Waypoints and POIs in Oruxmaps

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Waypoints and POIs in Oruxmaps

Postby Off-track » Sun 16 Jul, 2017 2:26 pm

Oruxmaps is an amazing app that continues to improve in both features and documentation.

There are some possibilities for use of points of interest (POIs) and waypoints (WPTs) in Oruxmaps (v 7.0.12) (OM) that are not documented in the OM manual (v 7.0.0) http://www.oruxmaps.com/manual_en.html

Key menus and menu symbols

In OM, many menu items are only displayed as symbols {sym}. The manual does not match the screen in some important cases, such as Top Menu WPT {sym} > Manage Wpts.
OruxWPT2.png

The WPT type manager shows only your added (custom) WPT types. These along with the inbuilt types are shown if you click on a listed WPT > Edit properties > Type.

Importing WPT symbols (icons)

You can fairly easily use your favoured icon editor to convert stock or custom Garmin WPT symbols (such as those from http://www.javawa.nl/customsymbols_en.html) for use with OM custom types. Open the bmp file for the icon of interest, choose a desired size (24 or 32 pixels @ 256 colours without resampling works well), swap magenta for transparent pixels, save as png, and copy to your OM customwpts folder; along with a customwpts.txt file modified to include the same name given to your png image.

Importing WPT collections

With a bit of effort you can also import all your old WPTs (or POIs) into OM. But you may want to be fairly selective about this. Many of your points may already be shown on the maps you download for offline use from WMS servers or OpenAndroMaps. The OM model is that WPTs are really only for navigation of routes. It can be convinced to display your WPTs on a map without an associated route, but this is sometimes problematic.

If you are determined to get there, the method (using WGS84 = EPSG4326 throughout) is:
1. Export the WPTs from your source program (like Garmin Basecamp) in gpx format.
2. Use a format converter like Extra POI Editor convert the gpx data to csv format. (If you export directly to csv in step 1, the file will probably contain lots of unwanted data that interferes with subsequent steps).
3. Open the csv file in a spreadsheet program like Excel. You will probably see a header row identifying the gpx fields (symbol, longitude, latitude, elevation etc.) then rows with data for each WPT.
4. Sort the data by symbol.
5. Add a column after symbol, and use it to provide the desired OM type for each WPT.
6. Delete the entire original symbol column, and name the column with your OM types as symbol (keep the same columns for re-import by the same converter program).
7. Save the modified file in csv format, and exit the spreadsheet program.
8. Open the modified csv file in Extra POI Editor (or whatever converter you used in step 2).
9. Save the file in gpx format.
10. Open the gpx file in a text editor like Notepad++, notice the abbreviated field tags.
11. Replace every instance of sym> with type> (there will be an automated way to replace all).
12. Save the modified gpx file, and copy it to your OM tracklogs folder.
13. In OM, Top Menu WPT {sym} > Manage Wpts > Select folder for the imported WPTs {sym near top} > Import {sym near bottom} > select your gpx file (get a blue tick-box) > OK.

Now your imported WPTs should be showing along with their type symbol in the WPT list. All of this was necessary because most programs do not transfer the <type> field in conversion from csv to gpx, but OM uses the <type> field not the <sym> field on importing from gpx.

OM also imports <lat> <lon> <ele> <time> <name> and <desc> (and it imports from <cmt> into <extensions>). In WPT details, OM displays lat and lon rounded to 5 decimal degrees, but it retains 7 decimal degrees in the database as evidenced by gpx files exported from OM.

Folders can be used to manage collections of WPTs (and routes), in much the same way that ‘lists’ can be used to manage such collections in Basecamp. Categories, addresses and other <extensions> added by other developers to the core set of gpx fields are not imported to OM; which uses its own set of <extensions>. However, if Categories are important, you could easily substitute them into the Comment column while using a spreadsheet (steps 3-7 above). Garmin programs may have put the same information into Comment and Description fields.

