No junction numbers on motorway junctions (or autobahn/autoroute/autovia/autostrada etc)

[cf.ggr...@gmail.com]

I have noticed that motorway junction numbers are not displayed for any European countries I have looked at (I have not looked outside Europe).  However, the junction numbers and names do appear on maps viewed on openstreetmap.org.  Is there some setting I have missed in Osmand to enable their display, or is there an Osmand rendering bug?  Or are the junction numbers missing from the Osmand map files?

[David White]

+1. Would indeed be useful to have those numbers displayed from zoom 13 upwards. Currently the junction name is displayed from level 14 upwards but IMHO it is less useful, much more difficult (dangerous) to read while driving and takes up more space on screen.
Suggestion: display junction name in top bar a short distance prior to turning in navigation mode instead of current road name/ref.

Regards

David

Le 26 mai 2013 13:17, <cf.ggr...@gmail.com> a écrit :

I have noticed that motorway junction numbers are not displayed for any European countries I have looked at (I have not looked outside Europe).  However, the junction numbers and names do appear on maps viewed on openstreetmap.org.  Is there some setting I have missed in Osmand to enable their display, or is there an Osmand rendering bug?  Or are the junction numbers missing from the Osmand map files?

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[Harry van der Wolf]

My map was even more different. It only showed the junction number in zoom level 13 and not in any other zoom level.

 

I can't modify the source but I created a custom render file that displays the motorway junction as of zoomlevel 13 and up with increasing character size to make it better readable.
Copy this file inside "osmand/rendering" on your SD-card.

In your map screen go to "Define view"->"configure screen"; Scroll down to section "Miscellaneous", select "Map style" and choose the "mw_junction.render.xml"

 

Please let me know whether it works for you. Note that the render parameters are set for "Car" mode, not for hiking/cycling.

 

Harry

 

2013/5/27 David White <dgkw...@gmail.com>

[Harry van der Wolf]

I improved it a little more.

I increased the font size even more and put a white border on the text (texthalo) for better visibility: actually the original rendering style but now adapted for several zoomlevels.

 

Let me know if this works and we might request to have it added to the default render style.

 

Harry

2013/5/27 Harry van der Wolf <hvd...@gmail.com>

[cf.ggr...@gmail.com]

Firstly, with default rendering using a Great Britain map, I do not get junction numbers at any zoom level.

Secondly, Harry, your custom render file works for me.  The text could even be a bit bigger still, and maybe in blue like on the web map rendering, but these are just details.  I'm glad to see the map file does contain the numbers, so it seems the problem should be soluble for all rendering modes.

Clive

[cf.ggr...@gmail.com]

Harry, my comments above were about the first version - our posts crossed.

The second version is better. However, the web map has names for some junctions (as well as numbers) - is it possible to display the names?

Clive

[David White]

Hi Harry,

Number size looks good on Zoom 13, may be useful also on 12, 14; 15 would be too much I think - to be debated-

thanks,

David

2013/5/27 <cf.ggr...@gmail.com>

Harry, my comments above were about the first version - our posts crossed.

The second version is better. However, the web map has names for some junctions (as well as numbers) - is it possible to display the names?

Clive

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[Harry van der Wolf]

In my hometown Zwolle we have three exits from the motorway. All three exits have a name and are therefore displayed. I think that if there are no names for the junctions you are looking at, they simply have not been given a name by the contributors or didn have a name in the base material used to create the map.

Anyway, can you give an example?
I can give it a quick look if it does contain a name tag.

Harry

2013/5/27 <cf.ggr...@gmail.com>

[cf.ggr...@gmail.com]

Well, in preparing an example I have discovered something interesting.

If you look at this OSM link: http://osm.org/go/euuD7DnV--  you can see a junction between two motorways, called "Thorpe" and with junction numbers 2 and 12.

In Osmand, if I use the default rendering I see the junction name "Thorpe" (correctly four times).  If I switch to mw_junction rendering, the names disappear but the numbers appear.

You can see this area in Osmand yourself if you download the map file "Gb england surrey europe" which is not big, then do an internet search for the postcode TW20 8QR.

Clive

[Harry van der Wolf]

I have tried it and (I think) I know now why OsmAnd does this. OsmAnd writes them on top of each other. The one with the lowest textorder (=highest priority) gets printed. I had set the junction numbers to a relatively low number which made the numbers to be printed. If I set the textorder for the numbers to a higher number (lower priority), the names get printed. If I set them to the same textorder, it is more or less random which one gets printed.

I have no idea how to merge/combine that. Perhaps in using different layers. I know how that works for drawing roads, but not for text, if possible at all.

 

Harry

2013/5/27 <cf.ggr...@gmail.com>

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[cf.ggr...@gmail.com]

It would be a shame if we can't have both name and number.  However, in the UK at least the name is not really used by people and everyone refers to junction numbers, so the option to display numbers rather than names is very useful.

