About two weeks ago I blogged about my first attempts to teach MoNav to provide speech output. While everything worked well on my desktop machines, MoNav did tend to crash every now and then on the N900, rendering it pretty useless for the intended use.

As debugging was a bit difficult, I have just rewritten a suspicious part of the code. Et voilà, a test drive through the city of Karlsruhe the past evening was of great joy and pleasure.

The speech output still is not mass compliant, though. MoNav is too verbose, instructions are spoken too late, and MoNav needs too long to detect that the vehicle left the precomputed route. But that’s just tedious work in progress to be done during the next weeks and months.

And though I’m complaining, do not forget that MoNav in its current state actually is capable to guide you to your destination, while I’m pleased with what I achieved during the past weeks.

I’ll continue the work on speech output for car drivers before I’ll dive into making it compliant with the needs of cyclists.

In case you want to play with the current code, you’ll need to compile the branch from source:

You’ll also need updated map packages for this version to run properly. I’ve already precomputed some mapsets:
Germany_big
Germany
Alsace
Rheinland-pfalz
Baden-Wuerttemberg

The above lines are not intended for end users. It’s for all those openstreetmap addicts who are interested to follow the current development of MoNav.

Have fun!

A couple of months ago I opened a branch named »ui-ng« in MoNav‘s repository to develop a new user interface. Meanwhile this branch became a playground for several hacks, and some of them are just spikes to check out whether some ideas work or not.

I denied to work on speech output this spring, as I knew this would become a rather lengthy task. But it was obvious that I won’t resist the temptation during the cold and dark winter months. So I added the first code to generate spoken turn instructions recently. It is an ugly hack, just to determine what was possible. The code as found in the »ui-ng« repo works, well, at least a bit. The instructions are far away from being useful, except for lonesome crossings or roundabouts without other crossings nearby.

I’m using prerecorded samples for now, as the current open source speech synthesis systems did not show the results I desired. OTOH, this means I cannot generate instructions with dynamic contents like distances or street names. Additionally, those samples currently are included in the application binary, which will pollute the memory of handset devices as soon I’ll add further localized samples (currently speech is available in german and english language only).

The main issue is that MoNav recalculates the route each time a GPS position update is received – which means each second on the N900. As the GPS position always is a bit inaccurate, MoNav will speak »Please turn right« when you pass, for example, a gas station and the GPS position is off the road by a couple of meters.

As a consequence, I’ve just written some code that detects whether the vehicle is still “on track”. The route only gets recalculated in case the vehicle left it for more than x meters. This makes the route much more persistent and will cause far less headache than the previous approach. As this happened just a couple of minutes ago, the code is not in the repo yet.

There’s still a lot of work to do, and I’m curious whether I’ll stay motivated enough to do all of the work ahead. On the other hand it’s just plain fun to explore the secrets of a usable routing application.

So stay tuned. The next week(s) will show whether I’ll »head straightforward« :) .

MoNav Street Name Rendering in Kandel

Thanks to the work of James Hollingshead, MoNav now provides street name rendering at high zoom levels. This required a change in the map file format, though, so the currently available maps (which admittedly are rather dated) won’t work with binaries built from the current tip of revision control.

The new code is already available for two months now, but I hadn’t had the time to check it out. Today I got the client to compile on Max OS X 10.7.2 (aka Lion). I did not get the map preprocessor compiled, neither on Lion nor on the server, due to missing mapnik dependencies, but I got it compiled on my local Linux box.

The above screenshot shows the inner city of Kandel in Rhineland-Palatinate. I usually use this state for test runs for creating maps, as its file size is acceptable for my desktop machine.

I’m quite grateful that James did the work of creating the first vector renderer for MoNav, and that he now also added street name rendering. The next step is to get the preprocessor compiled on the server, though this might take a little while as the map processing script needs adjustments too. For Maemo on the N900, an updated binary is already available via the repo. Before you install it, ensure you have updated map data available. Otherwise you will end with an updated binary which cannot load the map data present on the device – a rather useless constellation from a user’s point of view.

Thanks a bunch, James.

