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I'm thinking about using some transparent PNG surface textures to overlay the road cores for "surface" and "tracktype", see attached (mock up in powerpoint).

Wondering what you think of this idea?

New release now available v20210210.

I have updated the first post with the latest release notes and links. I'm now using google drive to release the theme in a shared folder that contains all the releases and the PDF legends.

Mainly improvements are made for:

• Added new/missing elements: customer/private parking, forest cutlines, ditch barriers, earth banks, gullies, hedges, military bunkers, post boxes, public artworks, town halls
• Major improvement to rendering of all waterways (using casings/cores now)
• Made visible some elements that got hidden by water areas: piers, tidal-flats
• Added option to highlight cycle lanes/tracks - useful if you want to plan cycle routes using them

Many other small changes/fixed, see release notes for details.

Note that post boxes have alternative renderings based on if you set "drive on the left side" or "drive on the right side" overlay options:

• left side = red circles as most left hand side driving countries use round red post boxes.
• right side = yellow squares as most right hand side driving countries use square yellow post boxes.

NB: Remember that the default overlay options in the theme are set to hide non-OS symbols and road furniture. You'll need to switch these on to see them.

"Dark color mode" for the map just invert map colors, nothing more. What you need is a directly created "Night vector map theme". Not sure if such a theme exists ...

My "OS Map" theme provides both day and night themes. It supports LoMap and both v3 and v4 OAM vector map formats. Link to theme post:

https://forum.locusmap.eu/index.php?topic=7000.0

Woo hoo! I love the improvements for dark mode. Now totally usable at night.

I agree the buttons are probably too black now though. Is it possible to use an alpha setting to match the rest of the GUI?

If the intention is to make the the buttons stand out against the bottom bar, perhaps a lighter or different colour (eg red-ish) or less/more alpha...

But thank you again for the dark map background!

As you said, it needs to be split out to separate rules, something like this:

<rule e="way" k="landuse" v="allotments|meadow|grass|orchard|vineyard">
  <area fill="#DDE8BB" />
</rule>
<rule e="way" k="landuse" v="allotments|orchard|vineyard">
  <area stroke="#C2D881" stroke-width="0.5" />
</rule>
<rule e="way" k="landuse" v="orchard" zoom-min="14">
  <area symbol-scaling="size" src="file:/patterns/Landuse-Orchard.png" />
</rule>
<rule e="way" k="landuse" v="vineyard" zoom-min="14">
  <area symbol-scaling="size" src="file:/patterns/Landuse-Vineyard.png" />
</rule>


The original rules would have worked in the v3 'engine' but in 'v4' the implementation is different and has this weird behaviour.

New release now available v20210103.

i have updated the first post with the latest release notes and links. I'm now using google drive to release the theme in a shared folder that contains all the releases and the PDF legends.

Mainly improvements are made for:

• Improved hiking route emphasis/highlights, using green for iwn/nwn/rwn and yelllow for lwn/uwn
• Improved cycling route emphasis/highlights, using red for icn/ncn and blue for rcn/lcn/ucn
• Added cycle lanes and cycle tracks

Route emphasizes/highlights are visible from zoom level 7 (depending on when/what the map shows) and include a colour coded route label too. From zoom level 15 routes are as in previous version of the theme.

Attached are screenshots showing examples of new cycle lanes/tracks and improved route emphasizes/highlights.

The colours are picked to match the route labels used already. I decided the keep national walking routes with green and use yellow highlight for local walking routes.

Note, in the third screenshot you can see that, at low zoom levels, the ncn/nwn routes get a fainter highlight than icn/iwn so you can more easily pick out the international hiking/cycle network routes.

Thanks for positive feedback everyone.

Just a quick note to that that I am currently working on improving cycle and hike highlighting of routes and am also considering adding in cycle lanes for roads (under non-OS road furniture layer).

Progress has current slowed down because I am very busy at work at the moment... I got the improved cycle route highlights working up to zoom level 7 for v3 maps. will need porting to v4.

I will also use be using two colours to highlight the difference between national/local cycle/hiking routes. I'm not going to split into interational/national/regional/urban/local colours for each as it is hard enough to find 4 highlight colours that work with the OS colour scheme!

Karl.

