Marble/Maemo/OfflineRouting

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Information

If you prefer watching a video to reading instructions, please head over to our tutorial video. The second half explains offline routing. (German speaker)

Getting Started

Throughout this guide, I assume you have a Nokia N900 with an installation of Marble and an installation of Monav on it. You'll find instructions on installing the software in our installation tutorial. Getting the device is something you need to take care of yourself.

During the setup of offline routing, you also need Internet access. Once the data for the region you're interested in is downloaded, no Internet connection is needed anymore. You can use Marble to calculate routes in that region without Internet access from there on.

Please start Marble on the N900. The initial view should look similar to this one, possibly showing a different location on the map.

We'll use Switzerland, a country in Europe, in this example. Let's assume we're in Bern, the capital of Switzerland, and want to use Marble for offline routing.

Installing Offline Routing Maps

To get offline routing working, we need to download an appropriate offline routing map first. Marble is able to download offline routing maps for motorcar routing. Maps for all countries of the world are available for download. For some countries, smaller parts of the country can be installed as well.

We'll download the map for Switzerland now. To do that, open the Marble application menu: Tap on the Marble - Virtual Globe text on the top of the screen. Choose the Routing button on the bottom left.

The routing dialog is opened. It's just a stop-over; go for the Configure link directly.

Pressing the Configure link opens the dialog to configure the current routing profile.

Here we'll disable all Active Route Services (the services and programs Marble uses to retrieve routes) except Monav, the offline router we want to use. Once only Monav is selected like shown in the screenshot above, tap on the Configure button. On the dialog that comes up, switch to the Install New tab and choose Switzerland.

Note

Marble needs an Internet connection to show available offline maps. Check your Internet connection if the dialog's fields remain empty.

Done? Hit Install to have Marble download the map. You'll get a progress indicator while the map is being downloaded.

Wait for the download and the installation to finish. Once done, the new map appears in both the Configure and the Manage Maps tabs.

Tip

You can return to this dialog from time to time to check for updates of the installed maps.

With the Switzerland map successfully installed, we can continue to use it for offline routing. Hit Done in all opened dialogs to close them.

Downloading Map Data

Marble is able to calculate routes anywhere within Switzerland now. The map images that are displayed are not available yet however -- if you'd cut the Internet connection now and move the map to a part of Switzerland you didn't look up before, Marble would not have a detailed map image to show to you. Fortunately there's the Download Region feature to help out. It downloads the map images (which are often called tiles) for a rectangular region -- the part you see on the screen -- or along the current route.

Let's see the Download Region feature in action. We'll calculate a route and download tiles along it. Move the map near the desired start, click on the start point and select Directions from here in the upcoming menu.

Likewise, select the route destination using the Directions to here menu entry. Marble will calculate the route and show it to you.

To download the tiles along the route, make sure Marble is not in offline mode. If the main menu looks like in the next screenshot with the Work Offline button enabled, click on it to disable the offline mode.

Afterwards, choose Download Region... from the main menu to open the Download Region dialog. Choose the Download Route option. Marble will determine which parts of the map the route touches and download the corresponding tiles. You can also select a margin laterally to the route where tiles are downloaded as well. Increasing the margin allows you to deviate further from the planned route, but also increases the download size.

In the bottom part of the same dialog you can select which zoom levels (tile levels) to download. We'll increase the maximum zoom level to 18 to get the most detailed maps for this short route. Note how increasing the maximum tile level also increases the number of tiles to download and the estimated size of the download.

Hit Done to have Marble download the tiles. The dialog closes and the download progress is shown in the little pie chart on the right side of the map.

Note

Marble can only download tiles if an Internet connection is available and Marble's offline mode is not activated.

Once the download is finished, you're all prepared for offline mode. Click on the Guidance Mode button (the left of the four large buttons on the bottom of the screen) to have Marble follow you on the route, highlight driving instructions at turn points and re-calculate the route in case you deviate from it. Further details on this topic are described in the Guidance Mode page.

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