Since my 40th birthday passed by recently, I invited a couple of friends for a 20 kilometers black forest hiking trip. It led us from Forbach over the Rote Lache pass to Baden-Baden/Oberbeuern, where we took the bus to the station to get back to Karlsruhe.

The weather was warm and sunny, reminding us of the indian summer. Between Forbach and Bermersbach we followed the Ziegenpfad (Goat’s path), which is often used by families with children:

Obviously the inhabitants of the black forest take hunting very serious:

The Holzschuhrank is a locality and a shelter with a fountain and sleeping facilities, sited at a crossing:

Fortunately there were lots of details along our way which were missing in the OSM database, so all kinds of gadgets (such as Garmins, N900s etc.) came to play:

That’s deer ragout with croquettes and brussels sprouts. No, I didn’t take a picture of everyone’s dishes :) :

As we were late and the daylight saving time ended last sunday, it got dark while descending to Oberbeuern. At least the male participants appreciated the displays of the bus booting Linux 2.x :) :

Here’s the trip:

Hiking trail near Slevogthof

After a warm spring and a wet summer, the golden autumn fades out. Today it was cloudy though warm, and we grabbed the occasion for a hiking trip to the Palatinate Forest. The trip lead from Annweiler to the Trifels Castle, the Madenburg Castle and back to Annweiler. We needed almost seven hours for this 25 kilometers trip, due to several rests :) .

The Trifels castle is a well known tourist destination, though it was reconstructed during the infamous Nazi dictatorship. The Madenburg is a well known destination either:

The Madenburg Castle

It’s a great viewpoint towards the upper Rhine plane:

View from the Madenburg castle towards the upper Rhine plane

I was surprised by the local gastronomic specialities provided. This is Bratwurst, Saumagen, and yes, Krauts actually eat what they are named after ;-) :

Bratwurst, Saumagen, and Sauerkraut

I missed the liver dumpling, but that would have been too much.

The wood was relatively dry, so I didn’t find much fungi. Here is one anyway:

And finally, here’s the trip:

Unfortunately two of us needed to leave after Trifels castle due to some severe flu. Get well soon!

Meanwhile the tiled stove is up and running, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that there are no more days for enjoyable outdoor activities:

It’s october now, proven by some typical fruits:

I’ve been mapping some hiking trails near Klingenmünster for one of my favourite projects, openstreetmap.org. Some paths and crossings needed adjustment. Admittedly, it’s not much fun in case that several releations glue the ways together.

And besides openstreetmap, it was time to revive another hobby of mine – fungi pics :) :

Vielleicht haben wir gestern den letzten hochsommerlich warmen Tag des Jahres 2011 genossen – zumindest soll es die nächsten Tage weiterhin kühl bleiben. Wir haben den Tag genutzt, sind um 6:40 in die Bahn gestiegen und haben den Stromberg-Murrtal-Radweg in Ost-West-Richtung bereist, zumal er in Openstreetmap noch nicht vollständig erfasst ist :) .

Wir fuhren beide mit Scott Trail Boa-Schuhen und je einer Rohloff-Nabe, zugegebenermaßen eine wahrhaft wunderbare Kombination. Wir mussten dennoch gezwungenermaßen aus dem Radweg aus- und in den Zug zurück nach Karlsruhe einsteigen, so dass wir keinen Track der gesamten Strecke zur Verfügung haben. Vom Beginn in Gaildorf bis nach Söllingen liegt er jedoch vor.

Die Qualität der Fahrbahn ist fast durchgehend sehr gut. Allerdings geht es zwischendurch ein kurzes Stück über Stock und Stein – wer mit Hänger unterwegs ist, sollte sich also auf eine kurze Verzögerung einstellen.

