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Offline navigation

Calogero shared this idea 9 years ago
Completed

Your application is a very good. But has big disadvantage. one must always be connected to the Internet for its calculation for navigation. and in some places they receive no internet and in this state the application is unfortunately useless.

Yours sincerely

Replies (13)

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>Calogero shared this idea:

>...


Hi Calogero

Where is the idea behind your post?

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Locus combined with "Co-App" BRouter provide offline navigation, even on small foot paths. A rather good howto is http://www.com-magazin.de/praxis/android/offline-routing-rad-wandertouren-465807.html (if you don't understand German, use Google Translate or the like).


@Menion: Calogero's question shows that an even nicer integration between Locus and BRouter (or other offline routing Apps) would help users to exploit all the possibilities. Just one idea: Where users choose routing source, a button "add more routing engines" could exist, list possible/supported engines, and offer to call an installation/configuration wizard, so starts Google Play BRouter page,..

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there is also a graphhopper plugin, and on my opinion it is beter.

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As mentioned in another Locus topic there is a good comparison of routers at http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Routing/online_routers.


When I last looked at Graphhopper routing files they had not been updated in last 4+ months whereas Brouter is updated weekly, so I decided only for that reason not to use Graphhopper. Does anyone else find Graphhopperbetter than Brouter?


The online version of Brouter often displays an "error - from-position not mapped" which seems to be a bug. Sometimes it works, sometimes not, although the from-position I use as a test definitely would be mapped.


Here is an example where Brouter calculates a stupid very long route (in purple) even though I specify "shortest" profile. I will try to ask in the Brouter forum too:77d0266ce5399d2840cb8f2b7962c42f


Some offline GPS - Sygic, Copilot, Mapfactor Navigator - all have their routing engine integrated direct in the app, so none of these issues occur, and the offline routing works much better than in Locus. Mapfactor Navigator in particular seems to have much better offline routing for cycling routes.

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what I don't like in brouter is downloading square-like areas instead of separate countries. In graphhopper you simply select the country you need and download. From pure offline navigators I use osmand+.

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Thanks Vitaliy - yes downloading each Brouter 5 degree x 5 degree file is tedious and error prone. What about the "accuracy" of offline routing in GraphHopper though? For pure offline routing I gave up with osmand+ because very slow and less useful interface compared to Locus Pro.

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I have used brouter in oruxmaps only and the accuracy for me was not acceptable. when I cycle, I make a shortcuts sometime through yards and near-house roads. With brouter I was not able to correctly create a route. Instead of it, the graphhopper did it well. However graphhopper sometimes creates stupid routs and when the rout is quite long it may show err message. I would use brouter with pleasure, but this square areas....arh!

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Thanks Vitaliy - I am still only learning about the routing engines, and OSM. I just discovered from my original example of a terrible route, that the OSM database had incorrect data. It was not the fault of GraphHopper or Brouter. The bad route was avoiding a roundabout that had been marked as motorway and bicycles=no. This was incorrect. I've now fixed it.


I imagine the update will propagate to Brouter files within a week, but as I said if I were using GraphHopper the last update was 4 months ago, and may not be updated ever. Who knows when?


That is the risk for Locus, having to rely on a 3rd party app for important functionality.

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I agree with you, Andrew.

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Hmm if you talk about GraphHopper, what app & data are you using in Locus? Anything else except small add-on published on Locus site?

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I use v.0.1.3 and data from some drive google account. I can't recall where I hace found the links, maybe here...

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Oki, interesting how my small add-on get it's users who had no idea where it comes from :).


We are probably talking about this topic - http://forum.locusmap.eu/index.php?topic=4036.0 . Important here is that this


  1. GraphHopper the last update was 4 months ago, and may not be updated ever. Who knows when?
  2. That is the risk for Locus, having to rely on a 3rd party app for important functionality.


is not true, because I generated data around half year ago. There were no serious request on fresh data and I do not monitor usage of this add-on, so that is why there are no new routing files.


We are now generating new vector maps, so if I do not forget, I should insert extra parameter for new GraphHopper data as well ...

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I manage the topic on one ukrainian cycling forum, and there I gave the links to original sources and to the copy on my account. I have also described how to use it. Locus free and pro are also described :) So, I have made some kind of promo for both of them among bikers from Lviv.


http://velomax.com.ua/forum/index.php?showtopic=14351&st=0


And yes, it was that topic! Thank you so much for the plugin!

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Totally agree.

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In my experience one advantage of BRouter compared to GraphHopper is the former allows the text script/ profile to be modified by an "ordinary" user. On advise from the BRouter forum I was able to change the "cost" of using motorways so that my cycling route preferred the motorway instead of a silly little gravel track. These sorts of little tweaks are not possible with GraphHopper because all the logic is inside Java code. The GraphHopper developer said in their forum he may consider adding text scripts in the future, but is not possible at present.

My point from 2 months ago "That is the risk for Locus, having to rely on a 3rd party app for important functionality." is that a 3rd party developer may change their routing engine in ways that are of no advantage to Locus, or even break routing/ make it incompatible, or decide to stop further development. There are at least 5 Android GPS apps (CoPilot, Garmin, Mapfactor, Sygic, HERE) that use their own internal routing engine, so their quality and testing and navigation will be fully integrated (one would hope) in their app. This means routing and height files need not be duplicated. Additional confusing downloads aren't required. A fully integrated solution. I must say that from a cyclist point of view BRouter and GraphHopper are still better than those 5 apps because BR & GH can take into account elevation. They are more cycle rather than car focused,

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Data are in preparation ... hope till end of April will be ready to download. I have to also find a time to update GraphHopper add-on, this will be worst ..

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Good to know that is in the process !!

Thank you!

Greetings.

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Locus addon BRouter navigate offline.

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Pardon?

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why addon ? Brouter is a standalone application. It offers to Locus/OSMAnd/OruxMaps offline routing either via routing API, either via generated GPX file to follow.

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Hi guys,

I would like to inform, those who do not know, that for more than a year, the Locus Map 4 (Gold Premium tier) has integrated offline navigation based on the BRouter system.

Jiří M. aka Menion

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