Osmond navigator application free how to work correctly. Security Information Portal

A program with a simple name lays out routes to points and POIs, automatically recalculates the route in case of deviation, writes the current speed and estimated time of arrival (the latter is just under the Android clock, which is very convenient), and saves tracks. The map can rotate according to movement, and automatic scaling is supported depending on speed. Travel options by car, bicycle, and foot are supported. There is voice accompaniment, incl. and in Russian. Standard Android OS controls are used, the "back" button closes the program, pinch-to-zoom is supported. When the program is running, the phone does not automatically turn off the screen. It can receive information about traffic jams from Yandex, but it is not clear whether it takes them into account when building a route. A special feature of the program is online routing through the services yournavigation.org and cloudmade.com. You can also create a short route directly in the program.

Developer: OsmAnd
Interface language: English Russian
Compatibility: Minimal: 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
Target: 8.0 (Oreo)
State: MOD version
Screenshot: Original by Dymonyxx

Possibilities:
- work with vector and raster maps without Internet access (to do this, you must first save the maps to the device’s memory card);
- downloading vector and raster maps from the application itself;
- availability of compact vector maps for all countries of the world;
- loading an arbitrary area for raster maps;
- display additional information on a map such as GPX or navigation routes, points of interest (POI), favorite locations, elevation lines, public transport stops; overlaying additional maps with customizable transparency;
- search for addresses and points of interest (POI) without Internet access;
- laying routes over any distance using Internet services;
- laying routes over medium distances without Internet access;
- car, bicycle and pedestrian modes with the following capabilities: - automatic switching to day/night map drawing mode;
- changes in map scale depending on speed;
- rotation of the map according to the compass or direction of movement;
- use of voice commands (reproduced in recorded or generated voices) when moving along the route;
- warnings about exceeding the permissible speed.
Limitations of the free version of OsmAnd:
- limited number of map downloads (10);
- it is not possible to view descriptions of attractions from Wikipedia without using the Internet.

Changes:
* This is an urgent release to turn off feature of wake lock on display screen during navigation and align with Play guidelines (more fixes will be provided following week)
Redesigned Direction menu
Navigation on public transport, support of all kinds of transport: Metro, Buses, Tram and so on.
Quick action for Show/Hide tracks, day/night mode switches
Additional support for import of KML and KMZ
Fix crashes at some public transport stops

You can download maps in the application itself or on the official website -

DOWNLOAD:
(downloads: 324)

Changed Dymonyxx. Reason: Update!

20.01.2013

• Android application Osmand/Osmand+, version: Constantly updated, price: 0/199.99 rub.

Name: Osmand/Osmand+.
Purpose: search and navigation application.
System: new versions are guaranteed to work on AED 2.1 and higher.
Average rating in the market: 4+.
Status: free/199 rub.
Moving a program to a memory card: +.
Availability of cards: many countries, including the Russian Federation, Ukraine, CIS, Europe. Maps are divided by region.
Detail of maps: up to the level of displaying house numbers in urban settlements and large villages.
ON/OFF line cards: +/+.
Card size: from 10 to 100 MB.
Size installation file: about 15 MB.
RAM consumption: in a minimized inactive state - from 17 MB, in active navigation mode - up to 30 MB.

So, OSMAND is, first of all, maps + navigation capabilities. It's "opportunity". If the cards in this program are really on high level, then the navigation only performs simple tasks. However, navigation (with its reduced navigation functions) has several undeniable advantages. But first things first.

This program has two versions. Free and paid. Let us immediately draw your attention to the fact that in the free version you do not pay for anything, ever, and in the paid version you pay only once.

The free version is limited to 10 downloads. What does it mean? Let's do the math. Two world maps + at least one voice are required. And there are still 7 downloads left. This could be a map of a region, a map of a small country, or an additional voice. Apparently, for those who constantly cross a country like the Russian Federation up and down, this will not be enough. The restriction on the number of downloads is removed for 200 rubles. I repeat, the fee is not per month or per year. Pay once. Agree, 200 rubles. - pennies, compared to the cost of a license for other programs.

I would not recommend downloading the hacked version. For the simple reason that good people, who have already made a free version with wonderful detailed maps, you need to thank. By the way, the 10 download limit does not apply to updating an already downloaded region. That is, if Moscow has already been downloaded, then it can be updated without restrictions.

The second limitation is the lack of information from Wicca in the free version. However, such an addition should not be considered as something very important. Rather, this is still pampering.

