem on the N900.

Fortunately there's a workaround I can implement: Detect 'large' bounding boxes at load time and replace them with a simple rectangular bounding box. This will decrease memory usage significantly, but implies that I need to change the backend query as well: Since the rectangular bounding box is a very rough approximation of the original shape, there will be some false positives when route requests lie inside the rectangular bbox, but not in the polygon. In that case other countries have to be evaluated as well. A better fix will be to replace the bounding boxes with a simplified polygon approximation. This should be doable with a variant of the Douglas Peucker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramer%E2%80%93Douglas%E2%80%93Peucker_algorithm) algorithm that does not allow polygon shrinking.

To cut a long story short: I'll implement a workaround for the final 1.2 version. A later map update with simplified polygons will fix the underlying issue.

Note that in contrast to offline routing, installing a huge amount of offline search databases (which are included in the offline maps now) does lead to a slowdown of offline search queries. That's because there's currently no way to avoid searching a country database based on the search query.

Re England, Scotland: The great britain map does cover them and there are indeed files missing in the offline maps for england and scotland. You're also right that turkey and russia are split by continents, leading to a similar problem like the georgia name clash. I'll work on an update of the maps on the server in the next days to fix it. Other than those maps not working installing them shouldn't affect Marble negatively, however.

@niqbal: What kind of problems did you experience? Was offline routing not working for a certain area?

@Fellfrosch: Great to hear :) We don't have special Marble donations, but since KDE provides servers and covers our expenses (e.g. developer sprints) it makes sense to donate to KDE (http://www.kde.org/community/donations/). Currently we're looking to get the T-shirts we'll provide as prizes for the Voice of Marble (http://community.kde.org/Marble/VoiceOfMarble) contest sponsored.

Estel

2011-06-27, 10:08

As for memory usage and out-of-memory, AFAIK Marble doesn't know if it's using real RAM or virtual memory (correct me if I'm wrong), so if Mentalist get oom, that would mean Marble is occuping around 1GB memory, so of course something is very wrong. If I'm correct, only one drawback from exceding physical RAM (256 MB) into virtual memory (768 MB or whatever ammount user format it to) should be huge slowdown.

If I'm wrong and Marble, by some flags, use only physical RAM (and trigger oom when 256 MB is exceed), is such a behavior necessary? V We got vmemory exactly to avoid oom, slow working is better than doesn't working at all.

gazza_d

2011-06-27, 11:38

Being playing with Marble, and have the routing working with some voices converted from Tomtom. the routing is nice and clear, and apart from the odd hiccup (approaching 1 roundabout, voice - take first exit, map - 2nd exit (straight on, icon - turn right)is great.

Damn sight more stable than Sygic...
More convenient than Nokia Maps and OMVoiceserver.

I'm sold on it, but have a couple of requests..

Could it auto-pause and resume music playback via d-bus commands either side of a voice announcement (like Sygic). If the music is playing all you get is a nasty compressed noise, with the music paused or stopped it's fine.

Also I have noticed that quite often I can be approaching a junction, and the relevant part of the map is obscured by the guidance banner. Is there any way that could be improved in future versions. Possibly by moving the banner to the top, or orientating the map so that the direction of travel is "up the screen".

Thanks for a great app though.

Fellfrosch

2011-06-27, 13:52

@Fellfrosch: Great to hear :) We don't have special Marble donations, but since KDE provides servers and covers our expenses (e.g. developer sprints) it makes sense to donate to KDE (http://www.kde.org/community/donations/). Currently we're looking to get the T-shirts we'll provide as prizes for the Voice of Marble (http://community.kde.org/Marble/VoiceOfMarble) contest sponsored.

Done that. :)
Do you have enough voices for the German translation? I'm sure my voice isn't that nice, but if you really need a german voice let me know. A bad voice is better than no voice.

One request. Is there a possibility to route manually. Means, without an routing service, just setting waypoints somewhere in the map? That would be great, for using marble maps outdoor on tracks which the routing services don't know.
I've found out, that I can import KML files from google maps. But I haven't found a possibility to create KML files in marble maps without using a routing service.

vi_

2011-06-27, 14:39

I have a bug to report for marble. When editing a map source .dgml file the 'parameter' string is unable to accept special characters. i.e.:

To add virtual earth road maps the following url is used:

http://ecn.t3.tiles.virtualearth.net/tiles/r031313112303.png?g=41

as a marble source string it is:

<downloadUrl protocol="http" host="ecn.t3.tiles.virtualearth.net" path="/tiles/r{quadIndex}.png" query="g=41" />

To get the returned tile as a UK OS map the string is:

http://ecn.t3.tiles.virtualearth.net/tiles/r031313112303.png?g=41&productSet=mmOS

In marble it should be:

<downloadUrl protocol="http" host="ecn.t3.tiles.virtualearth.net" path="/tiles/r{quadIndex}.png" query="g=41&productSet=mmOS
" />

However, with the inclusion of the ampersand the program crashes on launch (presumably when it is trying to parse all the map source .dgml files.)

earthwings

2011-06-27, 19:09

@Mentalist Traceur: I implemented the workaround mentioned above (using a rectangular bbox instead of the large polygons), it will be available in RC 2. Please report if the behavior gets better. Independent of that, can you please check the memory consumption of Marble? Use e.g. htop. Best measure it first on startup and then when the routing config dialog is opened (which will trigger the loading of monav maps). The memory usage here should decrease significantly with RC 2, so it'd be good to have some numbers before installing that. I can't test it myself currently, had to send in my N900 for repair today (USB port is broken).

@Estel: We don't do any unusual/low level memory management. I think an out-of-memory situation will occur earlier than occupying all physically installed memory - the memory is shared with other application and the operating system.

@gazza_d: Can you send me a link to the problematic roundabout (preferably using openstreetmap.org). I'll look into the data to see what's going wrong there.

@Fellfrosch: We've got one German contribution so far, but the more, the better!
There's no manual routing implemented and kml editing is on the todo list, but so far nobody worked on it.

@vi_: As discussed on IRC the .dgml file syntax needs to be correct xml. I just fixed the crash in Marble though, so loading a syntactically incorrect .dgml file will now (RC 2) not result in a crash. The map will be ignored instead. Starting "/opt/marble/bin/marble.sh --debug-info" will give you a warning in the shell in that situation.

Fellfrosch

2011-06-28, 06:32

@Fellfrosch: We've got one German contribution so far, but the more, the better!
There's no manual routing implemented and kml editing is on the todo list, but so far nobody worked on it.

Nice to here that kml editing is at least on the todo list. Hope that there will be soon somebody, who'll even work on it ;)
OK, if there is still only one contributor i'll try it. So I have a 50/50 chance to win. I think i'll do the recording on Wednesday :cool:

Mentalist Traceur

2011-06-29, 06:27

Hi, these are stats using the latest version of Marble in the repos, with ALL maps installed (excluding Wales, Scotland and England, which should be covered by Great Britain.) Quick note: Cyprus displays the same "always update available" thing that Georgia had and Turkey and Russia currently still have. I'm guessing Cyprus registers as between two different continents too?

Anyway, this is a quick test using "top" and "free". No htop, sorry. I don't keep it installed on-device (though if you need something particular I can't get you otherwise, let me know and I'll oblige).

Upon launching, with every MoNav map installed, Marble takes a while to load... a couple of minutes I'd say, 3-5 or so. Watching in top as this happens demonstrates that Marble slowly rises in memory consumption, up to somewhere between 35 and 40 % RAM. (This is only RAM, not all virtual memory). However, when launched by itself it doesn't seem to impact the amount of data in swap much.

Launching the MoNav configuration menu actually didn't give me ANY issue in terms of delay and/or memory increase this time (1-2% at the most, although the amount in RAM fluctuates around that much over time anyway, as the N900 slowly swaps - well, slowly on my device, where swappiness is at 20. On a standard device swappiness is at 100, and I think as a result, it will hit this issue sooner). I wonder if this has to do with the fact that I've basically installed almost every map already? *Shrug*

Anyway, so then I "updated" Cyprus - during both the download and install, Marble's RAM memory consumption never rose above 42%. BUT, executing "free" every few minutes showed that it was putting more and more data into SWAP. After that finished I "updated" Russia - the RAM consumption never exceeded 45%, although the RAM being used pushed out all the buffers' space, to the point that only 2600~ bytes where free in memory, with only about 100-200~ more on top of that being buffers. The amount of space in SWAP continued to decrease, down to the point where by the end of the Russia map reinstall, almost half of SWAP space was used. Doesn't mean Marble took up all of it, but a decent amount, certainly.

Leaving MoNav's and then Marble's entire routing configuration menus didn't decrease either the RAM or SWAP space use, except by a few hundred bytes. At this point, I had approximately 8100+ bytes free in RAM (13200+ counting buffers) and still just barely under half of SWAP space free.

This suggests that the main cause of slow down is less the _immediate_ almost-total memory hogging as I had originally thought, but the immediate memory use followed by progressive memory use with each map install - the memory used with each map install doesn't seem to be freed until Marble close.

Which explains why I had continued slowness and occasionally device reboots, etc. The N900 would swap out a lot with each new map install - longer uptimes and especially many installs in a row would both contribute to SWAP space fragmentation, which means slower SWAP write (as flash media slows on writes with fragmentation) speeds on each consecutive write.

As for testing RC2, if that's not what's in -devel right now, then I would much appreciate it if you put it in -devel before I tested it. It's just far easier for me that way, on top of the argument I had in favor of -devel before. If you're not willing to do that though, I'll do my duty as a good tester and deal with downloading the RC2 from wherever not-in-maemo-repository it happens to reside.

