MapTool 0.9.1 for WebOS

I created a new mapping application for WebOS called MapTool:

  • It displays maps from the OpenStreetMap project
  • shows your current position (and allows to send your position by email)
  • a selected target
  • direction and distance from your current position to the target
  • your current track (and can send it as gpx file by email)
  • the real ground elevation at your current position and also
  • allows the use of offline maps.

Offline maps can be created using this adapted Java tool from here: Tool for offline download: here
The offline maps are a couple of PNG files which has to be in a folder called .MapTool (the leading dot is important!) on the internal volume of your WebOS device. Just use the tool to download the tiles and copy them into the freshly created .MapTool folder after connecting the Pré as USB drive to your desktop computer.

If you want you can replace some of the maps with your own, but ensure you use the same naming, bounding box and image size as the OpenStreetMap project for its tiles.

The official thread about it, is here: http://forums.precentral.net/showthread.php?p=2099438

Some general usage infos:

Start the app, it will try to get your position using GPS. In same cases it will take some time to get your position, then it might just use a rough assumption. You can see the error of your position location in the bottom info strip.

The app will just starting logging your position, you can see your track in blue and in the bottom strip also the ID of your track (date + time of the starting point).

The app follows your position and downloads OSM tiles whenever necessary, use + and – to zoom in or out. Use the reload button to have it refresh the map tiles in case something went wrong. When you start moving the map, it will release the connection to your current position and the zoom-level display will display “move”. Click on it to access the list of targets or to jump back to your current position.

Use the send button to send your current location or the current track by email.

Use the menu to access the settings. Here you can switch the different OSM renderers (use the refresh button to reload the tiles). Also you can specify the error level which will used to draw your path or to convert the log into gpx. A good value is below 100 meters (sorry for only supporting metric units).

The bottom strip also shows you the altitude which the GPS reports and the elevation of the ground as it is stored in the NASA database. Therefore MapTool asks about the elevation value every 10 seconds. It will be adjustable in a later update.

Also I’m glad to announce the appearing of OGCOpenInfo in the official AppCatalog. A very handy tool for all passionate “The Open Golf Challenge” players.

Dezember 28, 2009 · admin · 11 Comments
Posted in: Allgemein

11 Responses

  1. L’Haut-Parleur » A Java application to create offline maps for 2TrackMe - Dezember 28, 2009

    […] MapTool 0.9.1 for WebOS […]

  2. Johannes Arnstadt - Januar 4, 2010

    I downloaded the files for Offlinemaps with a range of 30 km.
    Now I have about 340000 little png-Files. The Problem is, that I am not able to copy them all to my Pre into the fresh directory MapTool. The Copy stops at about 21000 files. This is a problem of the FAT32-filesystem. How is this thought?
    How can I fix that problem?

  3. admin - Januar 4, 2010

    No solution for this atm.

  4. bert - Januar 9, 2010

    I have problems with offline maps. I create the folder MapTool and copy the subfolder 12, 13, 14 … with png files.
    I set in preferences the option RENDERER to “Offline”, then I don’t can see the the map png’s. Can you help me?

  5. admin - Januar 9, 2010

    @bert: the current version need all files directly inside the MapTool folder. Zoom, y-tile and x-tile are part of the filename.

    @all: next version will mirror the tile server’s directory layout: MapTool/Zoom/X-Tile/Y-Tile.png

  6. dafyddg - März 16, 2010

    On startup I get an error message “ca.canucksoftware.filemgr is not running”. I’m looking forward to using the maptool, but what is the significance of this message? Thanks!

  7. admin - März 16, 2010

    It’s an homebrew service which isn’t installed on your device. You could ignore the error, but I know it’s nasty. Next update will not display it anymore.

  8. psyko_munky - August 2, 2010

    I was using this app with no problems and loved it, then I refreshed the map and now it keeps saying my location is in the middle of the ocean by africa. I tried deleting it and downloading it again, that didn’t work. Would really like to be able to use this app, I really like it!!!

  9. admin - August 8, 2010

    Have you tried to enable plane mode? Sometimes it helps.

  10. wijnand - Juni 23, 2011

    Nice app, but something is wrong with exporting .gpx.
    I tried to load a .gpx file into Garmin MapSource. It would not load. I checked with an xml editor and I saw that the order of the and fields was wrong within the field.
    Something for the next release?

  11. Suspended cell phone, OpenStreetMap, and stuff « Design, Build, Test, Iterate - September 1, 2011

    […] better, there is a WebOS app called MapTool that can operate offline using downloaded OpenStreeMap data! Since GPS still works without cell […]

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