Although not mentioned in the manual, the Update Altitude function {sym near centre bottom of the Manage Waypoints screen} can use your saved DEM files, which can be from an improved source like http://viewfinderpanoramas.org/dem3.html.

Viewing WPTs on maps (without navigation)

To see your imported WPTs on the map (with their icons and names if you have selected those options under Top Menu ⁞ {sym} > Global settings > Waypoints) use Top Menu WPT {sym} > Manage Wpts > Select all {sym} > Load into active route {sym bottom left} > No navigation > Accept.

Unfortunately, custom types do not seem to ‘stick’ very well to imported WPTs. They are sometimes lost (replaced by the generic Waypoint type) during search for a POI as described below, or on export from OM to gpx. If you keep the original gpx files in your OM tracklogs folder, you can in Manage WPTs delete any WPT sets that get corrupted, then import them afresh.

OM does export a <sym> field, but assigns a default waypoint symbol there. OM-specific <extensions> denote the required icon. Because this is done by a number rather than a name (reflecting the design of the underlying database), if you change the order of custom waypoint icons (e.g. by interpolating in an alphabetical list in your customwpts.txt file) strange things will happen to your existing WPTs. To realign things, you can delete and re-import WPTs as above. When I tried to avoid this problem by using a chronological rather than alphabetical list of types in customwpts.txt, the new types were not imported. It may be necessary to restart OM to use an altered customwpts.txt file.

Another option to display WPTs on the map is to use Top Menu WPT {sym} > Manage Wpts > Select all {sym} > Export {sym disk at bottom} > KML. Move the resulting kml file from your OM tracklogs folder to your OM overlay folder. Then you can display your WPTs as an Overlay by any one of several methods (e.g. Top Menu Map {sym} > Overlay options > Load KML Overlay > select the file). The advantage is that overlays do not disappear when you use Top Menu Route {sym} > Clean Routes/Wpts to clear unwanted tracks/routes from the display. You can still select individual WPTs from the map screen for some other purposes in OM.

POIs

in Mapsforge vector maps (including the MAP files from OpenAndroMaps). Provided the POI file exists in the same folder and matches the filename of the associated MAP file, the POIs are displayed on that map. They can be accessed in OM via Top Menu Waypoint {sym} > Search in map > Text or Category > Tick {sym}. Then click on the displayed POI of interest to get options including Direct To.

To remove the WPT and bearing line thus created on the map, use Top Menu Route {sym} > Clean Routes/Wpts. You will then need to repeat the steps given above to again see your imported waypoints.

A Mapsforge POI database can be edited, by those with the necessary skills and software https://github.com/mapsforge/mapsforge/blob/master/docs/POI.md.

POI files do not work with other maps such as the rasters you may download from WMS servers for offline use. But many of the same points may already be present in the raster map.

Points in Tracks & Routes

The OM model is that a track is a path recorded based on incoming GPS data, whereas a route is a collection of points that can be navigated as a path. But the terms are sometimes used interchangeably or confusingly. For example, if you press Top Menu Route {sym} > Manage Tracks/Routes, you will be presented with a list headed “Tracks” which actually contains both tracks and routes.

For many GPS users ‘routes’ will mean sets of (generally few) points representing main (usually turning) places along a path to be navigated (including a current route being navigated); whereas ‘tracks’ will mean records of (generally many) points along paths previously taken (including a current track being extended while recording GPS data). This is not identical to the OM model, but there is some overlap.

You can import all your old routes and tracks into OM. But you will probably decide first to save them individually as gpx (or kml) files. OM interprets a gpx file with multiple routes as one long route. OM can merge, but not split tracks/routes. Also, you will probably want to use names that distinguish tracks from routes, as they all appear together in the OM “Tracks” list.

