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Topics - Ferretty

#1
POI's / [POI] Some POIs for Tenerife
October 09, 2012, 23:22:03
Soon I'm going to Tenerife. So I thought: Long time that I didn't visit this area. Sure I will find some nice POI archives here -- must already be tons of it. So I came and saw... nothing? My old archives are the last ones added here? You're kidding, huh?

OK. Took a few days, and prepared this: 4 .kmz files with embedded images. The main file includes all the touristic POIs I could find, and the other 3 add some hotels/restaurants for specific areas on Tenerife. All in German, I have to add.

I will probably update this when I returned from my vacation. Maybe next year I will have more look, and find something here I can use. Guess now I have to go and buy the Pro version of Locus (unless menion decides for an exchange: All my POIs for his shop to him, and a free license for me?  :mrgreen:
#2
This is my personal collection of POIs from Cyprus, with images embedded for offline use (this is why it requires Locus 1.9.4.2 or newer). Sure there are many more POIs on Cyprus which are missing here -- maybe you can contribute them?  ;)

Descriptions/comments are in German.
#3
This collection contains some POIs for Rhodes Island, Greece. As the KMZ files contain embedded images, you will need Locus 1.9.4.2 or higher to use them.
#4
Here come some POIs for Paris with embedded images. Requires Locus 1.9.4.2 or higher (for the enhanced KMZ support).
#5
One more small POI collection (see file description), this time for Malta. Each KMZ has images embedded, hence you will need Locus 1.9.4.2 or later to use this.
#6
Mallorca is more than just Palma and party. Though this collection does not contain that many POIs, it may give you an idea for some more interesting things to see there.

POIs have images embedded, hence you will need Locus 1.9.4.2 or later to use this.
#7
Continuing: This tiny POI collection just covers a very small part of what's available on Crete Island (Kreta, Greece). Mainly what I found of interest when I was spending 10 days there. "Excavations" mainly means some Minoan stuff: Cities and palaces. Restaurants means -- well, places to eat and drink. And locations are locations, different ones. Possible interesting places to see...
#8
Next collection: Israel. May not be 100% up-to-date for some POIs (feedback welcome), but that will probably only concern some restaurants. Rocks and Canyons don't tend to disappear that soon  :lol:

As usual, the POIs come with embedded images -- hence the requirement for Locus 1.9.4.2 or later.
#9
Another collection, this time for Las Palmas. Some of the KMZ files also include "tracks" for routes I took on this vacation. All of them include some images, so you have something to look at even when offline in Gran Canaria...

As all my other collections, this is far from being complete. So you should add your GC collections here as well  :P
#10
Of course you can use any KML/KMZ offline. But if it links some images (icons and pictures), those won't be available offline if they haven't been cached before -- i.e. if you watched them all before. With version 1.9.4.2 of Locus, menion features to import KMZ files including images -- and those KMZ files I am refering to here. With a few steps, you can include the images with the KMZ, and import that file into Locus:

Remark first: In my example here I use the name "files" for the folder containing our images, as this is the name used by Google Earth KMZ export, and also used in Googles KMZ Tutorial. As it turned out later in this thread, it is a good idea to use a different name. Feel free to do so -- the folder name just must not end with .kmz, no other restrictions appear in either the tutorial or the reference (or I must have missed them).

  • Create an empty directory
  • If your original file is a KML, just copy it into this directory and name it doc.kml. If it is a KMZ, unpack it into this directory (it is a ZIP file).
  • If the directory does not contain a sub-directory named files, create it. Here we place all images
  • With your favorite editor, open the doc.kml and search for all the images. Download/copy them to the files directory
  • replace all links to those images you have in the files directory to point to files/<imagename>
  • ZIP the resulting directory and make sure the resulting file has the extension .kmz

That's all. But I will explain steps 4 and 5 a bit closer:

Step 4: Where to check for the images?
They are in two places: One is the icons in the styles, and the others are the <IMG> tags in the description. The former are enclosed with a <href> tag.

Step 5: Renaming examples
Icon-Example: <href>http://maps.google.com/mapfiles/kml/shapes/hiker.png</href>
This should read <href>files/hiker.png</href> afterwards.

Image-example: <img src="http://www.example.com/images/foo.jpg">
As currently there is no cleanup mechanism in Locus, it is a good idea to include the KMZ name in all those image names. So if your resulting KMZ will be greece.kmz, you should have stored this image as greece_foo.jpg in the files folder, and thus this image tag should now read <img src="files/greece_foo.jpg"> -- so if you later wonder what are all those images belong to, you have an easier guess on which ones you may remove.


