Navigation on all tracks

[tommi]

Menion, i tried a brouter track based navigation and the spoken distances are better now, especially in sequences of turns the 2nd (and 3rd etc) were always with wrong distances due to missing distance texts. This problem is fixed now .

I tried a hike and the last notification (without distance) gets spoken 10-20m before the turn. Is this a fix distance or does it depend on current speed? For a biker this distance seems to be OK but for a walker it is too early.

[tommi]

Menion, how does the lookup in <language>.tts for "numbers_N1" work?
Does Locus expect certain values in the list or does Locus take the best matching value from the file?
The latter option would allow to add personal values like 150m etc.
Could you answer to my previous post as well?

OT: My post #1000 .

[Joachim Buhl]

Hello Menion

Currently I'm testing navigation feature each morning on the way to work (by car) with different setups.
I use 2.17.4, with de.tts added with 20m,30m,40m.
I think you are on a good way:
Notifications:
1. The first notification is coming earlier now. At city speed around 400m before.
2. The second notification comes between 50m and 20m and the notification really uses the 20m,30m,40m, nice. But it's a little late. Sometimes I get the 50m right before turning. Maybe its due to limited recources on my phone. Has to be checked by other users.
3. There is no notification direct before turning anymore. So no more "turn right now". It is gone intentionally?

Out of track behavior:
1. Obviously when you are off the track, the navigation symbol is moving on the track according to the real position rectangular to the track, I assume, right? This means you are far away from the track but you will still get the notifications right when the navigation symbol reaches the right distance to the next turn. I think it would be better, that the notifications are getting deactivated, when you leave the track more than X meters. Maybe you can combine it with the setting of invalid distance. If this is reached the notifications gets deactivated until you are back on track again.

General question:
What is your goal for the navigation feature in Locus?
Do you want to be an alternative to Navigon, TomTom.... or do you want to be specialized for offroad navigation.
If you want to be an alternative to Navigon..., we have to begin to differ the settings according to the navigation mode.
This means: car navigation -> stick to track, automatic zoom x, y,z, Notification distances x, y, z.
by foot -> no stick on track, other autozoom setup, other notifications
bike -> no stick, other autozoom, other notifications, turning map.....

Do you know what I mean. This could get complicated.

Thanks

[Menion]

Guys, sorry for slow repsonses these days. I am fully focused on some work on special version of Locus. It's our first order from existing company on specialized version and it have to be done till end of January, so I'm little bit hurry now. Anyway ...

@tommi: all distances are computed from speed. And speed is "average speed" from last 60 seconds. So if you will just walk, then locus took your speed (around let's say 1.5 m/s) and compute distances for times 15, 35 and 300 seconds and will try to say them. So in this case, if you will walk, locus will try to notify you on 15 * 1.5 = 22m, 35 * 1.5 = 52m, 300 * 1.5 = 450m . Same for car, cycle ...

About distances in tts file - you have good idea. Currently Locus expect values as are defined in en.tts. But you're right, I should allow to add there values you want. Good point, I'll look at it. Anyway till then, Locus take only values that are defined in en.tts

@joachim: "What is your goal for the navigation feature in Locus?"
Firstly, I never wanted to create from locus a navigation tool. I always wanted mainly map app. Navigation comes as a logical step after guiding and because it works quite well on such map app, people want logically more . Anyway I still have Navigation as a minor feature, that is only an bonus for major features of Locus. So I will never want to have from locus full alternative to some major navigation tools like TomTom etc.

What I currently want from navigation is best possible experience in the wild. What currently miss, is by me only "offline mode". Navigation generator is nice tool that may helps in case you want to ride along some road and do not want to have permanently turned screen on. But it's not full alternative to real "Navigation".

There is anyway many reports from you, Tommi and other on Navigation and Navigation generator. I had not yet time to read them all and do something with this, but I'll promise. I do not like to have only half-baked features, so I for sure want to make it work perfectly (soon or later)

[tommi]

Hi Menion,
thanks for your elaborated answer, this gives a much better understanding. And of course I'm happy that my questions regarding distances leads to an improvement in Locus .