(By the way, that female contribution to the voice contest I promised is still coming, I just haven't gotten around to getting her to record...)

earthwings

2011-06-29, 20:35

Mentalist Traceur

2011-06-30, 04:20

Thanks for the detailed analysis. It was pretty easy to find the problem now (a memory leak). It explains the behavior you describe: At startup the maps are loaded into memory. I measured it on the desktop, the loading leads to an additional memory consumption of 220 MB. Because of the memory leak, after the installation of a new map (causing another parsing), another 220 MB are allocated and so on.
Ooooo... that explains a lot.

RC 2 will have the memory leak fixed and contains the workaround for the too detailed polygons. This brings the memory consumption down to 66 MB with all monav maps installed (in comparison it's 52 MB without any monav map).
Did I ever mention how awesome you (both you individually and you the entire set of Marble developers) are?

I'll test it on the N900 when I get the device back, but I'm pretty sure it will behave much better in this (rather extreme) setup. RC 2 is scheduled for 2011-07-06 (http://techbase.kde.org/Schedules/KDE4/4.7_Release_Schedule#Wednesday.2C_July_6.2C_2011:_ KDE_4.7_Release_Candidate_2_Release); I'm not sure yet if I'll do an intermediate release before.
Honestly, I think the more 'intermediate' releases are made the better. I mean, you know my opinion on the extras-devel thing - it's not enabled by default and everyone enabling it should _hopefully_ know what the hell they're doing, plus it's an opportunity to catch some bugs slightly sooner and/or convenience some users sooner.

Thanks for getting a female contribution to the voice of marble contest, much appreciated :)
*Nod* Happy to help. I'll also do some male voices for a couple of languages personally if I have time. :)

- Edit -

I'm stupid, yesterday was the 20th, not the 30th. Okay, so it's 17 days before RC2. My bad.
So, today was an utter mind**** in terms of dates. I had my computer at work set to the wrong date... hence the above edit...

earthwings

2011-07-06, 18:47

1.2 RC 2 (1.1.95) is currently imported into extras-devels and should appear soon. In comparison to RC 1 there are fixes for memory leaks (see the posts above) and another performance improvement that makes the overview map (and some other parts) faster. See here (https://projects.kde.org/projects/kde/kdeedu/marble/repository/show?rev=kde-4.7) for the full changelog. Unfortunately I couldn't test this version myself as my N900 is still being repaired.

There are only 9 days left to file contributions for our Voice of Marble (community.kde.org/Marble/VoiceOfMarble) contest. This is a nice chance for everybody to contribute (and win a cool T-shirt...). I'm looking forward to get more speaker files! :)

Marble 1.2.0 will be tagged on 2011-07-20. If we don't find any serious bugs until that time, I'll promote this version to extras-testing such that the delay between the final release (2011-07-27) and the release in extras is short.

niqbal

2011-07-06, 21:37

will Marble 1.2 have the new icons?

earthwings

2011-07-07, 05:54

I asked the oxygen guys (who do the default artwork for KDE) for new icons, but there are no signs yet that someone is working on them. So my guess is that there won't be icon updates in time for the release.

earthwings

2011-07-11, 19:41

Hey everyone, this is a final call for contributions to our Voice of Marble (community.kde.org/Marble/VoiceOfMarble) contest which ends in just 4 days on 2011-07-15. All contributions will be made available for download to be used in Marble or TomTom navigation devices. We have detailed instructions in the wiki (community.kde.org/Marble/VoiceOfMarble). Thanks in advance to everyone contributing (and those who already filed a speaker file). I'd really like to see more contributions, especially female and non-english speakers! :)

While the final 1.2.0 release is nearly out of the door and we are not aware of any serious bugs right now, our focus shifts towards development of the next version. This is a good chance for you to file any wishes you may have for future Marble features. Please use our bugtracker (https://bugs.kde.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=marble&rep_platform=Maemo%205) and set the severity to wishlist to do so.

One of the major work areas right now is a Qt-components (http://www.developer.nokia.com/Community/Blogs/blog/kate-alholas-forum-nokia-blog/2011/07/08/porting-meego-1.2-harmattan-qt-quick-components) based version of Marble targeted at MeeGo running on the N900. Later versions with support for other devices are planned as well. We have a GSOC student, Daniel, working on the MeeGo version right now. There are no packages for the N900 yet (Marble is packaged for MeeGo, but only the desktop version), but I can put together a guide how to set it up on a Desktop system if someone is interested in trying a very early version and giving feedback to help shape it up.

Estel

2011-07-12, 01:06

I convinced 2 polish female speakers (different age) to participate - but, unfortunately, I discovered Marble request too late and I'm completely sure that we won't be able to finish it before deadline. Would it be possible to ship such a voices after, with a chance of including in further (not first with voices) versions?

I suppose (I would be happy if I'm wrong) that Marble won't have female/male pairs of voices for every common language before deadline, so it's adding new languages/voice types in later versions?

earthwings

2011-07-12, 18:34

It will be possible to submit files after the contest. All files are collected on a website for download and new contributions will be added as they come in. Still I'd like to get as many speakers by the deadline so that we have a decent collection ready when Marble 1.2 is released.

I'm looking forward to the first polish speakers :)

earthwings

2011-07-16, 12:14

We decided to extend the deadline for the Voice of Marble contest (http://community.kde.org/Marble/VoiceOfMarble) by five days. Those of you who didn't make it in time (or hear about it just now) can continue to work on their submission until July 20th. Please note that this is a sharp deadline -- the packaging will start soon after, so we can't extend it any further. I'm looking forward to more contributions :)

earthwings

2011-07-19, 10:46

From https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12260

--- Comment #5 from Tuomas Kulve <tuomas@kulve.fi> 2011-07-19 10:42:33 EEST ---
Ogg-support 1.1.1 in extras-testing depends now on the newest version of gst-av
from Felipe.

Please re-test and provide the feedback here:

http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/ogg-support/1.1.1/

My N900 is stil being repaired, so I can't test that myself. If someone upgrades to ogg-support 1.1.1 and voice navigation works in Marble, please leave feedback here, in the bug report or the link above. Thanks!

reinob

2011-07-19, 16:52

@earthwings,

I just upgraded ogg-support to 1.1.1 and can confirm(*) that voice navigation works fine.

[* I just went out to the garden, set-up a route and got the first voice instruction from my bayrisches mädel :), but didn't actually follow it, so I can only confirm that at least the first voice instruction works OK :]

reinob

2011-07-19, 16:58

OK. Just read the bug report and it seems the problem is only for short clips (< 1s).

The one I heard (TurnRight) is, according to the media player, 2s long.

klinglerware

2011-07-19, 21:50

There were other fixes that were not related to short clips. General stuttering problems that appeared on "song-length" ogg files in 1.1 were fixed (at least for the files that I tested) in 1.1.1

Mara

2011-07-19, 22:00

I can confirm that the voice quidance does work now.

Before the Ogg fix I recall there was no sounds at all, regardless the clip length.

reinob

2011-07-20, 11:04

Hi all,

Just to make sure that it actually works for me, I will try it later when I drive back home. Will report this evening or tomorrow..

gadgetChris

2011-07-20, 20:41

Mara

2011-07-20, 23:17

I'm in Georgetown Ontario (Canada)
And though the bridge across the tracks is a devided two-way bridge, It does not want to route across going North.
And actually does not even takes the closer bridge to the East, but goes clockwize , then overshoots, before coming back to the North ramp.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/65436639@N05/5959096030/in/photostreamhttp://www.flickr.com/photos/65436639@N05/5959096030/in/photostream
Going south all works as designed.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/65436639@N05/5958536995/in/photostream
Could not insert pictures... Find them here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/65436639@N05/?saved=1
http://www.flickr.com/photos/65436639@N05/5959096030/in/set-72157627118341391
http://www.flickr.com/photos/65436639@N05/5958536995/in/photostream

This is not a Marble error but error in Openstreetmap database. I looked the map data and there is lots of overlapping/duplicate roads that some are missing the connection between them. I tried to clean it up but noticed that the area where this problem exists is big and the task is a bit more that I'm willing to spend my time... However, I think I did correct it enough so that once the database is updated your routing problem is gone. If you are interested in fixing similar problems in this area, you should consider opening account at openstreetmap.org and edit the map by yourself. It is not that difficult when using Potlatch tool that works on any browser with Flash. (The tool launches itself when you click the "edit" tab.)

gadgetChris

2011-07-21, 02:18

This is not a Marble error but error in Openstreetmap database. I looked the map data and there is lots of overlapping/duplicate roads that some are missing the connection between them. I tried to clean it up
... However, I think I did correct it enough so that once the database is updated your routing problem is gone.

Thanks I'll check that.

If you are interested in fixing similar problems in this area, you should consider opening account at openstreetmap.org and edit the map by yourself. Will look into that!
Now we have this wonderful appl. called Marble, It's worth it, to have goodlworking maps.

reinob

2011-07-21, 12:11

Well, as far as I could tell yesterday the voice navigation worked fine with ogg-support 1.1.1.

What bothers me is that even though the N900 volume was set to the max, the voice instructions were a bit too quiet for my taste (or rather, for my ears :). Maybe it's an issue with the voice files, so I'll try to test with another voice.

Another thing that really bothers me is that when I'm traveling south, the arrow is pointing (and moving) down, which:

(1) makes it difficult to have an overview of where you are and what's coming, especially because:

(2) the "status bar" having the navigation instructions is always at the bottom and taking a good 25-30% of the screen real estate, so basically all I could see was an arrow pointing to the status bar, i.e. no details of where I was heading to.

As a further suggestion I would like to have portrait-mode support (I cannot reliably turn my holder 90°), plus normally you want to see what's ahead of you (see points 1 and 2 above), not what is left and right of you..