[Link to latest release:]

The OS Map theme tries to emulate the Ordnance Survey 1:25k and 1:50k map styles as closely as is possible within the constraints of Locus Map and data provided by the vector maps. It should work with both LoMap and OAM maps (v3 and v4). I must give credit to John Campbell for his Voluntary UK theme that I used as a starting point (v. 190101).

The OS Map theme also provides a darker variation of OS style of map designed for use at night-time to help avoid spoiling night-vision whilst keeping a recognizably Ordnance Survey style of map.

The theme now consists of four main theme files, day/night for v3 maps and day/night for v4 maps. There are two PDF map legends, one for day and one night.

Here is a comparison of the same map rendered with: Internal Theme, Voluntary UK, OS Style and my new 4 OS map styles:


SCROLL TO VIEW THE COMPARISONS >>>>

Here are the list of all the changes made for each release:

v20200427
Initial release for v3 maps only

v20200529
Added v4 map support
Added option to highlight toll roads (default is not highlighted). Highlight means orange outline and orange dots as you zoom in.
Added option to set OS style roads names (pathtext) for countires that are left hand traffic or right hand traffic. This is only applicable to dual carriage ways.
Added drawing of footpaths and bridleways that are on dashed track/service roads.
Added thicker dashed 1:50k style for airport runways (was using thinner 1:25k for 1:50k before)
Added defibrillator symbol (non OS symbols)
Added OS text symbols for: Libraries, Shelters, Cairns, Caves, Adits [Mines, Mines (dis)], Waterfalls (Falls in blue)
Added library buildings to list of important building, i.e bolder outlines.
Added place markers for towns/cities (similar to Elevate theme) at low zoom levels (e.g. 5-7).
Added support for sizing of town/city names based on population density (popcat)
Changed borders (admin_level) to improve support for non-UK counties by grouping togther Parishes=9/10, Districts=7/8, Counties=5/6, National=2/3/4
Changed pharmacy amenity symbol to also include chemist shops (non OS symbols).
Changed order of options, putting least changed options towards bottom of list.
Changed embankments to draw at a higher level priority to avoid them being overdrawn by water ways and residential areas.
Changed footbridges to draw at a higher level priority to avoid them being overdrawn by water ways.
Changed tunnels to use smaller dashes for better match OS map style.
Changed 1:50k trunk_link and motorway_link roads to use correct/matching outline widths on bridges.
Changed highway labels at zoom levels 7-12 to use captions instead of pathtext for OS labels
Changed priorities of several symbols to improve visibility of churches, information and museums at lower zoom levels.
Changed car parks at lower zoom levels (upto zoom 15) to only show ~|destination|customers|public car parks.
Changed hill name sizes slightly larger
Changed (corrected) selection of national hiking routes to only include iwn|nwn, i.e. remove rwn|lwn|uwn.
Changed (corrected) selection of national cycling routes to only include icn|ncn, i.e. remove rcn|lcn|ucn.
Changed (corrected) wells so they now get displayed.
Changed doctors captions from red to black text.
Changed v3 theme place names to match/harmonise to style used on v4 theme.
Removed tourism brown dashed ways accidentally left in from donor theme (UK Voluntary)
Removed access cross hatchings on footpaths accidentally left in from donor theme (UK Voluntary)
Removed surface dashes on 'white' roads accidentally left in from donor theme (UK Voluntary) - If this is going to be in the theme then I need to think about how to do it in an OS style way...

v20200530
Fixed validation errors (one was a real issue in V4 theme for railway stations at zoom 13, rest were technical errors but not impacting display of maps).

v20200607
Split v3 and v4 theme files into separate day and night theme files so they can have different map=background tags, different PDF legends and increase performance.
Added night mode symbols for transmitters, windmills, wind turbines, lighthouses, ruins/archaeological, battlefields, telephones, helipads, bollards.
Added night mode PDF legend.
Added four .lnk files to map the two PDF legends to relevant four theme files.
Changed priority of cemetery symbol lower than church symbol.
Changed night mode track core colour to match service/residential roads.
Changed night mode tunnels to use own night equivalent of day tunnel colours.
Changed night mode steps to look similar to day time steps and less like a ladder.
Changed night mode turning circles and passing places to be more visible.
Changed area ways for residential roads to match residential road outlines for all map themes.
Changed AED, playground and shooting symbols to remove white outline/background to match other symbols.
Changed 50k toilet symbol to fix errors in tiny-svg rendering.