Cards

Cards are strong point of this application. They are, of course, not 3-dimensional, but they are detailed, accurate, full color, free, quickly updated, lightweight and offline. Of course, you can also use online maps. Of which there are actually a couple dozen, if not more. And Google, and Yandex, and OpenMAPS, and what not.

Switching between offline and online maps does not reset the location. This means that if you don’t have enough data on the offline map and you switch to any online map, then on the screen you see the same area at the same scale. This is very convenient, for example, when changing the terrain globally. There is also the ability to overlay data from online maps onto offline map data. However, you need to be able to use this function skillfully. At first, you may get confused about which map shows this or that object. Additionally, online data may simply be drawn where offline data is not. Complement them. However, in my personal experience using Osmand, I only turned on the online mode a few times. Just to compare relevance and accuracy. I can say that the community that creates these maps (and this is a free community, and you can also contribute to the creation of maps) uses any open data to create them. Including online map data. Therefore, I did not observe any special differences in the off- and online data.

Online maps. This is a separate story, their quality differs, of course, from the manufacturer. In general, I want to highlight Google, Yandex, and “road only” maps.

About offline cards...

The beauty of cards.

They are not 3-dimensional (I already said), but they have a clear, separate color scheme. Residential areas, industrial, schools and so on. There is a day and night mode. There are no different themes, no division into summer and winter modes, and the like. In my opinion, they are more reminiscent of paper maps than the 2012 electronic navigator. But on the other hand, take into account the light weight of the cards and the scanty load on the RAM of the program itself.

If in terms of “beauty” Osmand is inferior to paid analogues, then in terms of “detail” and “accuracy” it is somewhat superior to them. Judge for yourself.

I took my region as an example, but the situation is the same with other regions and countries.

Pay attention to small towns or villages. Of course, they are not shown in 100% detail, but the main streets are indicated on them...

What can we say about regional centers or satellite cities... By the way, the roads clearly differ in color and width depending on their importance, and the names of the microdistricts are indicated. Also, pay attention to how the objects under construction are marked...

A good addition to accuracy and information content are “POI points”.

These are markers on the map. Which are placed by card users. You can also bet. You can set them only for yourself or send them to a common database. These labels can have several meanings.

Firstly, they serve as a source of information about the object...

However, these points are amateur level. On the verge of brief reviews of any places/objects. For getting reference information or searching for organizations Osmand is categorically not suitable. But on the other hand, they are very helpful for personal use. Unfortunately, I could not verify the possibility of synchronizing POIPs between two devices with Osmand. They say it's possible. But I didn't succeed.

Secondly, they can report errors. Moreover, the red dots are uncorrected errors, and the green ones are those for which changes have already been made to the map.

I repeat, you can place all these points too. And corrections are made quite quickly. I myself found errors many times, and they were corrected. True, some don't fix it...

Third, they can report situations. For example, about accidents or digging. But again at a very unprofessional level. Yandex traffic jams in this regard look much more informative and reliable.

However, you can send not only your location, but also the location of any object...

Maps are updated quite frequently (a couple of times a month or more), and there is a quick response to significant changes. Not the fastest, to be honest. But not months either.

For example, in Nizhny Novgorod in November 2012, a large interchange was built near the Moskovsky station...

And Lyadov Square was significantly redesigned...

Osmand responded to these changes within 2-6 days.

Maps can be downloaded directly from the program. Everything here is clear and simple. Select the country and region, click “download”. Considering comparatively small size maps and the possibility of background loading, it is quite possible to download maps even at EJE speed.

There is no automatic map update. This is perhaps one of the disadvantages. However, manual updating is not difficult. If the card does not require updating, it is highlighted in green, and if it does, then in blue.

Reviews on the market are divided. Some people think that the inability to download “all of Russia/Ukraine” or at least “by macro-region” at once is a disadvantage. Some people think the opposite. I won't speak here. I’ll just say that maps can only be downloaded by region. You can check the boxes for all countries and all regions at once, but the download will not be done in one file.

Navigation

As I already wrote, Osmand allows you to use the initial functions of modern navigation programs.

* It can plot a route from point to point and add intermediate routes.

But it does this only when GPS is turned on and satellites are found. If no satellites are found or GPS is disabled, the route will not be plotted. This imposes some inconvenience when planning the route in advance. There are off- and online services for route planning. To be honest, I didn’t like the online services. There are three of them. Some work with glitches. Some completely refuse to carry out the route, while others do it very slowly. That's why I use offline routing.

The problem when planning a route via offline does not arise within your region. But when I tried to get directions to a village in a neighboring region, the offline service took a very long time. Well, about 15-20 minutes. This is nonsense, I think. It should not be. Old Navitel calculated the route from Nizhny to Sochi in 4 minutes.