Die Strecke ist beschildert. Man muss allerdings sehr aufmerksam sein, um sich zwischendurch nicht zu verfahren. Die mitgeführten Karten und die GPS-Tracks waren sehr hilfreich. Nachfolgend ein paar Hinweise für Radfernreisende:

• Der Beginn des Radweges in Gaildorf ist nicht so ohne weiteres zu finden. Ein GPS-Gerät mit einem Wegpunkt oder einem Track ist sehr hilfreich. Der Radweg beginnt dort, wo die Straße »In der Eschenau« beginnt. Den Einstig vom Bahnhof kommend findet man, in dem man in die »Grabenstraße« einbiegt.
• Die Streckenführung ist gleich auf den ersten Metern nicht einfach ersichtlich. Vermutlich ist die offizielle Streckenführung so gedacht, dass man die Grabenstraße nach wenigen Metern schon wieder nach rechts verlässt und nach Überqueren der Hauptstraße in die gegenüberliegende Kirchstraße fährt.
• Gleich nach Gaildorf geht es in der »Graf-Pückler-Straße« für ein paar Meter saftig bergan. Mit einer Rohloff nutzt man entweder den ersten Gang oder schiebt gleich, wenn es zu heiß ist.
• Innerorts ist die Streckenführung oft nicht zu finden. So fand beispielsweise in Murrhardt gerade ein Markt statt, so dass wir die Hinweisschilder (wir gehen davon aus, dass es welche gab) nicht gesehen haben. Gelegentlich weist die Beschilderung nur den lokalen Radweg aus, der hier einen Teil des überregionalen Stromberg-Murrtal-Radweges bildet. Ebenfalls kommt man an Kreuzungen vorbei, an der die Schilder so angebracht sind, dass man sie zwar in der Gegenrichtung leicht sehen können sollte, aber nicht in Ost-West-Richtung, weil sie sich beispielsweise hinter großen KFZ-Richtungstafeln oder ähnlichem verstecken. Wir vermuten, dass der Radweg primär dazu gedacht ist, in West-Ost-Richtung befahren zu werden.
• Außerorts ist die Beschilderung gelegentlich lückenhaft oder wurde einige Meter von der eigentlichen Kreuzung entfernt angebracht. Auch hier sah es so aus, als ob man in West-Ost-Richtung besser zurechtkommen sollte.
• An einer Stelle muss man unerwartet einen aspaltierten landwirtschaftlichen Weg verlassen und auf einen Schotterweg wechseln. Es steht dort zwar ein kleiner Richtungsanzeiger, doch der wurde zwischenzeitlich durch einen Holzstapel zur Seite gedrückt und ist duch Vegetation verdeckt. Dank unserer GPS-Geräte haben wir das gleich bemerkt und sind nur wenige Meter geradeaus gefahren.
• An einer Stelle muss man eine Spitzkehre hinlegen. Das Schild steht aber so, dass man es aus Ost-West-Richtung nicht sehen kann. Auch hier waren es die GPS-Geräte, die uns einen längeren Umweg ersparten.
• Die Streckenführung ist an einigen Stellen sehr radfahrerunfreundlich ausgeführt. Man holpert über Bordsteine, um einen Kreisel muss man im Uhrzeigersinn herumfahren und wir irrten in einem Industriegebiet umher, weil die gegenüberliegende Anschlusstelle niedriger als das Straßenniveau lag und durch zwei Maisfelder schlecht zu erkennen war.

Streckenweise hatten wir den Eindruck, dass während der Planung oder nach der Einrichtung keine Testläufe oder nur in entgegengesetzter Richtung stattgefunden haben. Radfahrer, die sich mit den lokalen Gegebenheiten auskennen, werden sicher gut zurechtkommen. Wer als Radreisender unterwegs ist, sollte sich von Karten und vielleicht einem elektronischen Helfer unterstützen lassen und etwas Zeitpuffer für das Suchen der Anschlüsse einplanen. Derart ausgerüstet, sollte die Tour viel Freude bereiten, denn die Steigungen halten sich in Grenzen und die Wege sind meist ruhig. Und man kommt häufig genug durch Ortschaften, um sich mit Proviant bzw. Getränken eindecken zu können.

Edit: Die Route kann natürlich auch online abgefragt werden.

The Oder near Frankfurt

As the last trip from Zittau to Frankfurt (Oder) (german language posting) was interrupted by bad weather conditions, I went to Frankfurt again to complete the trip. The trains partly were well crowded. In Sangerhausen the next train was delayed by half an hour, and the train in Magdeburg didn’t wait for 5 minutes, so I (and others) lost an hour waiting for the next one. Fortunately I left Karlsruhe quite early, so the delay did not show any impact.