Clive

[Hardy]

I have designed the original default renderer, sorry for seeing this thread so late. Yes, Harry is absolutely right with his description above. I went through the same story this thread goes through some years back, and the compromise I ended up with at the time is the one displayed in default (and Toruing view, which I use) today: Junction number (if in the map source) shown at one zoom level, name for all others. (And in CAR mode only, I think I rememeber!!)

 

At the time I found no good way to display both (had experimented with shifting them, but it turned out ugly. I decided the best would be to implement a way to concatenate them into one string, as soon as this becomes a priority.)

 

We can re-visit.

 

BTW: Had the same issue for mountain peaks and their peak elevation. But the way I implemented it now save space for higher zoom levels, and gives the name for closer levels. As this is mostly used by hikers, this zoom mechanims is no problem and should stay as is. But for motorway junctions we can re-think.

 

[Harry van der Wolf]

Maybe we should discuss what the optimal way would be to implement this.

 

David White already suggested: "display junction name in top bar a short distance prior to turning in navigation mode instead of current road name/ref."

 

My suggestion would be to add it underneath/into the lane assistant.

option 1: Add it to the current "lane assistant" canvas. The top row would be the arrows and the second/third row would be the number and name of the junction (second and third row to accommodate longer names)
option 2: Make a separate canvas containing the number and name of the junction underneath the lane assistant. Make it configurable via the default.renderer.xml and the "configure screen" option.

Please see a very coarse adapted screen capture.

I'm willing to file a feature request but I would like some feedback to get to know whether more people like this approach or a completely different one.

Harry

 

[Areg]

Hi

It would be nice to have the number of junction shown as many times when you are traveling you are listening to the travel announcment and they are talking with Motorway and Highway junction numbers first (UK)!

Regards,

Areg

[Victor Shcherb]

Oh, If you ask me, it is too much information on the screen, That could be put to the top with street name but still too much. 

Also I'm confused because there is also special tag called (destination) which we already show on the top and it could help when you see it on big Boards. Like "A2 - Utrecht" or "A2 - Amstelveen".

To be honest I don't plan yet to simulate real boards (like Garmin/Navigon does) because of information not 100% perfect and too much UI work to make it really cool (fits the screen etc)

Regards,

Victor

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[cf.ggr...@gmail.com]

I think to be universally useful it might need a degree of configurability.

I can only speak for the UK, but I'm not sure junction names even have any official status here.  They don't appear on the motorway signs; in general no-one knows what the junction names are.  On the other hand, junction numbers are on every exit sign.  Everyone uses junction numbers when planning navigation or giving instructions to others, and every paper map used in the UK shows the numbers.  As Areg says above, traffic reports refer to junction numbers; dedicated Satnav devices speak instructions using numbers.

So for UK users, regardless of what the lane assistant does or what happens in navigation, I would appeal for an option (at least) to render junction numbers always, every mode (including pedestrian), every zoom level.

[Harry van der Wolf]

OK.
Please note that when I would like to file a feature request I fully understand that it is a request, not a demand.
Having it filed means that it is registered and that someone (you for example) can add to it something like: "no plans to implement this" or "postponed until 2014", or whatever. And secondary that new mails/requests (from new forum users) can be pointed to that request.
Or is this not how you would like to treat the issue/enhancement list. It would also enable some kind of prioritization of reqeusts if they are filed, and therefore known.

Please advice.

Harry

2013/5/29 Victor Shcherb <victor....@gmail.com>

[Hardy]

As an interim solution:

 

Victor, how complex would it be to implement something which would facilitate concatenating the nameTag="ref" and the nameTag="" the display the concatenated string on the map, so we could handle the situation in the renderer, (and maybe even introduce a switch if really needed)?

 

 

 

[Victor Shcherb]

I think we should have open request about concatenation or request that we can display one object on 2 different lines.

For example "ele" and "name" could be split into 2 lines and I think it should work fine. I'm not sure if it is possible now.

How complex to implement is very tricky question, I think it should not be complex, but could take some time. I'm trying to organize work with bugs and still not successful, but they have higher priority. 

Also new rendering is about to be implemented which will replace Java and current C++, of course, fixing in 3 places could be tricky.

I certainly agree with feature-request to fix in rendering style generally (we have it open), but about specific use-cases I'm not sure about priority, but you can file an issue anyway.

Victor

On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 3:16 PM, Hardy <hm.gg...@gmail.com> wrote:

As an interim solution:

 

Victor, how complex would it be to implement something which would facilitate concatenating the nameTag="ref" and the nameTag="" the display the concatenated string on the map, so we could handle the situation in the renderer, (and maybe even introduce a switch if really needed)?

 

 

 

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[Hardy]

Ok, I opened our reminder here: http://code.google.com/p/osmand/issues/detail?id=1906

 

Until then, please look at how I had implemented it in the default renderer. If you need it, you can either slightly modify as a custom renderer for you (displaying either number or name), or I could implement a tempoary rendering switch for all of us. But I do not want to overload our app with too many switches unless they are useful for many users.