To see an imported track or route on the map use Top Menu Route {sym} > Manage Tracks/Routes > select your track or route (get a blue tick-box) > Load into active route {sym bottom left} > No navigation > Accept. Unfortunately, when you import a route based on WPTs that you have already imported, OM does not recognise the existing WPTs, but rather shows the route with new (generic symbol) WPTs overlaid on the map. OM does not display trackpoints, just the track line.

How OM displays tracks (and routes) is determined under Top Menu ⁞ {sym} > Global settings > User Interface > Tracks and ... > Colors. But if you choose to display one imported track, it will use the colour you have chosen for primary (active) routes. If you have chosen “Route path effect” and “Coloured path effect”, OM will display small black arrows that creep along the active (1º) route line during map zooms, and a line colour that depends on slope. I assume this uses the imported DEM files. If you choose to display two imported tracks, they will be in the colours you have chosen for primary (1º) and secondary (2º) routes. Further tracks/routes will display in pink (or sometimes in a series of other colours). The 2º and 3º routes will be dashed if you have chosen “Route path effect” to get the useful black arrows on the 1º route.

The order of entries in your “Tracks” list determines what is considered 1º, 2º or 3º. There seems to be no way to rearrange the entries manually, though they can be sorted or filtered various ways under “More options” {⁞ sym bottom right}. You can make any track/route 1º by clicking on it in the “Tracks” window, then selecting “Follow/see as a Route” in the pop-up menu. In that case all other displayed tracks/routes become 3º. Alternatively, if you have clicked Top Menu ⁞ {sym} > Global settings > Tracks/Routes > First point Route, the map will display a Starting Point symbol at the start of each track/route which you can select (then scroll down if there is a lot of track/route information) then click ACTIVATE. This alternative is not so simple when multiple tracks/routes start from the same spot, but you can scroll down a list of multiple selected points to find the one you want.

Basically, OM routes can contain trackpoints, WPTs and POIs. An imported track is handled as a route consisting of trackpoints. So far I have not worked out how to display imported tracks as tracks (as distinct from routes based on trackpoints). I assume that the OM display settings for tracks apply only to the track being recorded based on incoming GPS data.

If you have clicked Top Menu ⁞ {sym} > Global settings > Tracks/Routes > First point Route; you can click on the Starting Point symbol at the start of any track/route (then scroll down if there is a lot of track/route information) and click DELETE to remove this track/route from the screen. Sometimes it is necessary to repeat this exercise to display the Starting Point symbol at the start of each track/route. Alternatively, you can use Top Menu Route {sym} > Clean Routes/Wpts. Unfortunately this alternative removes all of your displayed WPTs (as well as all displayed tracks and all displayed routes with their generic WPT symbols). As mentioned above, the OM model is that WPTs are really only for navigation of routes. If you have a different use for your imported WPTs, and you want them to be displayed again, you must again use Top Menu WPT {sym} > Manage Wpts > Select all {sym} > Load into active route {sym bottom left} > No navigation > Accept. Or you can use the overlay method for WPT display as described above.

Tracks/routes can also be displayed using the overlay approach, but this is not so useful as each track/route goes to a separate KML file and uses the 1º route colour.

The OM manual describes many other things that you can do with WPTs, tracks and routes.
Off-track
Nothofagus gunnii
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Re: Waypoints and POIs in Oruxmaps

Postby Off-track » Sat 12 Aug, 2017 4:14 pm

Unfortunately, when you import a route based on WPTs that you have already imported, OM does not recognise the existing WPTs, but rather shows the route with new (generic symbol) WPTs overlaid on the map.


This is true, but if you have set up various folders for your other waypoints, you can easily get rid of the imported route points. They will appear in the top folder (---); so if you navigate there (and check it only holds your route points, with their generic WPT symbol); you can 'select all' then 'delete'. Your imported routes will still show, but without the 'clutter' of the generic-symbol route points.

On the other hand, if you want to use a bearing and distance to the next turn while navigating, you will need to keep those route points.
Off-track
Nothofagus gunnii
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