The route can be fast and short. A short route, as I understand it, is when the program calculates the geographically shortest path through any asphalt, which is called a road. If you add accounting for primers, it will also calculate based on primers. Verified.

A fast route is when the program searches for a short route, but gives preference to the main highways.

It is noteworthy that the program is sensitive to the quirks of traffic cops. Before the New Year, for some reason they like to put bans where there are none all year. Moreover, they usually place signs prohibiting left turns in places that are not very visible. Once I actually almost turned it around, having previously scolded the program “for its glitches.” The route has always been carried out here. And now some kind of detour. It turned out that turning left is now prohibited. And behind that jeep there are handsome guys waiting for me. It’s good, at least another car turned in front of me and was stopped. And I hesitated for some reason.

For those interested, this is the exit from the Gagarinsky shopping center (or rather, from the spare parts store) to the left on Gagarin Ave. to the Lebedev stop. Nizhny Novgorod, Certainly.

* It can provide route guidance, voice prompts and visual alerts. There are no complaints about voice prompts. They are timely. But they don’t get it. Short and concise. And in some places it’s even more logical than some of its analogues. Although there are, of course, bugs. For example, on one of the streets I always drive straight for several kilometers. And the program builds the route exactly as I need. But approximately in the middle of this street, for some reason a voice suggests “stay to the left”, then, after 500 meters, it suggests “stay to the right” and “move straight”. There are no bends in the road. Maybe some kind of anomaly? However, the bugs are so minor that complaints are not appropriate. Another program just infuriated me because before a T-junction, it said “keep right”, and before a turn in the road (without an intersection) it said: “Turn right”.

We have two Russian voices - M and F, and one Ukrainian. Not counting, of course, English and so on. I didn’t find any way to download other voices from somewhere. The visual notification consists of a blue route strip, indicators of the nearest turns (from 1 to 3) and a picture of the lane selection. In addition, we have: speed of movement, approximate time of arrival, altitude, direction of view, compass, where am I, the map itself can rotate / or not rotate in various modes.

In Osmand you can disable constant connection with satellites. The program will only periodically activate the GPS module and check your movement. Useful for long trips. Significantly saves battery.

Many people in the market complain (including me) about the loss of the GPS signal. Precisely when using Osmand. The signal, in the absence of external reasons, such as weather or a tunnel, is periodically lost. True, it is found quickly. But I think that this negatively affects the remaining charge. The developers have been promising to fix this for a long time. But the problem continues from version to version.

* Osmand has a pedestrian navigation mode.

And it works great. Even better than a car one. But in most others, no. It takes into account sidewalks, pedestrian paths, park alleys, and so on. Even the paths. At the same time, as far as I understand, they try to take into account traffic safety in addition to the speed of the route. To have fewer road crossings. By the way, about transitions. Osmand will not send you to cross the road in the middle of the avenue. He will definitely take you to the zebra first, and then allow you to cross. The accuracy here is also excellent. If, for example, we have a pedestrian path 30 meters from the avenue, then Osmand will pave the way along it. And if we cross the avenue and walk along its side, Osmand will scold us and offer to return. Although there are some cool bugs in this mode. I walk down the street. Let's say I'm walking on the right. I need it straight. Osmand invites you to turn onto the left side of the street. Okay, I turned it around. She walked about 100 meters. Now Osmand suggested turning onto the right side of the street. Hmm... There seemed to be no digging, there was nothing. That's it, I'm going straight. What it was is not clear. Apparently the program is so harsh that it sees anomalous zones in all modes.

In a familiar place, pedestrian navigation is rather fun. For tourists, hitchhikers, or if you find yourself in an unfamiliar place, this will be a good help.

* Bike navigation mode. I haven't tested it. But it seems that there are few differences from the pedestrian one. Only if there is a bike path along the way, Osmand will give preference to it rather than a pedestrian one.

Search mode, settings and more

Opinions are also divided, but I personally find it convenient. Everything is clear. Select a country, region, city, street, house (or intersection with another street). If suddenly we don’t find an address (for example, in a small village), then you can search on the Internet.

Search by POIP works clearly and simply. But again. There are few POIPs. For example, now the closest gas station to me is supposedly 60 km away. Although there are 10 gas stations within 5 km. Search for transport. I still don’t understand how it works and whether it works at all. There are whole instructions on the developers' website on how to do this, but it doesn't work for me. No. Buses are not a topic for Osmand.