Also, if I may, I would like to ask what I have to do to have SI units instead of those archaic miles. I realise my settings (all LC_* variables) are set to en_US, but I've read about regional settings not being properly handled my Marble/QT, so it would be nice if one could configure this (it's just setting one of two alternatives) independently of the device's regional/language/who-knows-what settings.

Thanks a lot!

earthwings

2011-07-23, 10:17

Thanks for testing ogg-support 1.1.1 with Marble everyone, appreciated. Great to hear it's now working fine, just in time for Marble 1.2.0 which will land in extras-devel pretty soon. :)

Well, as far as I could tell yesterday the voice navigation worked fine with ogg-support 1.1.1.

What bothers me is that even though the N900 volume was set to the max, the voice instructions were a bit too quiet for my taste (or rather, for my ears :). Maybe it's an issue with the voice files, so I'll try to test with another voice.

Increasing the volume of the sound files (using e.g. audacity) would work. Note that there is still an issue with the playback since phonon (which we use for playback) seems to ignore the volume settings of the device. :(

Another thing that really bothers me is that when I'm traveling south, the arrow is pointing (and moving) down, which:

(1) makes it difficult to have an overview of where you are and what's coming, especially because:

(2) the "status bar" having the navigation instructions is always at the bottom and taking a good 25-30% of the screen real estate, so basically all I could see was an arrow pointing to the status bar, i.e. no details of where I was heading to.

This is indeed annoying. So far I didn't fix it as the code part that does the centering is not aware of the position of the boxes drawn upon the map. So if I'd hardcode it (ugly) to center on a more upward points, moving the info box around would kill that hack.

As a further suggestion I would like to have portrait-mode support (I cannot reliably turn my holder 90°), plus normally you want to see what's ahead of you (see points 1 and 2 above), not what is left and right of you..

Portrait mode (and many other nice UI improvements) will come with the MeeGo version "Marble Touch" we're currently working on. We've got a GSOC student working on it currently and can test it on a N950 (which is btw. an amazing device, both in terms of hardware and software).

Also, if I may, I would like to ask what I have to do to have SI units instead of those archaic miles. I realise my settings (all LC_* variables) are set to en_US, but I've read about regional settings not being properly handled my Marble/QT, so it would be nice if one could configure this (it's just setting one of two alternatives) independently of the device's regional/language/who-knows-what settings.

Thanks a lot!
Regional settings are now handled correctly by Marble on the N900. If you want a different distance unit than your regional settings specify, you can edit the config file /home/user/.config/kde.org/Marble Desktop Globe.conf
Scroll down to the [View] section and change it like this

[View]
distanceUnit=0

Another thing I personally change there is setting angleUnit=1 which results in decimal degree display instead of decimal degrees minutes seconds.

Estel

2011-07-24, 11:29

Portrait mode (and many other nice UI improvements) will come with the MeeGo version "Marble Touch" we're currently working on. We've got a GSOC student working on it currently and can test it on a N950 (which is btw. an amazing device, both in terms of hardware and software).

Do You plan to port it for Fremantle also? for people that don't have chance to get N950 and don't want to use N9? Or it is planned to be for N950 mainly (all 250 of them ;) )

earthwings

2011-07-24, 12:49

That's a good question; let me speculate a bit. I will put the majority of my development energy into the software running on my primary smartphone. Currently that's the N950 and seeing how lovely it is I'll try to keep a hold on it as long as possible :p
The QML based Marble Touch shares a lot of code with the original Marble application -- after all the major part of Marble is the marblewidget library. The user interface however is a complete rewrite, so porting improvements to the (original) Fremantle version would mean to implement it separately. For portrait mode this may be easy to achieve; I heard that Bernhard has enabled it on his N900 and it works fine. If it doesn't need too many changes, I might introduce it in one of the next minor version updates even.
Another way to port things to the N900 would be to port the new Marble Touch application to the N900. That mainly depends on the Qt Quick / Qt Components support for Maemo.

Estel

2011-07-24, 17:00

Thank You for honest and detailed answer. So, we shall now convince Nokia to take N950 from You as soon as possible? ;)

Talking seriously, thought, I'm really starting to worry that "dark scenarios" some talked about - sucking most talented developers to half-meego harmattan via N950 develop program, then killing platform and leaving us all in nowhere - is going to happen. It's not a rant personally against You, its probably against Nokians execs. Sorry, that it happened in your topic.

Ho ever, anyway, thanks for all wonderful work you've done so far with Marble for N900, and I hope you'll not leave us totally ;) Especially, that You're really classical example of perfect developer (no sugar coating here, really), with both coding skill and communication abilities.

earthwings

2011-07-24, 21:25

From the Marble development point of view we're heading towards support for different device form factors. Marble Touch on MeeGo should be the first version; if things go well, the desktop and some tablet device (possibly a Galaxy Tab 10.1 running some less java focused linux) are the next targets to make Marble Touch applications for. This kind of roadmap is important to avoid running into a dead end and to keep pace with current computing trends. On an -- even more -- global viewpoint I think many more open source projects should aim for similar. Proprietary software, bogus social networks and cloud computing have too much impact on the majority of mobile devices currently.

Back to the N950: I don't see it that much of a problem for the N900. If the N9 will not be released for purchase, then support for the N950 will drop as well and people like me will continue to work on the N900 until a better phone is available. If the N9 gets released, the number of people working on the N900 will likely decrease significantly, but given that the N9 is there as a successor, that's just the normal progress then.

Back to the N900 we're going to release Marble 1.2.0 soon, the latest and greatest version so far with extra love for the N900. That's not going away in the near future, more the reverse :)

Btw. if some of you are going to the Desktop Summit in Berlin make sure to have a look at our special Desktop Summit package (http://marble.garage.maemo.org/ds/).

Redsandro

2011-07-26, 05:58

Is there a way to convert your own cache to a package so it doesn't get removed? If you go to holiday or a summit and cache an entire town.. it's a waste to have Marble throw it away! :)

And where can I find those offline Berlin placemarks? I cannot wait til august. :D

------

As for QML porting you mentioned earlier, navit has a quick and dirty proof of concept optional QML interface, so I guess it just works on the N900. :)

earthwings

2011-07-26, 22:58

I just pushed Marble 1.2.0 to extras-devel. Note that it includes two voice navigation speakers, but they don't show up in the user interface yet due to a small bug. I'll fix that in the next update (1.2.0-1) in some days. Wouldn't have happened if my N900 would have been repaired by now :( (Nokia now claims it cannot be repaired and offers me to replace it with a E7/N8 :mad:)

Is there a way to convert your own cache to a package so it doesn't get removed? If you go to holiday or a summit and cache an entire town.. it's a waste to have Marble throw it away! :)
That's possible, but requires debian packaging knowledge. Basically you'd just create a package that has the downloaded tiles.

And where can I find those offline Berlin placemarks? I cannot wait til august. :DThey're part of the Berlin offline routing map, you can install it conveniently from within Marble (monav configuration dialog).

As for QML porting you mentioned earlier, navit has a quick and dirty proof of concept optional QML interface, so I guess it just works on the N900. :)
We also need the qt-components (a set of common widgets on top of QML).

Redsandro

2011-07-27, 06:04

Thanks for the Marble update, and the reply.

One more thing about that debian package, don't I need those tiles in a special folder so they don't get deleted when your (static?) cache size is overflown?

Estel

2011-07-27, 12:16

+1 on this. I would really love to have option (if it's not the case now, and i just haven't found it) to disable/enable tile cache deletion. Personally, I would like to never delete any cached tile, until I decide to do so (really!)

Also, huge thanks for update!

// Edit

By the way, rotation to portrait via CSSU forced rotate, seems to work perfectly fine for me, without any glitches so far :cool:

vi_

2011-07-27, 12:53

Did you ever work out why virtual earth Ordinance Survey map tiles don't render on the n900? I.e. they are all blurry/over zoomed.

mase

2011-07-28, 16:39

I get no sound with ogg-support 1.1.1. I reinstalled ogg-support and
extra-decoders.
The files work in the mediaplayer, however they play after a few seconds.

Redsandro

2011-07-29, 08:44

They're part of the Berlin offline routing map, you can install it conveniently from within Marble (monav configuration dialog).

I got the package and routing between existing bookmarks or chosen points work, but I cannot search for anything. Not known streetnames, not pizzashops, it only does routing. Do you need a config option for seachability?

jurop88

2011-07-29, 11:39

Cannot install: missing package gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-extra
I looked for the package and an 'apt-cache search' found only gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad.
I lost lot of time trying to understand what's going on, the pkg seems to be included in the PR1.3 update, my device is 1.3 up-to-date (already checked). I had not been able to find an installable 'bad-extra' pkg
Clues?

jurop88

2011-07-29, 15:54

Dunno how I solved it, perhaps it was only a repo momentarily down - installing right now!

Cannot install: missing package gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-extra
I looked for the package and an 'apt-cache search' found only gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad.
I lost lot of time trying to understand what's going on, the pkg seems to be included in the PR1.3 update, my device is 1.3 up-to-date (already checked). I had not been able to find an installable 'bad-extra' pkg
Clues?

earthwings

2011-08-02, 19:30

Marble 1.2.0-1 is in extras-testing for some days now. If you're using it, please give it a vote:
Marble 1.2.0-1 (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/marble/1.2.0-1/)
Marble Maps 1.2.0-1 (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/marble-maps/1.2.0-1/)

If you're using offline routing with monav-0.3 (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/monav-routing-daemon/0.3.release-1/) please also vote for it. It's hanging in the waiting queue for ten weeks now :confused:

@Redsandro, Estel: Setting persistentTileCacheLimit=0 in the [Cache] section in /home/user/MyDocs/.config/kde.org/Marble Desktop Globe.conf disables cache deletion. Actually that should be the default on Maemo. Does Marble delete tiles on your system? It should only refresh them after one week when visiting an area again. The refresh timeout can be configured in openstreetmap.dgml.