This is the grave (or at least a memorial) of Wilhelm Sauer sited in the »Kleist Park«. It was one of his instruments which I abused to learn playing the pipe organ:

Sauer Memorial in Frankfurt (O)

The german-polish university named a building after Marion Gräfin Dönhoff, an influential journalist I often read.

Dönhoff Building Frankfurt (O)

From Frankfurt to Hohenwutzen

Leaving Frankfurt, the cycleway does not follow the Oder, but some quiet road. In Lebus it joins the Oder again:

The church of Lebus

From now on there was a little wind just from the right direction, but its direction changed soon. The planned destination for today was Küstrin (Kostrzyn nad Odra in polish language). Its medieval center was sited on an island of the Oder in former times, but was completely distroyed at the end of ww2:

The island of Küstrin

When leaving the island in direction to Poland, one first passes the bridge over the Oder and after the bridge the ancient fortress. It is segregated from Kostrzyn by the Warthe river (Warta in polish language), which one needs to pass via a further bridge to get to Kostrzyn:

The Küstrin Fortress, as seen from the old town distroyed during ww2

The entrance, called »Berlin Gate« (Berliner Tor):

Küstrin Fortress, »Berlin Gate«

Originally I planned to stay in Kostrzyn overnight. As I didn’t find it that interesting, I decided to append another 20km, which finally turned into 60 additional kilometers. Though there was some significant counter wind, it was just fun to follow the narrow track on top of the dike with its perfect surface – kilometer by kilometer. I stopped in Hohenwutzen after a total of 120 kilometers instead of the planned 60. AFAIR this was the longest distance I ever passed by bike during one single day.

I was surprised someone knew I came along with an Otterbox :) :

Otter warning sign

Beavers seem to exist in this region also:

Trees cut by beavers

What’s really outstanding while riding along the Oder is the landscape, the animals and especially the numerous kinds of birds.

Landscape of the Oder valley

Here’s the perfect supper after such an intense day. That’s Grey Partridge stuffed with roe deer, Red Cabbage (yes, germans like Kraut :) ), and Thüringer Aschklöße:

Grey Partridge stuffed with roe deer, red cabbage, and Thüringer Aschklöße

BTW: While I know my english skills are rather poor, I dislike it when official signs aren’t written in correct german language:

Genitive case ignored (should read as »Hochwasserschutzgebietes«)

From Hohenwutzen to Penkun

A sunny day started with a light wind just from the right direction, so riding the bike was plain fun. Except for the chainglider, which was heavily rattling since yesterday. After some chain lubrification it did a perfect job again.

In Hohensaaten, two canals are joining separated by a small lock. The Oder-Havel-Kanal in direction to the Havel is heading west, while the Friedrichsthaler Wasserstraße is heading North, parallel to the Oder.

A second lock allows ships to reach the Oder. This was the first time I’ve seen a bigger ship, a polish freighter:

Near Lunow I took the alternative route which follows the Oder. Close to the “Eiswachhaus” Stützkow, the surface changes to less convenient concrete boards which I wanted to avoid. Unfortunately the nearby official route was barred, so leaving the alternative was not an option.

A couple of kilometers later, shortly before reaching Schwedt, there was another surprise. Without any announcement the alternative cycleway was barred as well, due to some bomb disposal. This led to some inconvenient deviation through the grass and sand of the nearby Oder. The rest of this section again led over evil concrete boards. I guess those are acceptable using a bike with full suspension. But guess what my LCR is lacking. This was the day I decided to purchase a suspension kit immediately after the trip:

Schwedt (Oder) is sited close to the Hohensaaten-Friedrichstaler Wasserstraße, but its name mentions the Oder instead anyway. It is saturday afternoon, shortly past 1PM. The inner city is rather dead. Only a few cafes are open, and only a couple of people are crossing the streets.

Marienkirche Schwedt (Oder)

Courthouse in Schwedt (Oder)

Though Schwedt was the planned destination for today, I dropped it in favour of Penkun due to yesterday’s efforts. Shortly after leaving, where the »Schwedter Querfahrt« connects the Hohensaaten-Friedrichstaler Wasserstraße and the Oder, one enters the (inter)national park of the lower valley of the Oder:

Soon the cycleway partly crosses some hilly woods:

In Friedrichstal, the Welse (Havel-Oder-Wasserstraße) enters the western Oder, which forms the border between Germany and Poland:

The Welse joining the Oder near Friedrichtsthal

This means that the cycleway is not passing the nearby bifurcation which splits the Oder into the western and the eastern part. Again, the cycleway on top of the dike is just marvellous:

Approaching Gartz

Obviously there was a bridge in former times.