v20210103
Added cycle lanes and cycle tracks with display option "cycle lanes/tracks".
Added option to hide hiking route diamonds.
Added option to hide cycling route circles.
Changed emphasise hiking routes to highlight routes with route label from zoom level 7 to 14, 15 upwards as before.
Changed emphasise cycling routes to highlight routes with route label from zoom level 7 to 14, 15 upwards as before.
Changed emphasise hiking routes highlight colours, green for national and yellow for local.
Changed emphasise cycling routes highlight colours, red for national and blue for local.
Changed (renamed) option "left/right hand traffic road labels" to "drive on the left/right side" as this option now also affects oneway cycle lanes/tracks.

v20210210
Added captions for beaches, mud flats and sand banks.
Added captions for fells.
Added customer and private parking symbols.
Added cutlines (in woods/forests)
Added ditches that are barriers.
Added earth banks using typical OS slope pattern.
Added emphasise cycle lanes/tracks options using purple highlight colour.
Added gullies, rendered as OS cutting pattern.
Added hedges as a non-os option.
Added military bunkers (active and dis-used) symbols.
Added post boxes with red circle for left hand traffic and yellow square for right hand traffic - symbols to match the typical post box shape/colour used in LHT/RHT countries.
Added public artwork symbol.
Added town hall as an important building (bolder outline of building).
Added town hall symbol.
Changed abandoned/disused railways to render before rivers.
Changed climbing symbol to be larger.
Changed embankments for footpaths to be narrower.
Changed grade1 tracks to be thinner and matching the rest of the tracks.
Changed many railway/highway tunnels to render as transparent dashed outlines.
Changed OS 50k cycleways (single black dashes) to appear sooner from Z14.
Changed piers and walls to render after waterways to avoid being hidden by waterway areas.
Changed tidalflats that are hidden under water areas to be visible.
Changed waterways (in a major way), now they are all rendered as casings first and then as cores to avoid blue lines where they join.
Removed erroneous rendering of "water_park" as water, this was an incorrect understanding of its purpose (thanks John Percy for the hint).

v20210216
Added "dash unsealed roads" overlay option to give unsealed roads a dashed outline/casing.
Added "road surface/grade textures" overlay option to give unsealed roads a texture pattern that represents the type of surface, from Z14 onwards.
Added "emphasise road surface/grade textures" overlay option to highlight roads surfaces at lower zoom levels, from Z12 onwards.

v20231013
Removed springs and wells from 50k maps, as per OS map's convention.
Added support for LoMap v4 maps.
Added options to control what is shown as psuedo public right of way: "accessible footpaths" and "designated footpaths".
Added mountain bike routes using purple cirlces with options to hide routes, circles or highlight the routes.
Added option to emphasise public rights of way using colours that align with the UK signage arrows.
Added permissive footpaths and steps in orange.
Added tidal footpaths, steps and tracks in light blue.
Added support for private footpaths in dark red.
Added naming of pedestrian ways (including sealed footways/paths)
Added naming of ferry routes.
Added allotments, ATMs, banks, breakwaters, fire stations, groynes, hunting stands/butts, ice cream vendors, police stations, recycling, sewage works (OAM), water works (OAM).
Added mountain range support for gullies and saddles (passes betweem mountains).
Added support for additional types of bridge: cantilever, aqueduct, boardwalk, trestle.
Added on street parking.
Added new types of parking (for public, customer and privte): underground parking and covered parking.
Added hollow circle markers for off-road cycle routes, on road routes remain as solid circle markers.
Added support for OAM to show covered reservoirs, cuttings, tree rows, os_open_data crags, peninsulas.
Added support for OAM peak distances to introduce and name mountain peaks in order of importance/size.
Added support for LoMap v4 maps to represent "public rights of way" using proper OS map symbology for public footpaths/bridleways, byways open to all trafficm restricted byways, other routes.
Changed for OAM maps to pseudo-represent "public rights of way", i.e. green/pink dashes for public hiking routes, designated footpaths and bridleways (note OAM does not support PROW tags).
Changed default options for 25k to be feature rich, and 50k to be OS minimal features.
Changed "public rights of way" to use slightly large dashes to be more visible and closer in style to OS maps.
Changed buildings in 25k views to merge as you zoom out, avoids clutter of lots of small buildings.
Changed order of drawing of features that were hidden under water, e.g. sand banks, rocks, tidal mud, etc.
Changed beaches to be transparent so the coastline shows through as represents a high tide water mark.
Changed what is included in residential areas to be closer to OS maps.
Changed garden symbol to be limited to public gardens only.
Changed contours to be slightly lighter and more in line with OS maps.
Changed spacing of route markers (diamond and circles) to be spaced slightly further apart.
Changed sealed footpaths to be shown as solid pedestrian ways.
Changed tidal mud and inland marsh to render more like OS maps, mud is just brown with no symbols, marsh is just blue marsh symbol.
Changed mini-roundabouts to be slightly larger to be more visible.
Changed golf symbol to also include miniature golf courses.
Changed naming of commons to appear sooner and lower zoom levels.
Changed preserved railway symbol to also include funicular and narrow_gauge railways.
Changed embankments to be slightly shorter triangles, reduces self erasure when they overlap or are close together.
Changed priorities of various symbols to prioritise those that align with OS map conventions first.