@Redsandro: Can you tell me which country map you downloaded and which search query/queries you tried? Searching should just work after installing a country map (from the monav config dialog). It needs a working sqlite Qt plugin, maybe that is missing on your system?

@mase: Is the sound still not working? Which speaker are you using?

ivgalvez

2011-08-03, 17:52

Is there any full screen mode? An OSD control by clicking in the right down corner like in Micro B would be nice...

Edit: [Facepalm]! it's an option when long press!

Redsandro

2011-08-04, 19:11

@earthwings: I just got back from Berlin. Anything I searched for, from pizza to specific addresses or streetnames, found zero results. I was using the monav Germany motorbike map.

Also, I think only when there was a (non-working) internet connection, anything I'd look at on the carefully preloaded map would gradually pixellate and get destroyed. Feels like throwing away old shoes before having new ones. Maybe the cache policy can change for this, because it doesn't make sense to destroy the tile you're looking at if it cannot download an updated tile. It should maybe throw away the least accessed tiles, or the farthest away tiles, or any random tile except the ones being looked at.

I think part of the preloaded cache had wrong permissions (my bad (good actually), I copied from PC because I preloaded on PC) because it kept working, and in this case using OSM on Berlin was pretty awesome because with the tracking feature as a reference it was very easy to find your way around.

Nice nice nice.

marbleuser

2011-08-04, 22:37

i've logged a bug
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=278656

basically it's a showstopper for me. i'm using the map of ireland, and while marble/monav draws the route on the map, most of the turn by turn instructions are missing.

i've downloaded the offical monav gui from the monav website (which isn't in the repositories) and it gives the correct turn by turn instructions, so i don't think it's a monav problem.

i've even hacked the offical monav gui maps into marble and it's still the same for ireland.

i wouldn't feel confident planning a big european road trip with marble as i would have no idea when this bug would appearin other areas.

EDIT: i've confirmed the problem for some areas in Berlin,Germany. the offical monav navigation gui is fine, but marble's integration with the monav routing daemon seems broken. the semi-common way to reproduce the problem is to include a route that includes the intersection of 3 roads, i.e. a 'fork' in the road (i.e. a 'Y' shape). small (minor) roads, especially. to reproduce the problem, plot a route from the top of the 'Y' down to the intersection and then back up to the other top of the 'Y'. it doesn't work for every 'Y' intersection, but does for many. marble plots the route on the map correctly, but driving instructions ignore the turning and tell you to go straight on.

EDIT2:after more experimenting, the problem seems related to street/road names. if the streets/roads have the same name or have no name, then marble borks. is marble relying on street names for turn by turn driving guidance?! that's pretty optimistic..

earthwings

2011-08-05, 09:37

@Redsandro: To workaround the cache problem, edit openstreetmap.dgml and increase the cache timeout. It's currently one week.
I guess that the root of the problem was an Internet connection where you get some login screen. When requesting a tile update, instead of the .png file the .html login site is then saved to the cache. Since it cannot be loaded as an image, you get pixelated images. I filed bug 279431 (https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=279431) for this.
For the search problem, can you check whether there's a .sqlite file for Berlin somewhere in /home/user/MyDocs/.local/share/marble/maps/earth/placemarks/?

@marbleuser: You're right that Marble generates the turn instructions itself and omits instructions when the street name is the same. My intention to implement it like that was to avoid a huge load of unnecessary instructions for each and every curve. I can play with disabling the check to see how noisy the instructions get.

I'm out for three weeks now, expect no posts here in between. Please keep voting for
Marble 1.2.0-1 (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/marble/1.2.0-1/)
Marble Maps 1.2.0-1 (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/marble-maps/1.2.0-1/)
monav-0.3 (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/monav-routing-daemon/0.3.release-1/)
though :)

Fellfrosch

2011-08-05, 10:00

Hi earthwings,

I've upgraded to Marble 1.2.0-1. But still I can't find an option where to select the speakers. Probably i'm looking for this option on the wrong places.

earthwings

2011-08-05, 10:11

@Fellfrosch: When you press (pen or finger) on the routing info box for about two seconds, you get a context menu with an entry to configure it. In the upcoming dialog you can choose the speaker.

@Redsandro: Setting Marble to offline mode should be a better workaround btw to avoid tile updates.

Fellfrosch

2011-08-05, 10:31

Ok thanks, that works.
Wish you a nice holiday

Redsandro

2011-08-06, 14:55

Marble 1.2.0-1 is in extras-testing for some days now. If you're using it, please give it a vote:
@Redsandro, Estel: Setting persistentTileCacheLimit=0 in the [Cache] section in /home/user/MyDocs/.config/kde.org/Marble Desktop Globe.conf disables cache deletion.

You're right, it's already like this by default. But the path is like so:
/home/user/.config/kde.org/Marble Desktop Globe.conf (without MyDocs)

Setting Marble to offline mode should be a better workaround btw to avoid tile updates.
Yes, I thought of that, I think it didn't take until I restarted the app. Might have been confusion, so cannot confirm this definitely. :P

@Redsandro: To workaround the cache problem, edit openstreetmap.dgml and increase the cache timeout. It's currently one week.
I'll try. I am a bit confused about all the paths though. Why do linux apps usually have 2, 3 or 4 paths in ~ for storage? It's not because of the different types of RAM, because it's like this on desktop, too.

~/MyDocs/.local/share/marble/maps/earth/ has no openstreetmap.dgml but has osmarender.dgml
~/MyDocs/.maps/ has OpenStreetMap I folder but no .dgml

I guess that the root of the problem was an Internet connection where you get some login screen.
That's a good candidate for a possibility. Most of these open hotspots have this loginscreen. Dunno why, people don't like to be nagged. :P

For the search problem, can you check whether there's a .sqlite file for Berlin somewhere in /home/user/MyDocs/.local/share/marble/maps/earth/placemarks/?

~/MyDocs/.local/share/marble/maps/earth/placemarks $ ls -lah europe/
drwxrwxrwx 2 user root 64.0k May 25 10:49 .
drwxrwxrwx 3 user root 64.0k May 22 01:52 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 user root 223.9M May 25 10:49 germany.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 user root 3.1M May 25 12:28 netherlands.sqlite
-rw-r--r-- 1 user root 5.5k May 25 12:28 netherlands.sqlite-journal

Have a nice three weeks out!

gadgetChris

2011-08-21, 04:01

Another thing that really bothers me is that when I'm traveling south, the arrow is pointing (and moving) down, which:

(1) makes it difficult to have an overview of where you are and what's coming, especially because:

(2) the "status bar" having the navigation instructions is always at the bottom and taking a good 25-30% of the screen real estate, so basically all I could see was an arrow pointing to the status bar, i.e. no details of where I was heading to.

I've commented on the following wish:
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=278657

I do like the instructions, but wished they would move out of the way depending on the direction of travel.

When traveling between SE and SW, have the box move to the top and when moving between NW and NE, have it move back. (Might need to compensate for standing still, since then it can appear the move at random.)

Please vote for this bug/wish :cool:

Estel

2011-08-21, 18:32

I second this - Marble saved my train trip (I was heading via motorcar to station in foreign city), but indeed traveling south was quite a fight with zooming, to see where I'm coming, because blasted instructions covered map. Fortunately, I wasn't one driving, so constant controlling application wasn't a problem - but, in other situations, I would be forced to turn instructions off. And I really enjoy instructions, otherwise ;)

If automatic placement of instructions window isn't so trivial, at least allowing one to place it manually - like all other marble windows - would be great.

gadgetChris

2011-09-11, 04:28

This is not a Marble error but error in Openstreetmap database.
... However, I think I did correct it enough so that once the database is updated your routing problem is gone.

Curious when will Marble recognize that the Ontario map is updated?

It still does not route properly, even though the OSM is corrected :confused:

earthwings

2011-09-13, 21:31

I'm aware of the recenter isue when travelling south. So far I didn't fix it because it either requires quite some new code to make the needed information available, or a hack. I try to avoid hacks, but maybe I should go for this one...

In other news I have a new N900, so testing the Maemo version is possible again :-) But there's also this nice Android tablet I want to make Marble work on. And Meego. So many choices :-)

I heard that the latest community update brings qt 4.7.4 which breaks Marble. Probably an ABI issue I can't fix on our side.
Update: Ignore this, works again.

We have a really nice patch pending for Marble 1.3 that will show the height profile for routes. I'll post some screenshots when it's in master and tested on the N900, stay tuned.

@gadgetChris: Ontario is updated, can you give it a try?

Estel

2011-09-14, 01:28

what exactly is supposed to be broken in Marble after update to QT 4.7.4? I use KP48/ latest CSSU and it seems to be working fine...

earthwings

2011-09-15, 06:11

Seems like the second update fixed it again. Marble didnt seem to start with the update the day before.

fw190

2011-09-15, 10:46

how can I download the maps on ma PC and the transfer them to the phone? is it possible to download the whole world like with Nokia Maps? how big would that file be?

Estel

2011-09-15, 18:37

fw190, it probably depends on how close "zoom" You would like to get ;)

gadgetChris

2011-09-16, 04:33

@gadgetChris: Ontario is updated, can you give it a try?

OK thanks; Marble did find the update, but there is still something wrong on the map. Do I need to let you know, when I've done the next fix, or how does Marble find the update?

fw190

2011-09-16, 06:57

@ Estel- Very close- like in Nokia Maps.

acrux

2011-09-16, 07:18

@ Estel- Very close- like in Nokia Maps.

