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Locus Map - help desk Topic Question Locus Map (Android)

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Category Locus Map (Android)

Tags Kompass, zoom, unsharp

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Subscribers 4

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Kompass maps zoom level

Rick van Bijnen shared this question ago

Answered

I recently downloaded the Kompass maps for offline use. It downloaded several zoom levels.

However, when looking at the map, it seems to jump a bit too quick between zoom levels (i.e. which tiles are displayed), for instance, I would like to zoom out a little bit, and see the tiles of zoom level X to see hiking paths in the area. However, the app then jumps automatically to the tiles of zoom level X - 1, where the hiking paths are no longer displayed. Moreover, the zoom levels that are chosen to be displayed always look a bit fuzzy and unsharp. I also have Kompass maps in another app (ApeMap), and here the Kompass map looks *much* sharper and crispier, since somehow the treshold at which it chooses to display the different zoom level tiles is set much better.

Would it be possible to either choose at what displayed area the zoom level should change? Or maybe just set the boundaries a bit different (such that it displays the tiles of higher zoom levels than it would currently do?). Is there a .cfg file or something I can edit where these parameters are stored? I'm OK with doing this myself manually, I just need to know where to look.

The same question

Replies (4)

1

Petr Voldan ●

Dear Rick,

I guess that you downloaded the map as "Custom Area Selection", am I right? Could I ask you if you selected for downloading all zoom levels in the requested zoom-level range? I mean eq. zoom-levels 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15?

Thanks, Petr

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1

Rick van Bijnen ●

Hi, sorry, only saw your question just now. But yes, I selected multiple zoom levels (11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16) in the "custom area selection".

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1

Petr Voldan ●

Hi,

could I kindly ask you to create a short video to depict your issue, please? I would suggest AZ Screen Recorder for screen recording: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.hecorat.screenrecorder.free

Thanks, Petr

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1

Micha Heinz ●

Hi, I had the similar experience with a custom area download.

To try out the map, I bought a 9x16km area around position 32U 480000 5497000.

I downloaded all zoom levels that were available, which were 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.

After loading the map, I found level 16 to be completely useless and only taking up storage space, because it is just a larger version of level 15 without any additional map content.

When zooming out, level 14 was visible at a time where I thought that I would rather still see the level 15 map.

Level 13 I considered not useful, because at the zoom level it kicked in, I would still see enough details with level 14; plus, in level 13 the grey coulour of the paths makes them hardly to be seen in outdoor light conditions.

Level 12 is fine if I would want to pan the map to a different location.

Then I bought a predefined complete map of the same area (Bergstraße-Odenwald-Neckartal), and planned to tick only zoom levels 12 and 15 for download.

But on this map, I did not see the zoom level selection menue (or did not scroll down to it?), and klicked on the download button, because I thought the selection menue would show up afterwards (which didn't happen).

With the fear of messing it up when I cancel the running download (Kompass is single-download only); I waited for completion and loaded the map.

Guess what I saw? This map works perfectly for me.

It contains zoom levels 10, 12, 14, 15, and the transitions between zoom levels are right at the point where I think they should be.

Still, I would assist Ricks request for a user control setting at which map scale the transition between map zoom levels should happen.

Open questions from my side:

Is there a way to control the downloaded zoom levels for the predefined Kompass maps?

Will there be always the same levels 10,12,14,15 on these predefined maps, also if I choose to buy a whole country at once?

Is there a way to inhibit certain zoom level from displaying / add a user control setting for level transitions?

Thanks,

Micha

Hi, I had the similar experience with a custom area download.

To try out the map, I bought a 9x16km area around position 32U 480000 5497000.

I downloaded all zoom levels that were available, which were 12, 13, 14, 15, 16.

After loading the map, I found level 16 to be completely useless and only taking up storage space, because it is just a larger version of level 15 without any additional map content.

When zooming out, level 14 was visible at a time where I thought that I would rather still see the level 15 map.

Level 13 I considered not useful, because at the zoom level it kicked in, I would still see enough details with level 14; plus, in level 13 the grey coulour of the paths makes them hardly to be seen in outdoor light conditions.

Level 12 is fine if I would want to pan the map to a different location.