v20231218
Removed residential roads from filled in residential areas at zoom level 12.
Removed unused categories and tidied up style menu definitions
Added colour icons to style menus to indicate options by colour groups, green=hiking, orange=cycling, purple=mtb, brown=urban, black=roads, white=non-OS.
Added option "Show symbols earlier" so you can have less symbol intrusion at Z15 and lower, useful in urban/city areas.
Added option "Building names earlier" so you can have more building namers appear earlier from Z16 onwards.
Added option "emphasise all sealed roads too" so you can selectively also highlight ALL roads that are sealed, or disable (if you prefer a less distracting urban view).
Added footpath names visible from Z16.
Changed "surface textures" options to also include all steps, footpaths and bridleways.
Changed option "road surface/grade textures" to "surface textures" to be shorter menu entry.
Changed option "emphasise road surface/grade textures" to "emphasise surface textures" to be shorter menu entry.
Changed size of covered reservoir symbol at Z13/Z14 to be smaller.
Changed unclassified roads to appear from Z12 (was Z13).
Changed smaller service roads to appear from Z13 (was Z12).
Changed 50k pylons to be smaller at high zoom levels.
Changed place name priorities to work better.
Fixed missing bridges casings at Z13/Z14.
Fixed symbol/pattern filenames to be have matching cases in both theme and filing system - enables theme to work correctly with OruxMaps.

From v20210216  onwards the theme now supports road surfaces and sealed/unsealed roads:


The theme ZIP files and PDF legends are too large to attached to this post (limit of 2MB) so, I am now releasing everything via a shared google drive folder:

    OS Map Theme Releases

Link to latest release:

    OS Map v20231218.zip

Links to the latest OS Map Legends:

    OS Map Day Legend
    OS Map Night Legend

The theme is now provided in a ZIP file form that can be simply copied into Locus Map's _theme folder, e.g.:

\<root>\Android\data\menion.android.locus.pro\files\Locus\mapsVector\_themes (i.e. for LM Classic)
\<root>\Android\data\menion.android.locus\files\Locus\mapsVector\_themes (i.e. for LM 4)

No need to unzip the theme file anymore.

If you have already started using the earlier OS Map theme version then you probably should delete it before installing this updated version as it uses the same theme folder called "OS Map" but now uses four different named theme files - to cover day/night themes for v3/v4 maps.

Note that the legends are now included in the theme and can now be viewed directly from the theme menu in LM 3.46+ via a long press of the theme icon, see attached screenshot.

From v20231218 onwards, the theme now includes support for public rights of way (currently only LoMap v4 maps). There is now an appendix in the PDF legends that explains how these are interpreted, which is mostly UK specific:

Is there a way to use layer options and apply things based on both when the layer is selected and something else when the layer of NOT selected?

In my OS Map theme I have an option to display road labels similar to OS maps as path text along the side of the road. For single carriage roads this works fine for both left and right drive maps/counties.

However, for dual carriage ways I have used a DY setting for the path text that places the road labels to the left of the road for left hand drive maps/countries. In right hand maps/countries the offset is wrong and the road labels appear on the roads instead of to the side:



The left is UK left hand traffic and the right is Germany rigth hand traffic with labels in wrong place...