Bridge in Gartz distroyed during ww2

My left knee is causing me some trouble, which I won’t get rid of before returning home.

In Mescherin it’s time to say good bye, as the route finally leaves the Oder:

Church in Mescherin

Last image of the Oder

It is now getting a bit hilly, leading over some evil concrete boards, some cobblestone roads. This section shows no or only a few signs indicating the right way:

Later minor roads or separated lanes along primary roads can be found as a reward:

Mirabelle plums inviting for a short rest:

Near Penkun there’s an ancient wind mill in Storkow, but it was too late to drop by. In Penkun there’s a nice lake which can be used for swimming, and an “open air” museum showing some replicas of shelters which have been used by early slavic peoples. Unfortunately I left the next morning before it opened. The inner village hosts an old castle:

Penkun Castle

From Penkun to Löcknitz

My left knee is complaining a lot, and the forecast predicts some strong rain this afternoon. I decide for a very short trip to Löcknitz only.

At the end of the village of Lebehn this house is sited:

Some minor roads lead the way to Löcknitz. A couple of meters before reaching it, the route uses a path along a lake where one can find an elder oak:

Oak near Löcknitz

Löcknitz was build around an old castle, which partially still exists:

Castle in Löcknitz

The rain which was expected during afternoon arrives in the evening hours. Though I’m not a big fan of soccer, the weather allowed me to watch TV.
Congratulations to the japanese women who win the soccer world cup this evening. Congratulations to the US team for doing a good job as well.

What I notice once again is the fact that the award ceremony is a relatively brief mass processing.

From Löcknitz to Ueckermünde

In the morning hours the sky still looked a bit rainy, but later the amount of blue (not black) holes was raising. Soon it became a sunny though cool day. Partly the route follows an abandoned and dismantled railway through some coniferous woods, but despite the lazy cycling my knee started complaining again.

A little later one approaches the Stettiner Haff:

Finally I reach Ueckermünde, today’s destination:

Though it is a nice town, I dislike the cheap populist ads of the NPD, a far right German nationalist party. During the election in 2009 they gained 3 out of 25 seats of the local parliament:

From Ueckermünde to Wolgast

The official Oder-Neisse cycleroute ends in Ueckermünde. But as the Baltic sea is that close, there was no excuse not to visit it.

A boat brings people and bikes from Ueckermünde to Kamminke at 8:10 AM. The duration of the trip is about 80 minutes, the price is about 19:50€ and the speed of the boat is about 17 kilometers per hour. That’s not exactly cheap and I guess the company is making good money, but the trip was fun anyway:

Leaving Ueckermünde by boat

After leaving the boat, I followed the cycleway to Świnoujście (Swinemünde in german):

Świnoujście harbour

I didn’t spend much time there but went to Ahlbeck immediately. From Ahlbeck it is easy to follow the coastline of the Usedom island to Heringsdorf and Bansin. The cycleway first follows the promenade for a couple of kilometers. Frankly, that’s not the kind of holiday I’d like to spend:

Then it follows some paths through the rather hilly woods:

Finally I left the coastline in Zinnowitz and headed to Wolgast, which is sited at the Peene:

A couple of nice buildings can be found in the city:

Additionally the harbour is worth a visit. It was not late yet and I originally intended to end the trip in Greifswald, but my knee didn’t support this plan. Additionally the forecast announced several rainy days ahead, so the tour ends after less than 400 kilometers with some fresh baltic sea food :) .

Software used

The “one and only” electronic device I used was the Nokia N900 smartphone.

I used MoNav for tracklogging, searching for addresses and let it do the routing whenever I did not follow the official Oder-Neisse-Cycleway. It also was very useful to calculate the length of distamces to some destinations.

Mappero was useful to display the downloaded route on top of a map – a feature MoNav still is missing. Additionally it was very useful to serch POIs in inner cities – a second feature where MoNav can learn a lot.