Then I bought a predefined complete map of the same area (Bergstraße-Odenwald-Neckartal), and planned to tick only zoom levels 12 and 15 for download.

But on this map, I did not see the zoom level selection menue (or did not scroll down to it?), and klicked on the download button, because I thought the selection menue would show up afterwards (which didn't happen).

With the fear of messing it up when I cancel the running download (Kompass is single-download only); I waited for completion and loaded the map.

Guess what I saw? This map works perfectly for me.

It contains zoom levels 10, 12, 14, 15, and the transitions between zoom levels are right at the point where I think they should be.

Still, I would assist Ricks request for a user control setting at which map scale the transition between map zoom levels should happen.

Open questions from my side:

Is there a way to control the downloaded zoom levels for the predefined Kompass maps?

Will there be always the same levels 10,12,14,15 on these predefined maps, also if I choose to buy a whole country at once?

Is there a way to inhibit certain zoom level from displaying / add a user control setting for level transitions?

Thanks,

Micha

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1

Petr Voldan ●

Hi,

thank you for detailed post.

Briefly, we can't influence the zoom-levels or tiles in the particular zoom-level. The structure of zoom-levels is defined by Kompass.

The predefined packages are prepared based on our 'feelings' to offer an ideal map package. Unfortunately, it's not possible to influence the zoom-levels for predefined packages. Please use the mentioned 'Custom area selection' to control the area for downloading and zoom-levels you want to download. All predefined KOMPASS packages have the same zoom-level range (10,12,14,15)

It's not possible to disable specific zoom-level but you can use the 'Zoom lock' feature - see point 12 at https://docs.locusmap.eu/doku.php?id=manual:user_guide:maps_mainscr_ctrl#controlling_the_map

Zoom-in to zoom level = 15 and activate the zoom-lock. Locus will load data from level 15 even if you zoom-in or zoom-out.

Thanks, Petr

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1

Rick van Bijnen ●

Hello Petr,

I understand that the zoom levels that we can get are maybe part of some predefined package. But is there no control over which zoom level is actually displayed by the app? The zoom lock feature is still a bit awkward, since it doesn't let me zoom out much further anymore.

The problem is really that the app chooses to display zoom level 14, when I would rather be looking at zoom level 15 tiles instead. Is there no simple setting somewhere that decides what zoom level tiles to display for which area size that's currently visible? If this setting could be changed that would be great.

I have attached screenshots, comparing Locus vs. Apemaps. Both are showing the Kompass map, but Apemaps looks much sharper and better. You see one instance where Locus shows zoom level 14 (I think?), whereas Apemaps still displays level 15 for the same area.

In any case, thanks for the support, and the nice app in general,

Rick

Files:

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2

Petr Voldan ●

Hello Rick,

I hope that you can understand that's zoom-level is defined by the map and Locus only displays the correct zoom-level when user zoom-in/out, Some custom zoom setting is quite weird. There is mentioned magnifier or zoom-lock feature for such special cases.

Regarding sharp map - Locus automatically re-scale the raster map based on the device resolution. It's helpful especially for some OSM based online maps. To disable this feature please open Menu > Settings > Maps > Advanced features > and disable Optimize raster map resolution

Thank you

Petr

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1

Rick van Bijnen ●

Hi Petr,

I'm not sure I understand why this would not be possible.

I would expect the app to work roughly as follows (tell me if I'm wrong or right):

-----------------------

- The user wants to see a certain area on his/her screen. Let's define the size of this area by the width, X kilometers.

- Based on the value of X, the app has to decide which tiles to display on the screen (for simplicity I assume all zoom levels are available and downloaded), which would look something like this:

if X < X16 

    showTilesFromZoomLevel(16);

elseif (X16 < X < X15) 
    
    showTilesFromZoomLevel(15);

elseif (X15 < X < X14) 

    showTilesFromZoomLevel(14);

etc..

-----------------------

Here the values of the variables X16, X15, X14, etc. are obtained from somewhere. I'm guessing that they come from Kompass?

My question is the following: is it not possible to set these values X16, X15, ... to something else? Or simply, wherever the app now has the line

    showTilesFromZoomLevel(Y);

replace this by

showTilesFromZoomLevel(Y + 1);

I suspect this would already solve my problem completely.