I thought I would use a layer option to allow you to indicate if you want right hand traffic or not... if not, then I assume left hand traffic. I would then use a positive or negative DY offset based on selected or not:



Anyone know if this is possible?
thanks
Karl.

PS: Yes that is a v4 map and yes the OS Map theme for v4 maps is very close to ready...

Just spotted this new development of linking PDF legends. I'm guessing that we can only have one legend PDF per theme (per locale). My OS Map theme contains two styles of maps, so has two legends. Attached is a PDF that combines both legends into a single PDF with a front page index with hyperlink to quickly jump the relevant legend section (Explorer 1:25k or Landranger 1:50k).

The map legend index list on front page are each clickable hyperlinks/shortcuts to relevant legends. But not all PDF viewers support links in PDFs... Acrobat does on Android works fine though...

Karl.

Update: I've joined the beta release scheme, downloading latest...  Yay! It works!

Not so keen on the overlayed green icon indicator blocking the theme logo, I could change the os map thene logo to better suit the indicator... maybe

Screenshots of selected areas, tidied up and cropped in Paint.net, Word document output to pdf. I wish there was an easier way.

I used PowerPoint set to A4 portrait and save to PDF. PowerPoint is so much easier to create graphically rich content.

What would be  really cool is if someone could create a small map that is actually a legend built with all the supported ways and nodes, then you would have a legend built that works with all themes.

In the following post I used a script to semi-automatically convert the Waymark-V2a LoMap theme to be compatible with the MF v4 map theme renderer, i.e. so it would "work" with v4 maps:

https://forum.locusmap.eu/index.php?topic=6948.msg59452#msg59452

I used the Waymark-V2a theme purely as a test of the script as it is quite a large theme file, and it "worked" with v4 maps, in so much that it is displayed something. However it was pointed out that it didn't display the hiking trails, cycle routes or waymark symbols.

I started to look at why and realised that the Waymark-V2a theme was developed purely for Locus Map maps and did not appear to support OAMaps. I have made some further tweaks to the converted version from the link above and got the cycleways, hiking routes and waymarks to display now. You can also select/deselect the hiking/cycle routes. However, I do not think it will be possible to deselect waymark symbols for specific OSMC colour routes. For now, the theme only switches on/off all waymark symbols. Also not finding a way to not show trails when waymark routes are selected - other than overdraw the trails, but the route labels still show... so I left it alone for now).

I've not packaged it up into a ZIP with all the resources yet, because it is really just an experimental theme at this stage which will require some more testing/feedback, especially considering the original is set up for LoMap tags and not OAMap tags. There will probably be many other missing items for this reason. Probably a Waymark-V2a user will spot them very quickly!

To try it you will need to have the Waymark-V2a theme already installed and also a v4 map that supports OSMC waymarks (the UK maps I use do not).

You just need to copy the attached Waymark-V4a.xml and Waymark-V4a.png files into the same directory as the original Waymark-V2a.xml theme file is stored (will depend on where you chose to install Locus Maps I suspect).  Will be something like:

/storage/6345-6342/Android/data/menion.android.locus.pro/files/Locus/mapsVector/_themes/Waymark-V2a/
/storage/emulated/0/Android/data/menion.android.locus.pro/files/Locus/mapsVector/_themes/Waymark-V2a/

I'm wondering if there is any point using the Waymark theme, now that Elevate 4 supports Waymarks...

Another candidate is the Waymark v2a theme.

In another post I provided an example of using a script to semi-automatically convert outdoor and Waymark v2a locus map v3 map themes into v4 map themes for locus map. Here is a link to the post:

https://forum.locusmap.eu/index.php?topic=6948.msg59452#msg59452

I hope ManfredG doesn't mind me using his Waymark-v2a theme as a guinea-pig. It might not work perfectly in v4 maps and certainly hasn't been checked rigorously. But it would probably make a good starting for point for creating a v4 map version of the Waymark-v2a theme... But note, it is a very large theme consisting of over 8700 lines!   

If you wish to try out any of these converted themes, you should be able to copy the v4 xml file into the directory containing the original v3 theme file, if you are using the latest version of Locus Map as this now seems to support multiple theme files in the same directory. 

If you really want to use the converted theme and want the same icon, you could create a copy of the PNG icon file with the same name as the v4 theme.

