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speak road names when navigating

umbilicalbungee shared this idea 11 years ago
Completed

I like for the voice navigation to be able to speak the names of roads like google navigation does rather than just saying turn right or left.


Thanks!

Replies (7)

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Hello,


current Locus version 2.19.1+ should speak road names, if they are available from service that computed your road. Usually MapQuest serve these data correctly.

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So what am I doing wrong? I have mapquest doing routing, but only get turn here, not street names.

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Hello David,


to hear road names, there is one more (not mentioned, sorry), condition.


You have to use text-to-speech (TTS) in Locus with one of languages from this list


https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3W5Lc1CHcKod1pobXlpdHdUYkU&usp=sharing

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Menion wrote:

Hello David,


to hear road names, there is one more (not mentioned, sorry), condition.


You have to use text-to-speech (TTS) in Locus with one of languages from this list


https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B3W5Lc1CHcKod1pobXlpdHdUYkU&usp=sharing

Hi Menion, it is amazing how far Locus has come over the last 12-18 months. It almost feels like I only know about 10% of its capabilities. However, I can't seem to figure out all the steps I need to take to hear street names.


I downloaded the en.tts file from the link above and put into two different directories. Using the information from version 3.1.3 Locus Pro, I see my working directory is /storage/emulated/0/Locus/. (I don't have any external storage ability in my Nexus 4 cell phone).


The directories that I put en.tts into are /storage/emulated/0/Locus/data/nav_audio and /storage/emulated/0/Locus/data/tts. in the /tts directory is also en_sample_v1.tts. in nav_audio there is a file called .nomedia with 0.00B for size.

I get words "turn right", "go straight" and so on. I see the little red dots on the routes I create, and the itinerary for my route shows all the street names.


I hope I am close to solving this puzzle.


Regards, Dave

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Hello David, sorry, I wrote it probably incorrectly.


To hear street names (if there are any - so usually only using MapQuest routing), you need to:


1. create route directly in Locus using MapQuest service

2. enable TTS (in menu > settings > navigation > choose voice)

3. and use in your device any of voices that support also "street names". These are currently only CS, DE, JA, NL, RU, SP.


Thats all.


What you did is another special spet, that you may do, if you want to translate these files to other language or create own improved version. If you for example put en.tts you downloaded (which is file that is directly in Locus so it's not needed to copy it to tts directory) and edit it! Locus will use this en.tts file (instead of the internal). So you can modify some words - 'personalize it'. Useful also for a test, if this file is really used.


Hope this helps.

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Menion wrote:

Okay, I finally understand how Locus is working with tts. Locus gives words to a tts engine to speak out loud. The words it speaks come from the generated route together with a language specific ".tts" file. If the route has a right turn locus will say whatever comes after "right" in the en.tts (or sp.tts or ru.tts and so forth for other languages). The way locus is first installed it gives "turn right" to the tts engine. The en.tts file contents are the default inside locus when locus installs, but if there is a file called en.tts located in the ../locus/data/tts directory, then the words given to the tts engine are from this en.tts file.


I modified this file so that now "right" give the words "right turn onto %S" to Locus. Locus substitutes %S with the street name from my mapquest generated route and gives that to the tts engine.


I have added the characters "onto %S", or "with %S" or "to %S" as appropriate for the various actions available in the en.tts file.


It works.


Some ideas to improve navigation even more.


(1) Now, if the route has a turn announced at 700 and 300 ft and that turn has another turn after it within 700 ft, both are announced together. The first is correctly done with street name. The second, however, doesn't use the street name, but only says "turn right onto percent 'S'". That is Locus does not substitute the second turn's street name, but instead says "percent S".


(2) When at the turn (0 feet), the command "turn right onto street name" can be said. This helps with close together turns where street signs are missing.


(3) After each action, if Locus said a distance and the next turn to be performed it would be very helpful. Here is why. After making a turn, if the next turn is a long distance, then it is good to know. If I know it is a long way to the next turn then I can relax and not think Locus by not saying anything for a long time. Having it say distance to next action every five or ten minutes would be good also.


I know the en.tts file that I have produced is not useful for everyone since the extra words would not be good where the routing software is not making the street names available, but for me it is a great improvement.


I'll include it in case it helps someone. since I can only attach txt files, I added .txt to my en.tts.txt. To use it, rename it without the ".txt".


Thanks,

Dave

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Hello David,


it works exactly as you found. Languages that do not have *.tts file inside Locus, then use text generated from translations directly in Locus, but these translationas are not so good as texts from tts files.


About %S. You may see that every word, like "merge_right_on", "merge_left_on", that contains "_on", has also %S for a street name. Every work that has "dist" in name, has also %D parameter that is used for distance value.


So if there should be used "Street name", it has to be prepared in this file and coded in Locus. Because it's quite difference between "merge_left" and "merge_left_on".


Anyway I agree that improvements you wrote, might me very useful. I still anyway see big limitations in services that may be used for navigation. MapQuest is probably best, but it's still not perfect. So I hope that there will appear some perfect routing engine which will force me to improve navigation in Locus as well...

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