Preloaded Nokia Maps maps are in vector graphics format and thus quite small in bytes. Marble map tiles are in pixel(raster) graphics format (like Ovi maps tiles which are not preloaded and downloaded during use) and if you want large areas in very fine detail, the data amount needed to download grows enourmously large... I have heard, that there is a project to start using vector maps also in Marble...

fw190

2011-09-16, 08:16

So the maps are not for me. Nokia Maps are about 7GB so probably it is much larger then that

don_falcone

2011-09-16, 09:00

Preloaded Nokia Maps maps are in vector graphics format and thus quite small in bytes. Marble map tiles are in pixel(raster) graphics format (like Ovi maps tiles which are not preloaded and downloaded during use) and if you want large areas in very fine detail, the data amount needed to download grows enourmously large... I have heard, that there is a project to start using vector maps also in Marble...

I use jDownloader with OSM and Google tiles.

fw190

2011-09-16, 09:02

is it on maemo or on pc?
I'm on linux so no good for me and it says in the description that it is for downloading files from rapidshaer etc.
Got one for linux. Thanks.

don_falcone

2011-09-16, 09:04

Sorry, meant JTileDownloader (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/JTileDownloader) not jDownloader (http://jdownloader.org/) (which is nice too...)

fw190

2011-09-16, 09:13

Any hints how to set it up for the bes zoom? I didn't use openstreetmap

E:

Jus checked here http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Planet.osm#Downloading (should hae don that in the first place prior to asking obvious questions...)
250GB- 14GB compressed ;) too bog for N900. To big for my pc even ;)

Estel

2011-09-17, 01:58

Max zoom is almost unusable for every thing I can think of, at least if
You mean N900 and navigation. Remember, that getting max zoom =! getting all lower zoom levels, unless you choose to download them also.

Nokia Maps vector thing *never* was even close to mapping quality Marble offers. I think You're just mixing technologies here. I also rely on predownloading maps and navigation (You can download navigation instructions for Whole world from Marble, without any problem or too big space usage), I just choose to download tiles I'm really going to use. Like sane zoom (not largest) or tiles ~ fixed kilometers from road, which for Marble got nice option bundled in.

Just give it a try, if You're willing to see difference :) IMO, no commercial navigation program offer quality like that.

fw190

2011-09-20, 15:14

What zoom should I chose to download and drive with comfort? 11,12,13 or 14 or even higher?

Estel

2011-09-20, 16:00

Depends on personal preferences. you need to check that yourself ;)

fw190

2011-09-20, 18:33

The problem is that there is a limit for download and even when I try to download Poland at full zoom (17) this is to big. if I remember correctly even 14 is to big and 14 isn't to comfortable. and it takes huge amount of space plus the routing :/ Hope that some day they will think a way to lighten up the whole thing

Estel

2011-09-20, 18:45

If 14 is too big, just download 13 or 12.

MetalGearSolid

2011-09-24, 12:22

Hi All,

Following instructions here -
http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Marble/MaemoOfflineRouting

I installed the Gosmore map of my city as .pak file to my N900.
But still while searching in Marble it shows up only Monav results and also in the routing section no options for Gosmore are available. Are any extra steps required to get Gosmore working with Marble on N900.

Thanks.

nicholes

2011-09-30, 17:04

help me (http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=1099671#post1099671)!!!!!!!!!!

gadgetChris

2011-10-07, 01:34

earthwings

2011-10-07, 19:02

@MetalGearSolid: The current packages don't include the gosmore plugin as I had the impression people wouldn't use it since no ready-made maps are available. When compiling and installing Marble in scratchbox using the armel target, you get the plugin and can copy it to the N900.

@gadgetChris: Very infrequently the monav routing daemon reaches a state where it does not work anymore and it needs to be killed manually. An easy way to do that is to reboot the N900. Does that help?
Have you checked the routing configuration in Marble? It does some basic sanity checks for Monav as well (checks whether the daemon can be executed and whether at least one map is installed).

nicholes

2011-10-08, 06:49

map is not showing narrow lanes and many time even main roads of my city (india , indore) can i use my sygic maps which i have downloaded on device some how or suggest me some idea plz

gadgetChris

2011-10-13, 14:18

@gadgetChris: Very infrequently the monav routing daemon reaches a state where it does not work anymore and it needs to be killed manually. An easy way to do that is to reboot the N900. Does that help?
Have you checked the routing configuration in Marble? It does some basic sanity checks for Monav as well (checks whether the daemon can be executed and whether at least one map is installed).
I've restarted the N900 now several times and still no routing.

I've two maps (Ontario and Quebec) installed and have reinstalled Monav and Marble.
What else can I check? Is there a way to check monav from the CLI?

I really miss the routing :(

On a side note;
I never got routing working through "yours" either. So no routing at all on marble...

sulu

2011-10-15, 21:08

Seems like I've missed some great routing application so far! I just read the whole thread but I still have some questions (partly because I can't remember what was written on the first 10 pages. :p ):

1. It seems to me like marble heavily relies on raster maps. Can it work with vector data only and still show useful information on the display?
The reason why I'm asking is that up to now I use Navit and I have a OSM dump of Germany in binary format on my N900. I'd like to use the same file in Marble and usually I neither can download map tiles for routing (because there's often no internet connection available) nor can I do that in advance since I often don't know which tiles I'll need.

2. I've swapped the home and MyDocs partitions on my N900 which means MyDocs has only 2GB. So in case 1. would turn out positive can I tell Marble to look for the OSM dump not in MyDocs but in home? Afair all the discussion in this thread about alternative map locations were still on the MyDocs partition.

3. Does Marble support indirect routing pathes (i.e. additional waypoints)? This is the main reason why I'm looking for a Navit replacement.
I can't check right now since I don't have my N900 at hand. I had a look at the Debian marble package but although they seem to be related it's appatently not the same software that is discussed in this thread.

Edit:
4. My system has a mixed locale. The keyboard layout is US, the rest is German. Would Marble use metric or imperial units on my device?

sulu

2011-10-16, 01:21

I have my N900 back and I did some investigation and found that it seems that I was wrong and the N900 Marble is indeed the same like the one in the Debian repositories.

So I'll answer my questions myself as far as I can.
1. It seems like using vector data only is not really useful since unlike Navit Marble uses raster data from the tiles to draw streets. Please correct me if there's any way around this!
Unfortunately that makes Marble unsuitable as a Navit replacement for me. However, since I'm really interested in astronomy I find the Moon and Mars capabilities of Marble very pleasant. (Some years ago I even worked with MOLA data).

2. I haven't found any answer to that. I'd still appreciate a hint.

3. Marble does support extra waypoints.

4. It's in German on my N900.

@earthwings:
If I understand that correctly you are a Marble developer. I have a little proposal for future versions:
Based on the Debian Wheezy package I added the Mars to my N900 Marble by copying $HOME/.local/share/marble/maps/mars from my Wheezy installation to /opt/marble/share/marble/data/maps/on my N900. I'd find it nice to have Mars there in future versions by default.

Unfortunately I noticed that the minimap shows earth even if Mars is selected. So I investigated further and found that for the Moon and Earth minimaps there are the files:/opt/marble/share/marble/data/svg/lunarmap.svg
/opt/marble/share/marble/data/svg/worldmap.svg
So I created a marsmap.svg by downloading a MOLA map from NASA [1], converting that into a black&white SVG. I'd share that SVG but I don't know about the copyright of the original MOLA map.
I placed the minimap into the same directory like the other minimaps but it wasn't loaded.
I went on searching for where the file name is defined and unfortunately I found that it's hard-coded into the source code, namely:marble/src/plugins/render/overviewmap/OverviewMap.cpp
There is the following subroutine:void OverviewMap::changeBackground( const QString& target )
{
delete m_svgobj;
m_svgobj = 0;

if ( target == "moon" ) {
m_svgobj = new QSvgRenderer( MarbleDirs::path( "svg/lunarmap.svg" ),
this );
return;
}

if ( target == "earth" ) {
m_svgobj = new QSvgRenderer( MarbleDirs::path( "svg/worldmap.svg" ),
this );
}
}
I would suggest to change that code to:void OverviewMap::changeBackground( const QString& target )
{
delete m_svgobj;
m_svgobj = 0;

m_svgobj = new QSvgRenderer( MarbleDirs::path( "svg/" + target + "map.svg" ),
this );
return;
}It's untested and my C++ is a bit rusty so don't just copy&paste it! But in principle this should allow to load arbitrary minimaps simply via giving it the proper file name. Of course "lunarmap" and "worldmap" would have to be renamed to "moonmap" and "earthmap".
This would easily allow to load other planets like Venus. Pioneer-Venus 1 did a quite impressive radar mapping of Venus. Maybe a topographic map of Mars would also be nice.

[1] http://marsoweb.arc.nasa.gov/globalData/datamaps.html

earthwings

2011-10-21, 19:42

@nicholes: Marble does not support the sygic map format, sorry.

@gadgetChris: When you enable OpenRouteService in the config file and calculate a route in Europe (say Germany), does that one work?

@sulu: There is vector rendering support in Marble since quite a long time. You can see it in the Atlas map theme, for example, which consists of both vector data and textures. You're possibly looking for OpenStreetMap data vector rendering though. We had a GSOC student working on that this summer. The current state roughly looks like this:
http://nienhueser.de/marble/marble-vector-drawing-muenster.png

There are some glitches (mostly label painting related), but overall it works quite nice for street zoom levels. Still it's not ready for prime time. Currently you can open .osm files (those you get from e.g. http://download.geofabrik.de/) assuming they're not too large (a few megabytes). The next steps will be to support .pbf files and to work on a tiling scheme that allows to open files fast and distribute them on a server. The work on that has stalled a bit after GSOC, so if anyone wants to help, feel free to hang out in #marble (http://webchat.freenode.net?randomnick=1&channels=marble) and get your hands dirty. The code is in nice shape and there are always some Marble developers around to answer questions.