You'll have to figure out Osmand's settings. There are few of them, but they are not located logically. Similar settings may be located in different sections. And some settings may be in the “wrong” sections. The meaning of some settings is not immediately clear. Well, new users will have to get used to Osmand’s not entirely rational menu.

On the other hand, the program does not impress with its flexibility. That's it, there are few settings. They do not take into account all needs or cases. It is impossible, for example, to adjust the distance to the object and the interval at which the voice will be triggered. You cannot set a reminder so that when you approach an object, the program reminds you that this object is interesting to you. Much is not allowed.

Results

Osmand fulfills his main purpose perfectly or well. Those shortcomings that exist do not scare me away. I use it myself and am more satisfied than with other programs. The free nature of the program and the wonderful maps play a significant role for me. I don’t require much from navigation. Deficiencies have to be corrected using other programs. It is not comfortable. But I'm okay with it.

So, briefly about the main thing:

detailed, accurate, frequently updated maps. One of the best. Quick response to detected errors;

off-/online maps;

free or very low price for the full version;

navigation, which generally copes with its task;

the presence of full-fledged, well-thought-out pedestrian navigation. This is quite rare;

nothing is accidentally pressed. Like, for example, in Progorod, where when you scroll through the map, some kind of menu constantly pops up.

inconvenient, illogical, not always clear settings and control system. Lack of help in the program;

GPS signal lags;

poor flexibility of the program for different needs and situations;

takes an awfully long time to “think through” the route between regions;

delay when scrolling through the map. Minimal for a second, but still there.

Decide the rest yourself. Additions, feedback and questions regarding this review and program are accepted and welcomed ☺.

When you open the program, two screens are visually displayed on the screen, superimposed on each other. If you scroll through elements by swiping, then after the elements belonging to the screen with the map, elements of the dialogue opened on top of the map begin to be spoken. In this case, the map elements are located under the image of this dialog and are not visually visible.
The dialogue has only two elements:
1.1. Comment: Get directions and discover new places without an Internet connection;
1.2. The “Start” button, the activation of which closes this dialog and opens the “Load map” dialog.

2. Dialog “Load map”

Dialogue contains a number of elements. Conventionally, they can be divided into four categories: headings, information elements, comments and buttons.
At the top left is the heading “Download map”, to the right is the “Skip” button, below is the comment “OsmAnd will determine your location and offer to download maps for this area.”
Even lower is an information element that contains the name of the region and the size of the map file. Then the “Download” button, below it the “Select another region” button.
At the bottom of the dialog there is a comment “OsmAnd will store map data, routes, etc.”, to the right of this comment there is an element that informs us where all of the above will be stored, by default “External storage”.
The following is information about the availability of free space: Free space (21000 Mb). At the bottom right is the “Change” button.

2.1. The “Skip” button opens the “Skip loading maps” dialog. The dialogue contains the comment “You do not have any maps downloaded. You can select a map from the list or download it later using the Download Maps menu.
The dialog also contains 3 buttons:
2.1.1. “Cancel” - closes the “Skip loading maps” dialog and returns to the “Load map” dialog;
2.1.2. “Skip” - closes the “Skip loading maps” dialog and opens the screen with the map;
2.1.3. “Select” - opens the “Downloads” dialog, allowing you to download maps of various regions.

2.2. The “Download” button starts the process of downloading the map of the specified region, and also starts the download of the “World Overview Map”. The “Cancel” buttons next to the names of downloaded maps allow you to cancel the download, and the “Go to Map” button closes the “Load Map” dialog and opens the map screen.

2.3. The “Select another region” button opens the “Downloads” dialog, allowing you to download maps of different regions.

2.4. The “Change” button opens the “Data storage directory” dialog. In this dialog, you can select the storage location for the downloaded information. If the version of Android on your device is 6 or higher, a window will open asking “Do you want to allow the OsmAnd app to access photos, media and files on your device?” and the “Reject” and “Allow” buttons. You should click the “Allow” button. The request window will close and the “Data Storage Directory” dialog will open.
The dialog contains several elements:
2.4.1. “Close” button Returns to the previous dialog;
2.4.2. Comment “Choose where you want to store map files and other data”;
2.4.3. Element “External storage” (the size of available memory is indicated to the right);
2.4.4. The “Shared Storage” element (the size of available memory is indicated to the right).

The number of storage location selection items depends on whether or not you have additional flash memory on your device. If you already have a folder with maps in the root directory of your phone's memory, or you prefer to store maps in your phone's memory, you'll need to select "Shared Storage" when asked which memory to use to store maps. (Path to the folder with map files: /storage/emulated/0/osmand).
The first launch dialog appears only once when you first launch the program, but you can access the parameters it contains by activating the “Main Menu” item on the map screen.