I'm really happy that people use Locus not only in sparetime but also helps people doing their job. And of course it's even better that you got an order from a company. I really appreciate this because I always have a slight guilt feeling that the community (including me of course) keep you from doing a job where you can earn money on a regular basis.

Keep the brilliant work ongoing and have a nice xmas and new year!

Unfortunately I won't find time to celebrate with you and other Locus users in Prague, sorry.

Cheers,
Tommi

[Menion]

Sure, you're welcome

I'm sure you do not have to feel guilty. I heard quite a lot of times, about my stupidity, that I miss oportunity to earn a lot of money on this app etc etc., but I'm the kind of guy, who rather spend time on doing something that makes him happy, in friendly community/company etc, then doing something with primary target to make a money. In the end, I think that it result in better product

And project from company is something, that will be later available also for public. Special version of Locus for data collecting and GIS applications. But it will take a lot of time.

Anyway have a nice before-after-christmas time too. Don't worry about party. It's mainly Peters initiative and because it's really an five minutes after twelve, when he started some preparations, I think we will leave this on some spring/summer days, rather.

[rvheddeg]

Just to tell you that I've uploaded 'nl.tts' at Google Docs following your earlier instructions. I hope this works for Dutch also.

[druki]

Hello,
I tested navigation beta with the new test version. Unfortunately the value for "time to destination" is not computed correctly. The "time to next instruction" is shown instead in the dashboard and selectable valuefield. Could this be fixed easily?

[tommi]

Hi Menion,
as quite often I created a little tour with brouter yesterday.
I pressed Navigation Beta and it seemed that navigation started but there were no instructions for left right etc.
I had a look on the display with the pink track. Usually it shows white arrows at the location of turns. Though there were lots of turns not a single white arrow was displayed.
As this always worked in the past I tried to find out what's so different with this track.
And here is the result: Navigation Beta doesn't indicate turns if start point is equal to end point of the track. I have a POI "at home" which I used for begin and end of the track. Seems I didn't use this POI for both ends of the track in the past.

[Menion]

thanks guys. I want invest some more time to this feature before end of the year (to make it work to next version), so I'll check both problems. Anyway issue from druki should be fixed in test version, but I'll rather check it once more

[druki]

Hi, I tested some more. Don't know what was wrong last time (old Track from before new test version). This time I tested with GPS deactivated (ok, values of both time fields are no more identical :-) ). I see a strange behavior between time to next instruction and time to destination. The last digit of seconds seem to be identical and the minutes of time to destination seem to be to much. The last point could be because of no GPS (=no speed to calculate time. But then, the seconds should be some other value, too?!). Maybe it's just the way I tested. Attached screenshots of my test to show more clearly what I mean (mind minutes and seconds of both fields).

[Menion]

druki thanks for screenshots, but in this case - it's not possible to test these numbers correctly on sofa, really. Or at least it's needed to set simulated speed in configuration file. Without this, Locus think that you move an almost 0 km/h, so time values makes no sense ...

[druki]

Ok, this was a sofa test, but I used speed_for_moving_cursor_when_gps_off=10.0
Aditionally I just found out that the identical last second only occurs during final approach. Before that, the time to destination (dashboard value) is only changing at instruction points not in between. Tomorrow I will go out in "real world" to see what is happening and get some trackdata to reproduce.

[Menion]

ah you had "speed_for_moving_cursor_when_gps_off" set, hmm. I'll check it during next days (leaving on three day visit to my mom, so enough possibilities to test). Btw. nice car icon

[druki]

Hi Menion,
today I had the chance of riding the bus and do some screenshots of this. Seems there is still a bug in computing the time to destination. See speed (is ok),  distance to destination (is ok) and time to destination (too large value). Ah, and I see: Time of arival (13:12) is also too large...
Icon is our van "Nellie" (named after song "Nellie the elephant", because: big, grey, strong) ;-)