Thanks for the suggestion to improve the overview map handling. The code you quoted above is a bit old, the current version (1.2) already can be configured to use different map files for each planet. Currently that's done by the user in the config dialog (disabled on the N900, but you can edit /home/user/.config/kde.org/Marble Desktop Globe.conf directly). I made a small enhancement (http://commits.kde.org/marble/bd954a07163d496c655133bb3962eef2d2839182) to it such that the filename is chosen based on the planet name now.

sulu

2011-10-24, 13:21

Thanks for the info!
Yes, I'm looking for a solution using OSM data.
The screenshot looks quite promising. I assume the labeling glitches aren't that tragic since the label positions should differ between zoom levels.

However, I'd need the whole map of Germany which currently has about 12GB in uncompressed XML format. Navit is able to use that data in its own binary format converted from XML using maptool [1] [2], which results in a file of about 2GB iirc, apparently without noticeable speed penalties when searching for an entry somewhere in the middle of the file. I guess that would be one of the main problems when working with huge OSM files. I don't know how the Navit code works but I guess they implement something like an indexed DB.
Do you have something similar in mind? Ideally you could find a way to use the same format for both projects.

As for getting my hands dirty: Well, I'm sure you know the excuses. Mine are already pretty dirty. ;)

I'm aware that my code suggestion might have been based on outdated code. I just had a look at what was causing the problem in Debian Wheezy without investigating the current upstream situation in the middle of the night. I'm glad to hear that there is already an improved version of that code. Will I find that in the Maemo package? Nevermind, I'll try.

[1] http://wiki.navit-project.org/index.php/OpenStreetMap#From_.osm
[2] http://wiki.navit-project.org/index.php/Navit_and_OSM

Redsandro

2011-10-25, 05:24

Just like to point out that it would be awesome to have some sort of osmarender on the device itself.

No matter if I'm smiling to the networking gods or begging on my knees with tears in my eyes, internet is always a slow pony in my area, and Marble still throws away tiles before new ones are downloaded. Not always, but only at the worst possible time. ;)

It would be sweet to 'just have it' like navit or commercial solutions.

earthwings

2011-11-08, 12:32

Routing died :(:mad:
Was working two weeks ago.
Tried this morning ... nothing "No route found".
Re-installed Marble, Monav client and Monav daemon...
still nothing.

Is there a config file that could have been corrupted :confused:
Using 1.2.0 stable.
Monav 0.3 rel 3
I just realized that some person uploaded a development snapshot of monav-routing-daemon to extras-devel. It's not a stable release and it breaks monav routing in Marble. Don't use that version (0.3-release-3-hg-$id). Use 0.3-release-1.

On a side note I wonder why this is allowed (the uploader is not a package maintainer of monav-routing-daemon).

sulu

2011-11-08, 12:46

Oh, btw I almost forgot:
Some weeks ago I accidentally started Marble by clicking the wrong icon. I noticed it before the map was even loaded and closed the application window immediately which apparently worked.
Some hours later I noticed a big battery drain and top showed that Marble was still running and constantly consumed about 50% CPU time. So I killed it and everything was back to normal.

Not sure if this even qualifies as a bug but it's definitely an unexpected behavior.

Estel

2011-11-08, 14:00

Is the latest release of Monav routing daemon totally broken, or just something changed and Marble doesn't reflect that?

As far as I understand how repositories work, everyone with upload privileges, can upload new version - but only maintainer got rights to promote it to -testing or -extras. Then, it's a matter of Q&A - if someone contributed and created proper development snapshot in extras-devel, that's great, even if it "breaks" how Marble works.

AFAIK, now it's up to Marble to correct dependencies, to depend only on versions up to 0.3-release-1, or... submit update, that works with latest version.

After all, extras-devel is for development, so latest development snapshot is appropriate there. If, on the other hand, it is totally broken, people should vote "thumbs down" for it. But *only* if it's totally broken, not just because Marble (or any other program) doesn't work with it.

To be understand correctly - I'm not depreciating Marble developers work, and anyone who follow this thread know, that I'm really amazed by earthwings and other Marble devs work. I'm just trying to explain Maemo repos Q&A mechanism, at least as far as I understand it. I also agree, that this is quite uncommon event - normally, someone uploading new version is in contact with package maintainer - but there is nothing out of procedures here.

/Estel

earthwings

2011-11-08, 14:11

It's not broken (at least I'm not aware of it), but it's a development snapshot where the file format has changed compared to the older versions. Since it can change again with every commit, it makes no sense to support this (or any other development snapshot) by Marble, but wait for a release (like version 0.4) done by the monav developers.

joerg_rw

2011-11-08, 14:20

anyway could you give the proper cmdline here to re-install and pin the working version of monav for marble please. along the lines of apt.get --force-reinstall install monav=<version>;

Thanks
/j

sulu

2011-11-08, 14:27

Install monav from extras or extras-testing, there's still the version required by Marble.

joerg_rw

2011-11-08, 14:31

Install monav from extras or extras-testing, there's still the version required by Marble.
This will render the HAM "install all updates" button useless for all future updates of any packages. :-/ Anyway I think I'll find my way around this, just thought it might be useful for other users to post a correct shell cmd here to "fix" it for good (until next monav update)

/j

sulu

2011-11-08, 14:49

This will render the HAM "install all updates" button useless for all future updates of any packages. :-/I don't consider "install all updates" to be a good idea at all if you have testing and devel activated. But maybe I'm biased due to my use of Debian.

Frankly I'm not really sure what HAM does but I guess it's just a dpkg or apt-get wrapper. In that case after installing monav from extras or testing this should "fix" it for now:sudo echo monav "hold" | dpkg --set-selections
This way there will be no updates of monav at all. If you want to receive updates again call this:sudo echo monav "install" | dpkg --set-selections

Estel

2011-11-08, 15:01

Maybe uploading updated version of Marble, which reflect dependencies limitation (Monav up to 0.3release-1), is best idea?

It would just require fixing dependencies, so that isn't any much-hassle update (AFAIK). After Monav 0.4 (or any stable release) get released, Marble will most likely be updated again, to reflect file format changes, yes?

So, again AIUI, the most "proper" way would be to fix dependencies in Marble - that doesn't require pinning packages in apt-get or dpkg from user side, and doesn't interfere with Monav updates (Marble installation will require fixed version of Monav, so user won't install higher Monav, even with -devel enabled - due to dependency conflict. Still, development snapshots of Monav would get into -devel, without messing Marble up).

/Estel

earthwings

2011-11-18, 09:03

Maybe uploading updated version of Marble, which reflect dependencies limitation (Monav up to 0.3release-1), is best idea?
Yes, that's probably the best way to fix things. I think I'll combine it with the 1.3 Beta packages that are due shortly.

It would just require fixing dependencies, so that isn't any much-hassle update (AFAIK). After Monav 0.4 (or any stable release) get released, Marble will most likely be updated again, to reflect file format changes, yes?
Unfortunately monav development seems to have stalled a bit lately, not sure when the next version will be out.

don_falcone

2011-11-18, 09:50

I still have a newer version (monav_0.3.1+hg4f0f7f48e173-1_armel.deb) that works with the old mapsets from 04/2011 around, but can't currently upload. (Why is there a size restriction which is set too little for this board anyway?) So, check if this build (monav_0.3.1+hg4f0f7f48e173-2_armel.deb) (http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=1047888&postcount=1) is working for you.

Btw monav development seems active enough, just check their project pages and especially the issue list which gets updated and cleared.

earthwings

2011-12-04, 18:38

Marble 1.2.85 aka 1.3 Beta 2 is currently uploading to extras-devel. It can show elevation profiles for routes (worldwide). The required data is downloaded from a KDE server and cached locally such that subsequent calculations of elevation profiles work offline.
http://nienhueser.de/marble/marble-maemo-1.3-elevation.png

Two new overlays show GPS information (speed, altitude, direction, precision).
http://nienhueser.de/marble/marble-maemo-1.3-gpsinfo.png
If you wonder about the map theme above, that is CloudMade Midnight Commander, recently done as a Google Code-In task.

Panning now does kinetic spinning, i.e. when moving the map it does not stop immediately, but will keep going a bit in the same direction, gradually decelerating. It's not working entirely perfect yet on the N900, but I hope to resolve the remaining glitches until the final release (end of January 2012).

Due to the incompatibility with the development snapshot of monav-routing-daemon someone uploaded to extras-devel Marble has a Conflicts entry for that version of monav-routing-daemon. If you're running on extras-devel and already upgraded to that version of monav-routing-daemon, you won't be able to install Marble. Please downgrade to monav-routing-daemon in extras or extras-testing before installing Marble: apt-get install monav-routing-daemon=0.3.release-1

Note that our list of speakers for voice navigation (http://edu.kde.org/marble/speakers.php) is updated as new submissions come in. Check back regularly if your native language is still missing, or even better contribute a speaker file (http://community.kde.org/Marble/VoiceOfMarble).

Our Meego (Harmattan) version is progressing nicely as well (more on that (http://nienhueser.de/blog/)), here's a recent screenshot:
http://nienhueser.de/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/20111127204448.png
What are the preferences here regarding Harmattan details, are you interested in updates on it or shall I spare that out in this thread?

marbleuser

2011-12-04, 19:43

as you can tell from my username i *USED* to be a fan of marble, but not any longer.

1. routing is still broken as marble has delusions of grandeur and tries to do 'fix' the routes provided by the monav project, and any roads without names screw it up as a result. there are plenty roads without names, so marble driving instructions are unreliable. it wasn't broken, marble tried to fix it, so now it's broken.