Here is an example of adding customization code to the script. I used the Outdoor theme from locus store which works with v3 maps because it is a very small and simple theme (only 1400 lines).

In the customisation section of the script is uses the keys and values of rules in the theme to isolate and apply specific modifications to certain tags and their attributes, e.g.:

      if inscope(current_keys, "highway") then
         if current(current_vals) = "motorway_junction" then
            if current_tag = "circle" then
               line = update_tag(line, "r", 1.5, 0)
               line = update_tag(line, "stroke-width", 2, 0)
            end if
            if current_tag = "caption" then
               line = update_tag(line, "font-size", 1, 3)
               if instr(line,"caption k="+Chr(34)+"addr:housenumber"+Chr(34)) > 0 then
                  line = update_tag(line, "dy", 0, 0)
               end if
            end if
         end if
      end if

This looks for lines of the theme that are in scope of k="highway" v="motorway_junction" and then tweaks:
   - the circle's radius and stroke-width
   - its caption's  font-size and dy offset (but only for addr:housenumbers captions).

Here is the theme content before from v3:

<!-- highway exits -->
<rule e="node" k="highway" v="motorway_junction" zoom-min="11" zoom-max="13">
   <circle r="6" scale-radius="false" fill="#dFdFFF" stroke="#FF0000" stroke-width="2.0"/>
</rule>
<rule e="node" k="highway" v="motorway_junction" zoom-min="14">
   <circle r="6" scale-radius="true" fill="#dFdFFF" stroke="#FF0000" stroke-width="1.2"/>
   <caption k="addr:housenumber" display="always" dx="-2" dy="10" priority="95" font-style="bold" font-size="6dp" fill="#FF0000" stroke="#FFFF00" stroke-width="1.2dp" scale-font-size="14,1.3"/>
   <caption k="name" display="always" dy="-14dp" scale-dy-size="16,1.2" font-style="bold" font-size="7dp" fill="#0100C8" stroke="#FFFFFF" stroke-width="1.2dp" scale-font-size="14,1.3"/>
</rule>

and after in the converted v4 version:

<!-- highway exits -->
<rule e="node" k="highway" v="motorway_junction" zoom-min="10" zoom-max="12">
   <circle r="2.7" scale-radius="false" fill="#dFdFFF" stroke="#FF0000" stroke-width="0.9"/>
</rule>
<rule e="node" k="highway" v="motorway_junction" zoom-min="13">
   <circle r="2.7" scale-radius="true" fill="#dFdFFF" stroke="#FF0000" stroke-width="0.54"/>
   <caption k="addr:housenumber" display="always" dy="0" priority="95" font-style="bold" font-size="9" fill="#FF0000" stroke="#FFFF00" stroke-width="1.08" />
   <caption k="name" display="always" dy="-14" font-style="bold" font-size="10" fill="#0100C8" stroke="#FFFFFF" stroke-width="1.08" />
</rule>

I should point out that the stroke-width of circles also have a scale of 0.9 and 0.25 applied to it elsewhere in the script, hence 2 * 0.9 * 0.25 * 2 = 0.9. As you can guess, I was just applying correction by trial error until things looked reasonable...

Note the parameters for update_tag are:
   - update_tag( line, tag_name, scale, offset )
and it applies a scale and offset to numerical tag values. E.g. The following line:

         line = update_tag(line, "font-size", 2, -4)

when applied to the following theme line:

   <pathText k="name" font-style="bold" font-size="9" fill="#606060" stroke="#ffffff" stroke-width="2.0"/>

will result in the font-size being processed as:  new-font-size = (old-font-size * 2) - 4 = 14. i.e.:

   <pathText k="name" font-style="bold" font-size="14" fill="#606060" stroke="#ffffff" stroke-width="2.0"/>.

The script has a variable called "zoom_offset" which is set to -1 in this example. It subtracts 1 from all the zoom-min and zoom-max values to readjust the v4 converted theme to look similar in scales as the original v3 theme. Of course, if there are map elements that appear at zoom level 14, the will not appear at zoom level 13 in the v4 map.

The screenshots show the original v3 Outdoor theme, converted to v4 theme and the original OutdoorV4 theme.



I'm posting the converted outdoor theme only as an example of what the script can do. I haven't checked it extensively and you are probably better off using the official OutdoorV4 theme.