Location based applications (LBS) or mapping applications are very useful especially if you are abroad or in a foreign country. Unfortunately roaming costs are still very expensive and most of these “travel” or mapping applications require Internet connection to download cartographic information. Nearly all Android applications which make use of street maps include the Google Maps related “Map View”. This means you have to enable your devices network connection through a GPSRS or WiFi connection (and current international roaming costs are expensive).
The obvious solution is to cache your map tiles before and save them on your SD card, then these tiles can be used later on without having an active Internet connection. Fortunately there are several applications which allow to download map data for later offline use.
One of the most famous application for offline mapping, OffMaps, is not available for Android phones but in this post I will describe two of them in more detail:
MapDroyd:
MapDroyd allows to download maps from different countries with a kind of download manager. All downloaded maps can be used in the mapping application offline. MapDroyd does not store cached maps like most other applications, it allows to download vector data in a special format called MicroMap. The compressed MicroMap format in theory is fully navigable. Map data source is OpenStreetMap (OSM), which represents detailed user generated street maps for most countries. Depending on the size of the country and the OSM detail level a downloaded map has a size from few 10 MBs to several 100 MBs. In the download manager it is also possible to set the zoom level, for the country to download.
List of features (from the Homepage):
- MapDroyd provides a built-in remote map browser that allows you to explore and download selected map files from our map server. The hierarchically organized map repository is checked against your locally stored map files and updateable maps are indicated with a yellow arrow sign. Files marked with a green check sign already exist in the newest version on your local storage card. You can either download maps directly to your device, or optionally just copy an external download link to your desktop computer.
- MapDroyd allows to rotate maps smoothly in any direction you want. Since we do not use pre-rendered images or (cached) map tiles like Google Maps or others do, MapDroyd can turn the map view into any angle required. MapDroyd does not rotate images - it renders maps on the fly! This is a very important feature for e.g. navigation applications. And MapDrowd draws all labels (city names, streets names, places, etc.) properly depending on your device’s orientation. MapDroyd includes an optional “auto-rotate” function that turns the map direction according to your real orientation (“head-up”).
- MapDroyd marks your last known location with a red cross sign and a circle indicating the accuracy of the last positioning method. The smaller the circle is the better your positioning accuracy is/was. Your position is updated whenever you change your location (“tracking feature”).
- You can choose between two different navigation modes: In the drag mode (default) you can pull the map in any direction you want by simply dragging the screen. In order to zoom in or out smoothly you have to click on the zoom buttons on the left and right bottom area, or, just roll your trackball up or down. In the rubber-band mode you simply tap the screen to reposition the map center. In order to zoom into a given region you draw a rectangle from the upper left to lower right screen corner. In order to zoom out you draw the rectangle in the opposite way, from the lower right to the upper left screen corner. In both modes you can roll the trackball to the left or right in order to rotate the map counter / clockwise. You can reset the map orientation to north using the main menu bar.
Homepage: http://www.mapdroyd.com/
BigPlanet:
BigPlanet is an map application, which allows to download cache tiles from various map services like Google Maps, OpenStreetMap or Yandex Maps.
List of features (from their Homepage):
- supports different map sources: Google Maps, OpenStreet, Yandex Maps
- cache of loaded maps – map tile is loaded only once and than saves in local file cache(so you can use app even without any network connection!). This feature allows you to save a lot of money(app don’t use expensive GPRS connection).
- bookmarks – just add you favourite places to bookmarks if you don’t want to find it each time when you use app
- zoom in by double tap (like in iPhone): You don’t need to use zoom controls from zooming – you can just double tap place you need.
- save map in given radius. Allows to save map around selected place. For example, you can save map around your home using cheap wifi connection and then use map offline.
Homepage: http://bigplanetmaps.wordpress.com/
If you know further map applications working offline, please let us know.