After looking closer, the sharpness difference I mentioned between Apemaps and Locus in my second example also simply seems to come from the fact that Apemaps displays tiles from zoom level 16, while Locus is showing those from 15 (for the same area size, X). So in both examples, Locus is showing the tiles from zoom level Y, while Apemaps shows the tiles from zoom level Y + 1.

Kind regards,

Rick

Hi Petr,

I'm not sure I understand why this would not be possible.

I would expect the app to work roughly as follows (tell me if I'm wrong or right):

-----------------------

- The user wants to see a certain area on his/her screen. Let's define the size of this area by the width, X kilometers.

- Based on the value of X, the app has to decide which tiles to display on the screen (for simplicity I assume all zoom levels are available and downloaded), which would look something like this:

if X < X16 

    showTilesFromZoomLevel(16);

elseif (X16 < X < X15) 
    
    showTilesFromZoomLevel(15);

elseif (X15 < X < X14) 

    showTilesFromZoomLevel(14);

etc..

-----------------------

Here the values of the variables X16, X15, X14, etc. are obtained from somewhere. I'm guessing that they come from Kompass?

My question is the following: is it not possible to set these values X16, X15, ... to something else? Or simply, wherever the app now has the line

    showTilesFromZoomLevel(Y);

replace this by

showTilesFromZoomLevel(Y + 1);

I suspect this would already solve my problem completely.

After looking closer, the sharpness difference I mentioned between Apemaps and Locus in my second example also simply seems to come from the fact that Apemaps displays tiles from zoom level 16, while Locus is showing those from 15 (for the same area size, X). So in both examples, Locus is showing the tiles from zoom level Y, while Apemaps shows the tiles from zoom level Y + 1.

Kind regards,

Rick

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1

Petr Voldan ●

Hello Rick,

I'm sorry but this is really quite an unusual feature request. Please disable mentioned resolution optimization (Menu > Settings > Maps > Advanced features > and disable Optimize raster map resolution). And use the zoom-lock feature. The zoom-lock is almost the same feature that you requested. Please zoom to the zoom-level 15 > enable zoom-lock > and zoom-out. You get the view for zoom=14 but Locus loads data for zoom =15

Thank you for understanding

Petr

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1

Rick van Bijnen ●

Hi Petr,

Well it could be a quite general improvement, no? The raster option did not help, the problem is that the app is just displaying the wrong (in my opinion) zoom level tiles. If you would always by default display one zoom level deeper than it does now, it would look so much better. See Apemap. They can do it.

The zoom lock is also not a solution, because it stops you from zooming out much further, and makes using and exploring the map a pain. Actually, right now it is not just the aesthetics, but even the functionality is affected. I cannot really use the Kompass maps very well because of the very same issue it is showing zoom level tiles which have fewer or no paths. It is very hard to get an overview of hiking paths in an area, because as soon as you zoom out just a slight little tick, it jumps to another zoom level tile where no paths are visible.

Could you please consider just changing the automatically picked zoom level tiles to be one level deeper always? I think it would improve your app tremendously.

Sorry that I keep asking about this, but I really like the app for all other aspects, it is just this thing which makes it hard to use, and it would seem like a minor adjustment from your side, which would make the app better for everybody. Please give it another thought.

Kind regards,

Rick

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2

Menion ●

Hello Rick,

did you please tried a mentioned "disable Optimize raster map resolution" settings? If so, may you please post a difference as a screenshot here? Because it may really affect what you see a lot.

And sorry to interrupt your discussion here. I'm the person responsible for creating of current map system and I have to only confirm what Petr wrote before: no settings like you wrote is planned & needed. App internally does not work with zoom levels, but with only "scale" value. When drawing a map, it automatically searches for optimal tiles from the map source. Mentioned settings affect this behavior and based on device DPI, it may choose zooms that are not so sharp, but definitely better readable on the screen.

Jiří M. aka Menion

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1

Rick van Bijnen ●

Hello Jiří and Petr,

That did work after all! Thank you so much! I thought I tried it before already when exploring the settings initially, but apparently I didn't (maybe I didn't restart?). I feel a bit like a fool now, especially since Petr already pointed out the solution a lot earlier. But, well, at least I'm a happy fool, because the map now looks great :-)

Thank you for your patience, and thanks for the nice app,

Rick

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