Java Mobile Phone navigation system development - looking for testers

Hi all,

I’m developing a Java mobile phone navigation system based on open street map data.

The software is far from complete and still a bit buggy, but already allows some basic routing, voice guided navigation and map display. It also allows you to record your traces and export to gpx or kml.

I’m looking for people who can help me by testing this program on some different devices and in different areas.

You can download the software from my site, we-travel.co.cc and install directly on your mobile phone. Right now, full country maps for Ireland, France and Belgium are included, as well as south-east UK (London), more to come. Maps are included in the software, so no live connection required.

Can also be used to understand the map data quality (routability and completeness) in your area by using it on your trips.

Looking forward to hear from you !

Installing now on my 4 year old phone… Couldn’t find any info on how to convert .OSM files into something your app can read.

Thanks a lot for trying out the app !

You don’t need to convert the .OSM files yourself. From the website, you can download the application for your region or country. The java application install itself contains the binary conversion of the .OSM file in the .jar file.
If your country is not yet present on the site and you would like to give it a try, please let me know, I’ll try to generate a version for you. (I have not (yet) published the software to convert an .OSM file into the binary map format, as this still a fairly technical and not yet fully automated solution)

If you can generate the map of Malaysia & Singapore (bbox N1.0 E99.5, N7.0 E105.0) maybe I can have a go at it. For now I do find the app a bit slow to respond and prone to crashes.

Hi Nyem,

I added a version for Singapore and Malaysia on the site.
As the osmxapi appears to be down at this time, I had to take the country osm files from cloudmade and hence had to make 2 different versions.

When using the app in demo and changing position with the arrow keys instead of a real GPS unit, the app is indeed a bit slower, as it will typically rescan the whole area at each move the find the current road instead of just following the current road as it does with a real GPS. This generates more route recalculations as well.
Can you let me know how it goes with a real GPS ?

Could you give me some more info on the crashes and the phone make you use ? The app is indeed still in early development and has quite some bugs. However, the only real crashes I had over the last couple of weeks were all related to memory leaks in the JVM implementation of my 4 your old phone. Something I would hope occurs less frequently with newer phone.

Hiya, I’m looking into a navigation solution or my Nokia 6110 Navigator.
Do you see any chance of creating a map which covers Benelux and Germany?
I’m traveling in august from Holland to Belgium to Luxemburg to Germany, thats why :slight_smile:

Thanks

German map is being generated, though not sure if it will work, see discussion in the forum at we-travel.co.cc
Belgium is available, Luxemburg will probably be added soon.
Currently, I have no plans however to support multiple maps in a single version, so you’ll have to install the app for each country.
Seen your travel in August and the current status of We-Travel, it might be wise to do some thorough testing or think about a backup plan as well…
Doesn’t Nokia 6110 Navigator come with maps already ?

Yes the nokia 6110 does come with Benelux on it by Route 66.
Regretfully I have to pay 119,- EUR just to get the west european maps which include germany.
So I’m looking for an alternative.

Is there anyway the maps can be generated by myself from openstreetmap, based on your symbian application?

Sorry, but no, you can’t generate the maps yourself - yet. Map of Germany might be available in the next couple of days - check out the site !

Map of Germany (and some other new countries) available for testing now at we-travel.co.cc
Please bear in mind that those new maps have not yet been tested at all !

Sweden/Scandinavia isn’t available… And it would be really great to have the converter software even if it’s hard to use…

I want to use this app to be able to check what has already been mapped in my area, and what I need to add, doing this without GPS means I really would like to be able to move around zoom in and out more easily…

But good work with the app it really does fill a segment that is interesting and usefull.

Ok, I’ll see what I can do to publish the scripts. The procedure would probably look like:

  • Download .osm file
  • import in MySQL with Osmosis
  • run We-Travel map creator application
  • Install the resulting .jar

Should probably not be too hard for most people on this forum.:slight_smile:
I have some other more urgent things to do first, but hope I can publish something towards end of next week.

