Distance rings - great! - but some small wishes

svartbjorn · September 08, 2011, 09:29:32

Distance rings in version 1.12.0 - thank you so much for listening to my wishes!! Really great! And now the rings are always aligned to the screen, not to the map (then do not rotate with map) - great!

I used this feature when I was out flying yesterday and discovered some small issues. When using either distance rings OR time rings, then no issue, but as I find both rings useful when flying, then the rings may be close and text may overlap. So I would like to propose the following improvements:
-- time rings: solid line and text on top of ring as today. No changes.
-- distance rings: dashed line and text below ring. This will make it much easier to separate distance rings from time rings and text will never overlap. If map center is moved 1/4 down, most of the text will fall below the bottom of the screen, but that is ok since the distance rings are static with map scale and I can just move the map up temporarily to see the text. So I think that is better than having overlapping text.

- Distance rings are obviously calculated based on metric units. When I change to nautical miles (which is used in aviation), the rings remain at the same place and the distances changes to non-integer numbers. Would be better if the rings are recalculated to align to integer distance numbers as units are changed. That would make it much easier to estimate distance to points in between the rings.

Menion · September 08, 2011, 10:28:59

I was worried, that there will be need of such updates

so what about this? Critics is welcome ...

svartbjorn · September 08, 2011, 12:27:27

- The dashed distance ring looks good!
- Seems also you now recalculate distance rings to align to integer distance numbers. Perfect!
- New text location with the text inside the distance ring: I think you misunderstood my expression "text below ring". Sorry for not being clear. What I ment to suggest was below the lower half circle of the ring. In that way the text on time rings and distance rings will never overlap as time rings change dynamically with speed. But of course a ring may strike through the text of the other ring. That is acceptable I think. However, a way to improve that would be to have text priority such that the ring is opened where there is overlapping text. But I guess that is more complicated to implement, so do not spend too much time on that detail.

Thank you so much for implementing distance rings and your interest in improving this!

Menion · September 08, 2011, 12:50:40

ok, so I'll leave it in this way for now, and if there will be some more space for improve, we should discuss about it. ... and you're welcome

svartbjorn · September 08, 2011, 18:01:01

If you decide to keep the text on the upper half circle of the distance rings (as you show in you picture), then you should put the text on the outside of the ring, not inside. The reason is that at certain zoom levels the smallest distance ring doesn't leave sufficient room inside for the text (if squeezed inside the ring, the text will interfere with the blue arrow). So no matter if you locate the text on the upper half circle or lower half circle of the ring, the text should be located outside the ring. As pointed out before, the lower half circle would be the preferred location, but I fully understand that you may not want to spend too much time on this. Thank you anyway.

Menion · September 09, 2011, 09:09:16

fine, text below lower half of circle for distance rings. Space in ring when text is below .. hmm much harder. So maybe later during long winter nights

svartbjorn · September 15, 2011, 09:51:05

Downloaded the new version 1.13.1 this morning and tried out the redesigned distance rings.

Congratulations, Menion! The distance rings are now excellent! You implemented all my wishes - dashed line to distinguish from time rings, distancce text below the ring so the text doesn't interfere with text on time rings. Fantastic! Looks and works beautifully!

Forget my suggestion to open the ring when interfering with text on the other ring. When I tried out the rings this morning (enabled both timing rings and distance rings), I realized there is absolutely no point in doing that: it doesn't matter when a ring passes through the text on the other ring - the text is easily readable anyway.

I found one small bug: if I set distance unit = nmi (nautical miles, all rings are correctly aligned to integer distance numbers. Great - BUT if I zoom further in so the 1nmi ring becomes large, then a new rings appear with distance 1000m - meters! Zooming in even further makes a 500m - meters! - ring show up.

One small wish: could you add a 2km ring? The step today is 1km -> 5km. All other distances are perfect.

Thanks again for this great feature and great improvements in the last release!

Menion · September 15, 2011, 11:07:36

hi,
but this is way how I display NM units. Values above 1852m I show as 'nmi', below as metres. This isn't correct? No one complain yet

(you may check this also when you enable guiding, so distance you'll see have same behavior)

about rings
I use these values (in metres)
100, 500, 1000, 1852.1f, 9260.0f, 18520.0f, 46300.0f, 92600.0f, 185200.0f

so you can improve them if you want ...

svartbjorn · September 15, 2011, 13:09:48

Ok, so the meter-rings below 1nmi is your intention. That's just fine. I was just wondering. No complains!

When we talk km: could you add the 2km ring I mentioned? There is a big gap between the 1km and 5km rings when I zoom out but do not have the 5km ring within the screen area yet. No big deal, but would be useful. This may be just one more entry in your table, right?

Thanks again for excellent work!!

Menion · September 15, 2011, 13:13:29

ok, no problem .. 2km ring added ...

Gammalerik · September 17, 2011, 16:29:24

I experience a huge slowdown in framerate when having distance rings enabled. Even on a powerful phone such as my Galaxy S2. I haven't checked, but I guess the CPU works quite hard and battery consumption is high from this. Especially when "show view" is enabled as well and the rings start to rotate. The slowdown starts to be very noticeable when zooming in to level 12 and closer. On zoom level 17 the framerate is less than 5 when scrolling. On less powerful phones this will certainly be unbearable.

Strange thing however is that the time rings who are dynamic, does not impact performance.

Running ver 1.13.1 with test ver 1.13.1.1 also installed. Both versions have this problem.

Menion · September 17, 2011, 17:04:09

hmm quite interesting

. Problem is cause by dashed line ... hmm ... so I limited number of displayed rings to only those visible on screen when map is centered. This cut of distance rings that aren't needed and all is fluent again .. thanks for report

gorch · September 19, 2011, 14:42:36

I can confirm 100% CPU load, while "distance rings" option is enabled too. "time rings" option didn't cause by me high CPU load so far.
It's a pity, as this is a very useful function.

Menion · September 19, 2011, 14:55:48

it's already solved in testing version viewtopic.php?f=25&t=1013

svartbjorn · September 19, 2011, 21:49:02

Installed test version 1.13.1.1 yesterday and tested different features. Regarding distance rings, moving the map was still significantly slower with distance rings displayed.

Installed test version 1.13.1.2 today. No lag when moving maps with distance rings on. Great!!

However, Menion - you mentioned in a post that to solve the problem, you turned off distance rings outside the screen area. But that has a side effect: when I move the map now, the next distance rings do not show up. Actually the next ring shows up, but not the rings outside that. I can live with that as a compromise. Would having one more ring calculated, i.e. 2 total outside screen area, cause lag again? Zooming out correctly recalculate the distance rings.