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Hi there
Did you realise you can download OS maps for offline use with Locus?  Go to the online maps manager tab, scroll down to 'Bing' then 'OS Maps', and download your required area in the usual way.  Zoom level 14 is the 1:50,000 scale map, with level 15 is switches to 1:25,000

Alternatively, find an old version of Mobile Atlas Creator (1.8?) with can be used to download OS maps.

Tried using topomap to download another area of France today.  All tiles downloads are failing.  I was wondering if anyone else has had this problem - is it an issue with geoportail, or am I being blocked maybe?

Ah - don't worry - I've just gone to the geoportail website, and there's a message about possible problems until end July, so I guess that explains it.

It sounds like I'm fine sticking with GeocachingforLocus addon.

I've downloaded a few hundred geocaches in my local area, which are now in my 'Points' as a separate catagory.  I can display them all on the map, navigate to them, see the listing/hint/notes/log all offline, so that's pretty much all I need to do.  I can log my own visit offline if I want, but I tend to wait until I'm back online.

So geocachingforlocus does pretty much all I need for now!

I think this is more of a general problem with the current version of Locus, which will hopefully be solved with next version.

https://getsatisfaction.com/locus/topic ... _correctly

Mind you, because my maps have all been generated from different places, I've never had much success with map auto load, except for putting more than one Rmaps Sqlite map in the same folder, which works perfectly.

Do you have Locus set up so that 'Quick Map Change' pops up when you move outside the map area?  That makes switching maps nice and quick, though not automatic.

hmm app that allow this officially ... perfect. I'll write them today that this app sell their map and we want too

and how to share ... there is a huge number of possibilities, isn't it? Just try to keep forum +/- legal ... as we say "what eyes don't see, heart don't hurt"

and here's another (iphone app, though)

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/outdoors ... 64585?mt=8

@menion
I understand what you mean and I support it (you).
But look, at the beginning, the Idea was surely not to steal something and convert tiles with a third party tool to another map app database, which database can be used since a few days with Locus.    I would  like to use IGN as online maps in Locus as other online maps too. So everybody could get (perhaps cache) his preferred region in a few seconds and it would not be neccessary to make massive downloads.

On the other hand - if they were to agree on download of tiles, that should in the term run decrease the load on their server.  Once I have downloaded the regions I need, that is it, and I will most likely never need to do it again.

It's a shame the French government do not make IGN map data open license like the UK government has with Ordnance Survey data (I think?)

I agree with sharing of maps.  Would the best way be cloud storage?  At the moment I've only got basic 2GB on dropbox.

I'm fairly new to Geocaching, and I have been using Locus + Geocaching4Locus, which is a great combination - used to use Locus + C-Geo, but this new combination is more simple and seamless.

I've just been looking at the other geocaching co-apps, like GeoGet Database and GSAK Database.

What can I do with these co-apps, which I can't do with Geocaching4Locus?  Am I missing out on anything not having them installed?

I'm not a serious geocacher, it's just something I do with the kids sometimes, and it is usually just one of two we're hunting at a time, so I suspect Geocaching4Locus is enough for my needs.

Cheers

I think we should also rename "Mainland" in the *. Xml with Wordpad or Notepad. For if we do not rename, I think he will not find the map.

That's right - I just used the 'replace' function in wordpad to change all instances of 'Mainland' to whatever, which did the job.

Is there an obvious speed advantage to having small sqlite maps?  My phone is pretty slow, so I don't want to overtax it.  

I'm working through downloading the different 'regions' of France (e.g. Nord-pas-de-Calais, Picardie etc) which gives me seperate files of around 0.5GB (missing out the last zoom level - zoom lock does a good enough for me of filling in that extra zoom level), but this is not very space efficient as the shape of some regions means there is a lot of wasted overlap between maps.  Might have a think about how I can split it into larger more rectangular areas (but still less than 2GB as I''m still on android 2.2).

Want to get this sorted quickly, just incase geoportail spot a sudden increase in traffic and do something to stop it  

Tried on another computer, and topomap now working fine for me  

Decided in the end to miss 'Zoom level 0', and just making do with the one 1:25,000 zoom level.  Image slight 'fuzzy' when zooming in digitally instead, but I can live with that as it means map files are about 1/3 of the size.

And the new 'intelligent zoom' feature in Locus makes zooming like this very easy.

I guess you'll have to stick to the 2GB limit because of the limitations of android.

You've obviously had more success with topomap than me.  The biggest map I've made is about 200MB, and even then I had to restart several times - at least it caches the tiles.  A few times I've had a complete system crash - a rather alarming instant power down!  I guess my old laptop is a bit lacking in power and memory.

Are you going down to Zoom level 0?  It obviously makes a bit different to file size, but definitely worth it for zooming in to extra details.

About to send you a PM about something related  

Brilliant  

Working fine for me with IGN Oruxmaps files created by topomap.

One question - is there any way to combine more than one map, the way you can with Rmaps sqlite by putting them in the same directory.  I guess you can't because the files containing the tiles seem to have the same name.

This would allow for 'automatic map switching' - at the moment I'm having to do a quick map switch (which isn't too much hassle), and as topomap keeps crashing on me, I'm having to stick to quite small map areas.

Anyway - thanks again for the excellent work!

(goodbye Oruxmaps.... it was nice knowing you for a few days, but I won't be needing your services any more   )

Not at the moment - but it sounds like it will in the next update?

Wow!

This is very good news.  One question though.  My understanding is that geoportail uses 'equirectangular projection' (whatever that means) and therefore so do the oruxmaps sqlite maps I've made using topomap.

Will these work with the new update of Locus?  Apparently MOBAC can't deal with this type of projection, but oruxmaps can (surely it can't be superior to locus in that respect  :twisted: )

I can send a sample map to test if that helps.

I too would sorely like to be able to use French IGN maps in Locus.

It should be possible - I'm having to resort to using a desktop tool called topo-map that can grap tiles from geoportail and build maps that can be used with a (sorry) rival android mapping app (I still think Locus is the best!)  Since this uses a sqlite database (but in a different format) it must be possible to do the same for the rmaps format used by locus?

I haven't tried it yet, but might it be possible to use topo-map to make an jpeg+calibration style map, and then use mapc2mapc to convert this to a locus compatible map??

Sorry, my understanding of map formats is very limited :oops:

I'm guessing that OSM data does not currently contain any information about rocky crags/cliffs/outcrops.  For me this is what sets a good hiking map apart from a vector map that simply contains contour data.

For example, UK Ordnance Survey maps have the location of cliffs/crags at 1:25,000 and 1:50,000 scales. I assume many of the French IGN ones do to.  This is essential when walking in poor visibilty conditions - no one wants to walk off a cliff, thinking it is simply a steep but walkable slope!

I understand that this will not be possible until that information is added to the OSM data, but until that day, for me in the UK, vector maps are a 2nd choice to the Ordnance survey maps, for effective navigation and most importantly SAFETY!