To get a clue about next day’s weather, I used omweather, which retreives its information from weather.com.

Evopedia was useful to search for useful information independently from the availability of an internet connection.

All the rest like cell phone, note taking, rss reading, waypoint catching and the like.

To be honest, I have no clue how I survived the last 4 decades without a smartphone. Though Maemo is a dead platform, the N900 is almost the perfect companion while riding the bike.

Openstreetmap

This trip had been less fun without OSM data for MoNav and Mappero. Plus, I fund some missing or incompletely mapped details I have now fixed. But admittedly, my role transmogrified of an addicted mapper back in 2006 to a software developer who now works more on the data consumer side.

Hotel recommendations

Locating good hotels beforehand is quite difficult. Here are some locations I can recommend:

• Hohenwutzen: Hotel »Fährbuhne«, about 50€
• Löcknitz: Hotel »Haus am See«, about 55€, including free entry to the adjacent swimming lake
• Ueckermünde: »Hotel am Markt«, small room about 59€

That’s not exactly cheap, but “you get what you pay for” :) .

The trip

Though I do not want to complain about the weather this year, it often is accompanied by some light wind of about 15 kilometers per hour. Today it got even worse. Some heavy weather was brewing near Wissembourg. Heck, cyclists who rode the opposit direction had better luck :) .

I needed more then three hours for the 40 kilometers, including a short delay at the ferry in Neuburgweier and a short rest. Once again I visited my favourite restaurant to try some local alsacien food. That’s Pressé de joues de bœf avec vinaigrette de raifort et crudités (brawn of cow, horseradish, and raw food).

There was nothing to map for openstreetmap, as I did this already in the last four years. I found some new streets under construction in Wissembourg, but there was no access. Obviously I need to drop by again in the near future :) .

Das N810 hatte ich mir fast ausschließlich für Mappingaktivitäten geholt. Einerseits steht mit Maemo Mapper eine wirklich gute App zur Verfügung, um mit Karten von OSM (und anderen Quellen) auf Wander- und Radtouren zu gehen, andererseits steht mit osm2go ein Programm zur Verfügung, mittels dessen man live vor Ort Daten für Openstreetmap erfassen kann. Das Hochladen erfolgt anschießend direkt vom Gerät aus, sobald man ein Funknetz (WLAN) zur Verfügung hat. Somit entfällt das Nachbearbeiten der Daten am heimischen Rechner. Ich habe mit dem Gerät Wald- und Wanderwege genauso erfasst wie Hausnummern und halbe Ortschaften wie Oberkaufungen. Sehr schön ist das hochauflösende Display, das man auch im Freien gut ablesen kann – um Kartenmaterial anzusehen, kann man gar nicht genug Pixel zur Verfügung haben.

Allerdings ist der eingebaute GPS-Empfänger ziemlich schwachbrüstig. Ich habe daher einen externen Blumax-Bluetooth-Empfünger mit einem Sirf III-Chipsatz genutzt:

Hier noch eine KFZ-Halterung, die entweder an der Windschutzscheibe oder am Armaturenbrett befestigt werden kann und in alle Richtungen verstellbar ist. Die OPenStreetMug gehört allerdings nicht dazu :) :

Leider liegt das Gerät schon eine Weile ungenutzt herum, weil ich inzwischen ein Nokia N900-Smartphone nutze. Ich würde das Gerät daher gerne an Mapper abgeben, die vielleicht gerne Hausnummern erfassen oder komplizierte Kreuzungen vor Ort modellieren möchten.

Das Gerät zeigt Gebrauchsspuren, ist aber voll funktionsfähig. Insbesondere die ausschiebbare Tastatur hat ein paar Kratzer abbekommen:

Das Gerät ist aus Edelstahl und dementsprechend robust. Das Betriebssystem ist frisch aufgespielt, so dass sich die Software im Originalzustand befindet. Wer sich für das N810 oder den Komplettsatz inklusive KFZ-Halterung und externem GPS-Empfänger interessiert, schreibt am besten SlowRider eine Nachricht. Eine Einlage für eine Otterbox 2000 kann ich auch noch beilegen.