No rush… :slight_smile: Just having it available it usefull.

Is the Map Data bundled with the JAR file? Could I please request Map of Philippines and Map of British Columbia, Canada?

Thanks

I can test BC Canada for you. I have Nokia N80 with QStarz BT-816, it works with GPSMid but your App with Voice Navigation sounds nice. Also, instructions for user to make their own maps via OSM data, e.g., from CloudMade [like how GPSMid is made] will be wonderful.

How big are the JAR files?

The map data is indeed bundled with the jar file. The jar files range from 2MB for small maps to 80 MB for a country like Germany (the largest so far). They are roughly in the same order of magnitude as the zipped CloudMade download file.
I started working on a map for philippines, though things are moving a bit slower for the moment as I’m experimenting with utf8 - unicode for the maps at the same time. If you supply me a bounding box for British Columbia I can make that one too.
Looking into user map creation as well.

I’ll do a map for :

region.1.lat.min = 48.414618
region.1.lat.max = 60.009970
region.1.lon.min = -113.950195
region.1.lon.max = -139.108886

Hi,
I live in Thailand, northern city of Chiang Mai. If you provide that area map for download, I would be very happy to test with my Benq-Siemens S88 here.

Hi,
Cannot install WETRAVEL on my Benq S88. It says always “size too large”. Other applications I can install easily as I have a 1GBmemory.
WHY WETRAVEL cannot?
Pls help.
Regards.

Hi there, I just took a look at your site and something kinda struck me: Your window title is

while there already is VGPS available for years. To me it looks like We-Travel and VGPS are doing nearly exactly the same thing. Can you elaborate on why you decided to create your own mobile navigation system and what the differences are between VGPS and We-Travel?

Good Question

We-Travel and VGPS are indeed similar.
A couple of reasons why I started We-Travel:

  • first of all, I started doing it for the fun and the challenge, mainly the challenge to create a cross country street to street routing engine fitting in a java mobile environmnet
  • VGPS is not truly in free as there is a 20$ ‘service charge’ to generate a map, even after you go through a lenghty preparation cycle yourself. The freely downloadable maps are labeled as ‘demo’ versions. (as an after thought, I had 7000 downloads over just the last 2 days, maybe the 20$ wouldn’t have been a bad idea at all)
  • largest maps in VGPS have currently ± 100 000 streets according to the site, VGPS positions itself as a city navigator, where with We-Travel I want to offer country level navigation (eg the We-Travel Netherlands map has 1.2 million streets)
  • Nobody seems to understand the VGPS GUI (though that’s probably the same for We-Travel) and to my personal taste the maps are just plain ugly (but then again, we-travel faces similar problems to some people) ) - respect to however made them, it’s quite an achievement in itself.
  • At the time I started We-Travel development (feb 2008), there was no routing in VGPS. Voice navigation in VGPS is even more recently (May 2008)
  • VGPS gave me a very ‘closed’ impression when I looked at it : not a single post in the forum, where I want to move much more to a collaborative community way of working, no outreach whatsoever on the site.

And about my window title : you might have noticed it is strikingly similar to the VGPS title ("VGPS is The World`s First and Only GPS application runs on any cell phone that can install java J2ME application. "). I had to add the more restrictive ‘totally free’ and ‘country level’ to maintain a first off claim, but as such the title is actually meant as a tribute to VGPS for insiders.

Probably an ever better question is why I didn’t join the GPSmid truly open initiative, the other similar product (and with a really beautifull userinterface)

  • Around the time I started, there hadn’t been a GPSmid release in 4 months, so I wrongly assessed it was nearly dead
  • I had the feeling the routing attempts at that point where going nowhere and where fundamentally flawned, discussions were just too slow
  • I looked at it for a while, but couldn’t understand how to build the app or how to make a map. Guess that scare me away. It all just didn’t look ‘friendly’ enough

Hope this clarifies things a bit ?