3. Loading components

Before you can load maps and other components into your app, you must enable the Accessibility plugin. To do this, go to the “Main Menu”\”Plugins” and check the “Accessibility” element. If this feature is disabled, the program has a limit on the number of downloadable components, and Wikipedia data is not even presented for downloading. Then you need to go to the “Main Menu”\”Download Maps” item, select and download the necessary components.

The “Download Maps” dialog contains three tabs. You can switch between them by using a double-tap gesture on the tab name or a two-finger swipe right or left gesture.

3.1. "Downloads"

This tab contains information available for downloading from the server. These are maps of various regions, voice engines for various languages, Wikipedia data. To download a component, select the one you need from the list and click the “Download” button to the right of the component name. Internet connection required.

3.2. "Local"

This tab contains information about the components loaded into the device memory. Using the controls on this tab, you can archive, rename, or delete selected maps.

3.3. "Updates"

The “Updates” tab contains a list of components that are loaded into the device memory and require updating. If the list is empty, then the latest maps are loaded into the device. If several components require updates at once, double-tap the “Download all” button. After clicking this button, the update will begin. An internet connection is required to download.

In the “World Maps” section you need to download the following files: “World Height Correction”, “World Overview Map”. In the "Regions" section, select the map of the desired region.

5. Other useful information

When you first launch the program, it creates the “osmand” folder in the phone’s memory. This folder stores some program data and downloads. Vector maps, the favorites.gpx file containing favorite points are in the root of the “osmand” folder, data from Wikipedia is in the “wiki” folder, routes are in the “tracks” folder, voice engines are in the “voice” folder, downloadable raster tiles cards - in the "tiles" folder, program sounds - in the "sounds" folder. When archiving data in the root of the “osmand” folder, the program creates a “backup” folder, and the “Local vector maps (archive)” item appears in the “Manage maps” dialog. Once a map is archived, it becomes unsearchable. When updating an archived map, it is moved from the archive back to the general list with downloaded local vector maps. Once a downloaded map is renamed, it cannot be updated. It is not displayed in the list of maps available for updating. You can only upload an unrenamed map.

OSMAnd is one of best programs for vector navigation for Android and, in my opinion, the only one that can build offline routes using OpenStreetMap maps. Compared to other programs, for example, its functionality for solving all sorts of problems is not particularly rich, but this is its purpose. Its main task is to orient you on the terrain/road, show you a map and guide you along the route.

This aspect of using cards will be discussed in this article.

Maps in OASMAnd can be loaded in two types - vector and raster

The OpenStreetMap.org service is used as a source of vector maps. The cards are packaged in their own OBF format and have the same extension. The free version of the program allows you to download only 10 cards directly from the program, but from the program’s website you can download and add to the program as many as your card is enough for :)

These maps are displayed by default and do not need to be enabled.

You can connect as raster maps online services, for example, the same Google or Yandex. To do this, in the folder %OSMAND%/tiles/<ИТСТОЧНИК>you need to make a .metainfo file, where the source address with the tile format is written.

Http://khms.google.com/kh/v=149&x=(1)&y=(2)&z=(0) .jpg 3 20 256 8 18000

http://sat01.maps.yandex.net/tiles?l=sat&x=(1)&y=(2)&z=(0) .jpg 3 20 256 8 18000 true

Files for other map services can easily be compiled using these two templates.

But this option is good if you have a network to download the map, but there is not always a network. The second option to load a raster map is to cache it in SQLite format. In addition to the fact that this will save your traffic, it will also improve the speed of access to the card, because... SD cards do not work well with many small files, which is the cache of any online card.

The easiest way. Just select the desired area of ​​the map, download it and export it in RMaps(SQLite) format. The output will be one file<ИМЯ>.slitedb, which needs to be placed in the %OSMAND%/tiles/ folder, it will automatically connect and be available in layers under the file name.

To make it possible to connect raster maps, you must enable the plugin “ Online maps" This is done through the menu Settings-Plugin Manager-Online maps. By the way, there are several other useful additions that I would include.

After enabling the plugin, you can go to the map screen, and the Substrate Map and Coverage Map items will appear in the menu. Put a check mark on any of these items and a menu will appear for selecting the map that you want to place under or above the vector map.

After selecting a map, it is loaded onto the screen, and a slider appears that allows you to adjust the transparency of the layer.

Now there is a vector map and one or two raster maps on the screen. In this case, routing and route guidance work and all POIs are visible.