2. due to broken routing, i had reduced marble to a simple map reader but now kinetic scrolling doesn't work , and i can't see how to turn it off, so it's random , jerky, bizarre scrolling makes it useless even for that.

earthwings

2011-12-04, 22:21

Monav never provided routing instructions in the daemon. Just like the monav client application, marble has to generate them on its own. So your critique should be that Marble uses a different approach to generate the instructions.

Kinetic scrolling is work in progress as I said in the post above. The new version has a beta label for a reason, and a similar warning goes for extras-devel. Please use the Marble version in extras if you want a stable one.

Estel

2011-12-06, 14:45

gianko

2011-12-22, 11:29

is it possible to load osm vector data on Marble for N900, something like mapfile.osm ?

ps: on N900 updating to the latest version of Marble it remove Monav, why?

sulu

2011-12-22, 11:56

is it possible to load osm vector data on Marble for N900, something like mapfile.osm ?No, currently Marble only supports raster data inputs.

ps: on N900 updating to the latest version of Marble it remove Monav, why?The monav version in extras-devel is incompatible with Marble. You'll have to install monav from extras or extras-testing.

gianko

2011-12-24, 11:48

i found an interesting video

somebody is working on vector data on Marble

http://youtu.be/QnZDkxj2SUU

Konstantin Oblaukhov extended Marble's OpenStreetMap parsing and vector rendering support during this year's Google Summer of Code.

kureyon

2011-12-25, 15:54

Would be good if someone could reverse engineer Nokia's Ovi Maps format.

Estel

2011-12-26, 05:35

To gain what? I don't see any sane reason.

earthwings

2012-01-04, 21:13

Well we do need a solid file format for vector rendering. I'd prefer an open one though.

Marble 1.3 RC 1 is currently being build and will appear in extras-devel in a couple of hours. If you give it a try, I'd be interested in feedback on the kinetic spinning. We improved it, but if the majority agrees that it doesn't behave sane enough yet I'll disable it for the final release.

Routing instructions are now more verbose on unnamed roads. This may generate some noise, especially instructions in the middle of unnamed roads due to what I think is a bug in monav - sometimes it reports intersections where there are none in the original data.

Is there interest to have a map theme for http://openbusmap.org/ shipped with marble-maps? We had a Google Code-In student create it recently and the author of openbusmap.org agreed that we can use it in Marble, so it'd be easy to add it. The map theme provides a public transport view on top of OpenStreetMap.

In the last weeks I've been working on a service running on my server that continuously creates fresh offline data (monav offline routing and offline search) and pushes it to the right KDE server. Once I ironed out the last remaining quirks (a handful of regions fails to convert at the moment and my server has too little memory to process very large countries), I'll switch it live such that data processed immediately becomes available inside Marble. That means you'll have the option to update your offline maps every 1-2 weeks in the future. You can track the thing at http://sisyphus.nienhueser.de/ even ;-)

Note that our list of voice navigation speakers is growing continuously thanks to recent Google Code-In contributions. Find them at http://edu.kde.org/marble/speakers.php and check back soon as I'll add a handful more in the next days.

kureyon

2012-01-05, 04:45

To gain what? I don't see any sane reason.
I'm assuming this is in reply to my post. Some reasons:

readily available maps from Nokia with good worldwide coverage
offline routing
fairly decent database of postcodes and other POIs

Now if Nokia released a decent version of Ovi Maps for the N900 (and from what I read N9's version is still lacking compared to the Symbian versions), then this wouldn't be necessary.

Estel

2012-01-05, 08:32

Well we do need a solid file format for vector rendering. I'd prefer an open one though.

That's what I was thinking about, and it's also my reply for kureyon. I think, that relying on closed things is too much unnecessary risk in many aspects - at least, I hope that lesson Ubuntu took from java/oracle mess is enough remainder for other projects to. No sane reason to invest time and work into implementing closed maps, that can become unavailable in any moment, if their owners decide to do so.

Is there interest to have a map theme for http://openbusmap.org/ shipped with marble-maps? We had a Google Code-In student create it recently and the author of openbusmap.org agreed that we can use it in Marble, so it'd be easy to add it. The map theme provides a public transport view on top of OpenStreetMap.

Definitely yes, if it would be provided via Marble maps package, as other non-standard maps :) If You ask me, such custom package could also hold more uncommon things, like map of Mars etc.

Thanks for the update, and keep that good work! Installing immediately.

/Estel

don_falcone

2012-01-06, 12:33

In the last weeks I've been working on a service running on my server that continuously creates fresh offline data (monav offline routing and offline search) and pushes it to the right KDE server. Once I ironed out the last remaining quirks (a handful of regions fails to convert at the moment and my server has too little memory to process very large countries), I'll switch it live such that data processed immediately becomes available inside Marble. That means you'll have the option to update your offline maps every 1-2 weeks in the future. You can track the thing at http://sisyphus.nienhueser.de/ even ;-)

Is this the routing information, or also including the map data? Do i have to get map data separately, f.e. from geofabrik.de (OSM tiles)? Would this data anyway be usable at all?

fw190

2012-01-08, 16:27

acrux

2012-01-09, 08:43

Hello,

I have a problem with donloading routing for Poland. Germany went well but trying to download Poland always fails- it starts and stops. Any hints how to provide logs or any way to download? It worked some time ago fine.

I'm having similar results with the Monav Estonia map - the download starts and stops immediately. I was also so stupid to delete the existing map in the hope that the upgrade just does not show up :D . In comparison - the map for Finland downloaded and installed OK.

earthwings

2012-01-09, 20:54

@don_falcone: It includes routing (monav) and offline search for each region. The map tiles are not included and as long as we don't have our own vector format, you have to use the "Download region" feature. Providing tile data for countries like we do for routing is not practical as the required size to store the tiles is too much.

@fw190, @acrux: Thanks for noticing. The sisyphus service I described above deleted them by accident (it cleans up outdated data after a successful upload). It is fixed now and even has updated data (see below).

@everyone: I switched the sisyphus service live now, so offline routing and offline search data is updated every ~ two weeks now. The data is pretty much complete except for France, Germany and the bike and pedestrian maps for the German provinces. These are still the versions from May 2011. Please note that while the majority of countries will show updates, a couple of regions now have different names.
Please post missing regions or requests for other regions here (I need a server with .pbf data (http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Planet.osm#Country_and_area_extracts) though). Updated data for Germany, France and bike/pedestrian data for the German provinces will follow in the next weeks.

fw190

2012-01-09, 21:52

I can report that now it works! Downloading it now! Thanks for the good work!

surfa

2012-01-12, 22:41

Hello, I'm just having a question but so far I can't find something to click on for a simple posting without reply.... I think I will do in the next minutes....

Having installed Marble 1.2.95 (1.3 Release Candidate 1) I am not able to install Monav 0.3.release-3 which is the only version I can see within the programmanager. The programmanager throws the message: Conflicts with program packages (Konflikte mit Programmpaketen). When clicking on Details there is the message: Conflict with programpackages: Marble - Virtual Globe (1.2.95-0).

Someone having an idea?

sulu

2012-01-12, 22:51

Someone having an idea?Install monav from extras or extras-testing, not from extras-devel!

aRTee

2012-02-07, 16:29

As an N9 user, I was very pleased to find Marble available from the Ovi store!

I didn't realise I should install Monav Routing Daemon as well, so after reading this thread, I found that out and I learnt quite a few other things.

I didn't have high hopes of finding good routing alternatives, since Ovi maps are updated and available life-long (is that the life of the device, which if its robustness is any kind of hint, is going to be very long, or the existence of Nokia as a smartphone manufacturer...).
However, my problems are the lack of routing for cyclists on Ovi maps/routes, plus the thing not being open - I did fix some minor things on Navtec, but then, I prefer to fix OSM.
On Android I use Navit and OSMAnd, which both have their pluses and negs, but at least both can use offline vector maps.

Anyway, my two cents:
yes, openbusmaps.org would be a great addition / optional feature
vector maps drawing is a must
even if a region/country is indicated to have car navigation, is it possible to navigate for pedestrians/cyclists?

I will have/take some more time tonight to see how things go...

Estel

2012-02-07, 18:53

AFAIK, Marble for Harmattan got it's own thread - or at least that was the plan - so, please, keep Maemo thread clean.

aRTee

2012-02-07, 21:46

earthwings, thanks - for You and entire Marble team - for this update!

As for harmattan edition, while I'm not fan of Harm - to say at least - I think it's better to keep everything in one thread. Just one small request - please divide it, using headline (as You did in Your last post).

/Estel

Your own comment had me post here.

And no, there is no separate harmattan thread, at least, not one that I could find whilst searching for 'marble'.

Estel

2012-02-08, 00:26

You got me on that. Well, memory fades, so I throw ash on my head, and take my excuses, honestly :o

earthwings

2012-02-08, 19:50

I created http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=82196 now for the Harmattan version.

I didn't package the final Fremantle version 1.3.0 yet as we have an unresolved bug in the elevation profile infobox (activating it crashes Marble in the extras-devel build. Works fine with my scratchbox build). I'm a bit undecided yet whether to fix the bug (might take time) or disable the elevation profile plugin for the time being.

Estel

2012-02-09, 15:23

disable elevation profile, upload it, then submit upgrade when bug gets fixed - of course, if it isn't too much hassle. Thanks, by the way!

/Estel

earthwings

2012-02-19, 13:25

Marble 1.3.0 is uploading to extras-devel at the moment and should be available there in a couple of hours. Compared to Marble 1.2, it adds two new info boxes with GPS related information and kinetic spinning. A new public transport map theme (based on openbusmap.org) and a spanish voice navigation speaker are included in the default installation. Of course you can install additional map themes from http://edu.kde.org/marble/maps.php and additional voice navigation speakers from http://edu.kde.org/marble/speakers.php like before.

