Rework of the POI searchability – November 2011

Over the last few weeks I spent a lot of time (about 130 hours total) on reworking the whole Points of Interest (POI -- all points in the map) framework. I did this because I noticed that some points were not found on the newer garmin devices like before.

For some it might be known, but most will not know that Garmin uses a rather complicated system to determine what point can be found at which place on the GPS/Mapsource and also determine the maximum resolution at which it is shown. This system is based on a rather random system of FFFFF points. Only a few of those are however usable and searchable. Hence it took me a long time to tryout to analyse and tryout about 2000 (hex) of them to find out which ones have which properties.

Already over the last two weeks I had started to update this system, for this Thursday's updates the rework is finished. I will write an article today that shows the structure about what you can find via the search function.

 

Do note that this also depends on other maps. There are some maps like Nop's Reit & Wanderkarte, but also others (all that use the poi search to find addresses) that will however completely havoc the POI search (also if map is deactivated). Also some maps could clutter certain search categories. On some devices like etrex 30 you can decide which map to choose for the POI search, but this doesn't really work - so best don't use to many maps on your GPS if you want to have reliable results (openmtbmap/velomap plus city navigator maps works very fine).

 

Due to the rework and using newer types, I managed to reduce the POI that are in the map also by about 10% (resulting in about 1% overall smaller maps) - which should mean a little speed boost (this is because I want to show different symbols for some POI that are found in the same category, due to the rework I could reduce the amount of POI which are twice in the map - with one entry for searching, and another one for displaying them).

 

For everyone using adapted .typ-files, you will of course need to update them (easiest simply copy over the whole poi section via text editor).

 

You can find the structure of the POI search on the new page I created here: https://openmtbmap.org/about-2/enpois-search-structure-depois-suchstruktur-espois-search-structure-espois-search-structure/

feel free to add comments if there is some stuff in OSM that would be needed for tourism/recreation cycling/mtbiking that is not yet findable or if you have ideas on what should be findable under categories like tides or currents.

 

Also because it sometimes happens: If you donate money via bank tranfer but do not indicate an email to me, please send me an email telling me your name/donation so that I can create an account for you. I have no chance to contact you without email....

 

With this work finished I will refocus on working on an online map which I hope to get online mid of December.

And last of all, I updated openmtbmap Europe yesterday and the Velomap Europe is right now rendered. Tomorrow I'll run normal map updates again.

Map Updates 21. October 2011

Well, on the last map update I asked for a new server, luckily I got one now from a donor, and actually last weeks updates already came from the new render server (which is also about 25% quicker than the older one). Moving the server luckily did not take that much time (about half a day until everything ran smooth). Thanks for all people that proposed me help.

As for the map updates. The biggest change is that mkgmap got a better POI handling for Polygons. Therefore I could take in some more POI (like playgrounds) that I had taken out before because they cluttered the map, and now work better (essentially the placement of the POI for Polygons/Multipolygons got set on the entrance instead of the middle, and for Multipolygons only 1 POI is created, and not one for each polygon).

On the Velomap I fixed an old bug (thanks for bringing it up to csperr) that had all highway=footway & sac_scale=mountain_hiking displayed as rivers (actually such ways are usually highway=path, so it was pretty rare). Also when updating the colors of the traditional Desktop layout, I had mixed up colors for motorways (in resolution 24) and for secondaries (in resolution 22) and fixed that too. Also I hope tonights update on the Velomaps goes through, cause the last time it didn't. If it doesn't I'll have to recheck, and it will be one day later...

Also especially for the netherlands I removed landuse=grass imports as they are no good at all.

 

Besides I started working on an online map based on Mapnik2 renderer, hope to go live in 2-3 weeks. Maybe in the beginning for members only, not sure how much resources it will use.