So far, this is a general explanation. If you have complex descriptions in the KML file, you may need to reformat them as well. This won't be necessary for plain flowing text, but probably will be the case for multi-column tables. Those are fine with a large monitor, but will cause a lot of scrolling on a phone display...
#11
Next verse, same as the first...  :lol: KMZ files for offline use with embedded images. Not a too large collection to be true. But I hope you enjoy them nevertheless!

If you got some KMZ files with POIs from Germany, feel free to add them here as well.
#12
Again, only a few selected POIs from a short vacation in Vienna, Austria. Hope you like them. As my other KMZ files I uploaded, they can be used offline, as the images are embedded.

If you have some KMZs from Austria to share, feel free to add to this thread -- so if anybody plans a vacation, (s)he can just pick the related thread and get them all  :P
#13
Task continued: As described for the attached file, it contains 4 *.kmz for Italy -- so you can import areas you visit and leave the others out... I create those usually from my vacations, so it's mostly places I've been and not all what's there...

POI descriptions have images embedded, so that's why it needs Locus 1.9.4.2 or later.
#14
Just converted the next part of my collection for the use with Locus. Everything should work completely offline (with 3 minor exceptions where some Panoramio sources were linked in), images (as far as I hold the copyright) and icons are included in the KMZ. I splitted my Thai-Collection into 5 files, so you can skip some from loading if they don't affect you  :D

Hope you like it -- feedback welcome (also if you find errors inside).
#15
If somebody wants to take a look at the cool new KMZ support:



That's the Test-KMZ menion was writing about he used for testing. Works great. So I will see to convert some of my collections for Locus, as here even embedded images work great, as you can see in the second screenshot (no external links, the images are contained within the KMZ file -- so they are displayed even when offline!).
#16
Various & Bin / Map Calibrator
July 24, 2011, 12:26:26
I just picked up a really great idea over in the XDA-Developers Forum which I'd second:

Quoteit would be very very useful to have - included in Locus - a tool that allows to calibrate a map. This map could be a map photo taken at the entrance of a park or a .pdf file. Basically I'm asking to the author to introduce the features of another software called Mapcalibrator.
Imagine, you can't find that map online but you have it on paper: you can take a picture, you can scan, you can load the .pdf file or the .jpeg or.tiff and then calibrate it (e.g. eith three points) so to use it.

I'd say it would already be helpful just to support it as JPG, so one could use the built-in cam (maybe even from within Locus), take the picture, and Locus would process it. This would be especially useful in (national) parks and large outdoor museums like e.g. "Ancient City" (a miniatur Thailand built up in Bangkok). They often offer their special maps with special details...
#17
Implemented / KMZ/KML POI improvements
July 23, 2011, 22:09:40
I just played for a few days with the free version of Locus and, amongst others, also imported some POIs from KML/KMZ files. Though that's great stuff, I'd suggest some improvements for this:

Map sources to POIs
As it is now, one imports a KML/KMZ into a category. Multiple sources (i.e. KML/KMZ files in this context) can be imported into one category this way. But if one finds a better source for parts of them, or want to get rid of some for some other reason,, it is "all or nothing": One can either delete all POIs of a category, or none. Or one has to delete each POI separately, which can be quite annoying.

Now, if the source would be stored along (and here I mean the file name), one could remove all POIs of a given filename.

Multiple files in one KMZ
KMZ files are not simply a "zipped KML file". Sure, they can be this -- but they can be much more: One could include icons and images this way. And as Locus supports an offline mode, those additional files could be used along. For example, not only a textual description for a POI (using the KML <description> tag), but, say, a photo of the location, contained in the description using a relative path with an <IMG> tag. And for sure one could use specific icons.

With that, I could provide some of my KMZ files for the POI sources here. If an example KMZ file is needed, just let me know and I will provide it.
#18
Information / [MANUAL] Links to manual sources
July 23, 2011, 21:56:37
As Locus is quite a complex app, I guess I was not the only one looking a bit helpless at the start. So I went around to google for information, and found some with I'm sure will prove helpful for other new users as well -- so I thought I'd share them here:


If someone happens to know more sources, I guess there are more users like me who'd be glad if you let us know  :D