The elevation profile info box that was included in earlier testing versions is disabled for now as it causes a crash.

reinob

2012-02-19, 14:43

@earthwings,

Thanks for the new version. Seems to work fine.

One quick question (I know I should do it myself but..). I'm currently having a house built, but it's number (which was officially assigned recently) doesn't show up :)

How could I quickly add it to the openstreetmaps?

Add.: I think I managed. Hopefully I didn't make a mess of the map :)

earthwings

2012-02-19, 15:33

The quickest way is to open www.openstreetmap.org, go to the location of your house and click on Edit on top of the page. After the login procedure select the building and fill in the house number in the address tab. If there is no building yet, simply create it. If the satellite background images don't show your house yet, you might need some additional help (e.g. a gps track).

Once that is done, hit save. Your changes will be visible approximately

usually within some minutes (http://munin.openstreetmap.org/openstreetmap/poldi.openstreetmap/nominatim_importlag.html) in online search results in Marble
a couple of minutes or hours later in the map shown on openstreetmap.org (see also here (http://help.openstreetmap.org/questions/178/how-often-does-the-main-mapnik-map-get-updated))
approximately 7 days later in Marble (but you can use the download region feature to force a reload of tiles to get changes much earlier)
1-14 days in offline search (assuming you update the monav offline map for that region inside Marble)

reinob

2012-02-19, 16:03

Thanks! The building didn't exist yet, but I created it by making a square (4 paths). Will check later if it shows up OK :)

earthwings

2012-02-22, 19:20

If the 1.3.0 packages work for you, please vote for them so they find their way to extras:

Marble (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/marble/1.3.0/)
Marble Maps (http://maemo.org/packages/package_instance/view/fremantle_extras-testing_free_armel/marble-maps/1.3.0/)

wbhck

2012-03-01, 20:04

Hello,
first of all thanks for marble on maemo. It looks very good and i like it.
Now my problem, I've still no sound, i tried to reinstall ogg-support, downgraded to 1.0.5, reinstall decoders-support, gstreamer and marble, restartet etc.. I tried marble from dev-extas and testing. I converted the ogg from mono to stero etc.. But I have still no sound. When I click "play sound" i can't hear anything. The oggs play in the mediaplayer on my n900. So what i'm doing wrong?
Thanks for responding,
wbhck

daniel_m

2012-03-03, 18:08

Great to see that Marble is progressing!
Unfortunately there are still some things that prevent me from using it :(
Some of these things might be lack of knowledge or stupidity from my side. If so, please tell me what I'm doing wrong ;)

Generally, the app is missing configuration possibilities when it comes to map and routing services. I like the idea of OpenStreetMap, but it is missing some important cities where I live (Southeast Norway). Google would be a good addition, but even better would be a possibility for users to add services from the UI.

Routing sometimes zooms out completely (world view) and the route only becomes visible after one of the way-points was touched/moved. Way-points also cannot be removed.

The interface is still kind of sluggish and I cannot move most of the overlay elements. The scale bar can always be moved, but I have trouble moving anything else (speed info, ...).
The zoom buttons are inaccessible in guidance mode (yes, I know about the hardware buttons for this).
The possibility to display POIs is something that I miss a lot.
Voice guidance also does not work for me.

Routing with Monav is difficult because location names are converted to coordinates immediately, which renders making corrections impossible (location has to be re-typed into input field). And locations are not found when first letters are not in capitals.
With Monav there is also a major slow-down and entering locations often results in having secondary characters in a name (e.g. Nor2ay). Is Monav searching locations while they are being typed into the search field?

Puh, I hope that wasn't too much complaining :p

earthwings

2012-03-04, 12:04

I've still no sound, i tried to reinstall ogg-support, downgraded to 1.0.5, reinstall decoders-support, gstreamer and marble, restartet etc.. I tried marble from dev-extas and testing. I converted the ogg from mono to stero etc.. But I have still no sound. When I click "play sound" i can't hear anything. The oggs play in the mediaplayer on my n900.

Which routing service are you using? Only Monav (offline routing) delivers instructions that can be used for voice guidance. The online services (OpenRouteService and Yours) only have textual instructions.

Generally, the app is missing configuration possibilities when it comes to map and routing services. I like the idea of OpenStreetMap, but it is missing some important cities where I live (Southeast Norway).

Start mapping them ;) That's the great thing about OpenStreetMap, you can extend it easily.

Google would be a good addition, but even better would be a possibility for users to add services from the UI.

Technically that's easy. There are ready-to-use Google (and other) map themes at https://gitorious.org/marble-restricted-maps. Please note however, that using them will likely violate the terms of use of the respective provider! That's also the reason why we do not ship them with Marble. Similarly for routing; I wrote a Google routing provider once to make sure that's it's possible technically. The restrictions Google imposes on these services however are not acceptable for Marble. I'm not a lawyer, so don't quote me on the list below, but that's my interpretation of the Google Maps terms of service wrt usage in Marble:

Google services must only be used through the Google API. The map themes linked above are not using the API, however
If we changed the map themes to use the Google API, another restriction would apply: The Google services must only be used from within a web browser, and Marble is none.
Google routing service must not be used for real time navigation or route guidance, including turn-by-turn navigation
Google API must not be wrapped. Marble can be used as a library, and having a Google routing backend inside Marble would do exactly that
Google Maps tiles must not be cached. Marble does that for all themes by default, and not doing it is pretty stupid.
No bulk-download of Google Maps tiles. Marble would have to deactivate the "Download region" feature for Google Maps themes
Google content must only be used with Google Maps. Using the google routing service would pin you to one of the Google map themes.

Routing sometimes zooms out completely (world view) and the route only becomes visible after one of the way-points was touched/moved. Way-points also cannot be removed.

Way points can be removed from the routing dialog (the 'clear' button inside the input field). Can you describe what you are doing in more detail when it zooms out completely?

The interface is still kind of sluggish and I cannot move most of the overlay elements. The scale bar can always be moved, but I have trouble moving anything else (speed info, ...).

Unfortunately some of the elements used in the overlays (info boxes) handle too many mouse actions by themselves. Especially for labels that's annoying and the reason why e.g. the speed info can only be moved when grabbing it towards the borders.

Routing with Monav is difficult because location names are converted to coordinates immediately, which renders making corrections impossible (location has to be re-typed into input field).

I deactivated using Monav for reverse geocoding (determining the place name from a location) because it has troubles with concurrent accesses. Hopefully that changes in a later release of Monav. Marble 1.4 (and Marble Touch already in 1.3) will not overwrite your input.

And locations are not found when first letters are not in capitals.

That's true for offline search. A case-independent search would be too slow on mobile devices when using sqlite. Online search services should be able to handle it though.

With Monav there is also a major slow-down and entering locations often results in having secondary characters in a name (e.g. Nor2ay). Is Monav searching locations while they are being typed into the search field?

No, that sounds strange. Does that happen in a reproducible way?

wbhck

2012-03-04, 15:31

Which routing service are you using? Only Monav (offline routing) delivers instructions that can be used for voice guidance. The online services (OpenRouteService and Yours) only have textual instructions.

Now I'm using monav, but I've still no sound. When I click "play sound", shouldn't be there a sound? Which version of ogg-support are you using? In debugmode it says Phonon needs QCore-application and something with dbus.

daniel_m

2012-03-05, 16:11

Which routing service are you using? Only Monav (offline routing) delivers instructions that can be used for voice guidance. The online services (OpenRouteService and Yours) only have textual instructions.

OK, I will try out later!

Btw., is Marble really checking which services are enabled or not? When "Work offline" is enabled, Marble still seems to use online services when possible. And when all services are disabled, routing still works.

Start mapping them ;) That's the great thing about OpenStreetMap, you can extend it easily.

OSM is not just missing some roads here but whole cities!

Service providers .... Technically that's easy .... Please note however, that using them will likely violate the terms of use of the respective provider! ...

Couldn't this be overcome by giving the user the possibility to add service providers themselves? Then it would be the users committing the violation.
As I said, there are a lot of white spots here and unfortunately I don't have the time to fix them.

Way points can be removed from the routing dialog (the 'clear' button inside the input field).

Ah, that works very well :D Although it would be nice if the way-points could be removed from the map by clicking on them and choosing "remove" from a pop-up or something (especially since they can be added by simply clicking onto the map). But this is not overly important ;)

Can you describe what you are doing in more detail when it zooms out completely?

That seems to have been a mistake from my side, at least partly. When you enter a starting point and a destination and press "search", the starting point will be looked up first but the destination will not until "search" is pressed again. That led to a route with only a starting point and made Marble zoom to world. It would be nice though if Marble could check all locations at once when pressing "search". (Now that I am re-reading my answer, I assume that the search behaviour is intended, but it took some time to figure out that "search" will not search a route but only one location)

Unfortunately some of the elements used in the overlays (info boxes) handle too many mouse actions by themselves. Especially for labels that's annoying and the reason why e.g. the speed info can only be moved when grabbing it towards the borders.

Yes, I tried it and it works well enough to position them. But the positions do not seem to be saved, even when I lock the elements. Next time I start Marble, all elements are back at their default positions?!

Monav .... That's true for offline search. A case-independent search would be too slow on mobile devices when using sqlite. Online search services should be able to handle it though.

The search itself can be case-dependent, but the search argument could be pre-formatted by Marble. Just convert the first alphabetic character to upper case. this would make typing addresses much easier for users, especially for those who don't know that case makes a difference here.

Monav slowdown .... No, that sounds strange. Does that happen in a reproducible way?
No, right now everything works flawlessly ... too bad :mad: :D

Sorry for being a pain in the ***, but I am really missing a good offline navigation software on my N900 and Mappero looks very promising ;) :D