Howto merge mobac atlases

[antimon]

Hi there,

I yesterday succeeded in downloading MapQuest data tiles for some larger areas and high-zoomable for parts of a city etc. I expected mobac would download everything and then generate a single *.AQM file but instead I am stuck with 10 different *.AQM files which I would be forced to change according to the zoom level and area I require at that moment. Is there any way to merge these files together to have a single AQM with deeper zoom levels at a certain point? Or at least a way to tell AlpineQuest to use "this bunch of maps" together rather than one at a time?

Best,
antimon

[Psyberia-Support]

Hi,
I don't know how to merge maps, however MOBAC should not split the map for AQM format, which support very large areas.

- If your map is bigger than 2GB, you may have issues when reading them on older Android versions ( < 3 ). Maybe MOBAC take this into account. You should check your map sizes.
- Be also sure to create a single Atlas containing all levels, not one Atlas per level that could explain the split.
- In older MOBAC versions (don't know for newer), there was a setting allowing you to set the threshold of when splitting a map (I think in number of tiles). Try to set a much bigger value, it may also be that.
- Finally, you may try asking this question to the MOBAC forum.

Let me know if you figure what's wrong,
Best regards

[Guest]

All the maps I have exported sum up to around 200MB so there shouldnt be an issue with the size or the number of tiles.

What I did in order to generate the atlas was creating a new atlas and then adding selections of cities and countryside, mobac then downloaded everything and created one AQM file for every selection I added but did not create a combined map.

My version of mobac is 1.9.7, so the most recent I could find for my operating system in the repository (Archlinux).

This is a screenshot of the regions but I end up with one single map for every region I selected.



Best regards,
antimon

PS.: If you cant see any obvious error in what I've described I'll ask in the mobac forums, thanks for the link

[Guest]

Hi there,

I've been playing around more and more and discovering new things..

I succeeded in creating a one-file *.AQM map by dragging all selections I made in mobac into one of them, but the resulting map is only possible to zoom inside the area which I cached until level 10 (Overview of China and south chinese sea), all lower and more detailed levels (even though they are present inside the AQM map) are not shown in AlpineQuest (its only white, though it says in the zoombar that there should be data present for this level of zoom).

Is it problem with Alpinequest?

Best regards,
antimon

[antimon]

okay another update, I checked the alpinequest.log logfile and it seems like it has a problem reading the AQM map. If you are interested I can provide the whole log but the interesting part is the following message which is repeated a hundred times when I try to zoom into a precached area:

Code: Select all

[19:17:52.989] **Warning** b: exception while decoding aqm tile: IndexOutOfBoundsException (Invalid index 57, size is 19)

[Psyberia-Support]

Hi,
Thanks for the update.
I'll try to generate an atlas just like you did and see what's happening...
New release is almost ready I'll try to include a fix is possible.
I'll let you know soon,
Thanks a lot

[antimon]

Thanks for your fast reaction, I would really appreciate an update or a solution for this problem.

For those who are interested, I can suggest a dirty workaround but at least you are not out in the dark:

* Create a set of maps and do NOT merge them into a single *.AQM
* Put all those maps in your alpinequest/maps folder
* Select all of those maps inside the alpinequest application and press long on them
** Now select "Add as layer" and do NOT make them transparent
* Repeat that step for every single map (could be a few, but as I said, its a workaround..)

Apart from some weird bluish tint when you zoom out, you should now have maps for all zoom levels you exported as expected.

Best,
antimon

[Psyberia-Support]

Hi again,
So I made a quick test like you suggested:
- Add an overview atlas of the US;
- Add a more detailed one of Philadelphia;
- Add another detailed of New York;
- Drag&drop all the layers to the first atlas;
- Generate the Atlas.

I have noticed two things:
1) You have to remove the empty atlases otherwise you get an error;
2) Most importantly, you must correctly sort the layer levels (by level, not by name).

And I got it working!
Can you try again with sorted levels to be sure that's really the point? Maybe I just got lucky.

I think that the two noticed thinks can only be changed in MOBAC.
For the first one, this is just a simple check.
For the other one, if the levels are not sorted, it will result in a map containing redundant levels, which cannot be handled by AlpineQuest. An AQM map cannot have a duplicated detail level. Maybe just an automated sort before creating the atlas would work. I'll have a look at MOBAC source.

I have attached a screen shot of the Atlas I made.

[Psyberia-Support]

I have just read your workaround.
This is a good solution for people dealing with multiple 'single level' maps.
Thanks.

Another way:
I you have all your maps in the same folder, with the Map Explorer placed on it, you could be able to easily switch between your maps using the + and - buttons.

[antimon]

Thanks for your fast reaction and trying to reproduce my steps. I will try to repeat your procedure and let you know as fast as possible, though I have a lot to sort before.

[antimon]

Hmm, I am back again. I succeeded to order all my maps and created a new *.AQM. Interestingly now Alpinequest tries to load the map and then crashes giving me an OutOfError exception inside a popup window. I am running this application on a Motorola Atrix with 1GB of RAM, even though a lot may be used by the system itself I assume there should be enough to load the map (~330MB) into RAM.

EDIT: I now went back to the way I had it before with a lot of *.AQM for different zoom levels (i.e. from 1-10, 11-15 and some smaller areas higher like 16,17,18) and I actually didnt have to add them as layers as you said before, it simply works this way. Its a little unconvenient to have that much files flying around but it works and thats essential