User:Patatate douce

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patatate_douce's OsmAnd~ setup

This shows how to get a pretty decent OsmAnd setup for hiking and cycling, and do minimal OSM edits on the go (limited to POIs). This is based on f-droid versions of OsmAnd~ on Android. This is meant to be a working example of what can be done with the app. This aims to be more detailed and practical than other guides out there, but this isn't fully step-by-step and you should feel free to explore on your own.

Installation

  • Set up f-droid. By installing via f-droid instead of Google Play, you get the pro version for free (no map download limit).
  • Install OsmAnd~ (do not just "install", but go to the "versions" submenu and select the latest version) and OsmAnd contour lines.

Discovering the app

  • Start the app. Download a map for your area if you are prompted to.
  • ☰ > Download maps:
    • In the Regions section, download Contour lines, Terrain map, Weather forecast for your country/area.
    • In the World maps section, get the World altitude correction, World overview map.
  • ☰ > Plugins:
    • Enable Online maps, Contour lines, Weather.
    • Enable OpenStreetMap editing and log in, if applicable.
  • Let's now work with the walking profile. Select it by clicking the top-left "planet" icon, and you should be able to select the walking profile from the list of default profiles.
  • Experiment with contour lines (☰ > Configure map > Contour lines), 3d view (☰ > Configure map > 3D Relief, then swipe vertically with 1 fingers), weather map (☰ > Weather).
  • Check out the different renderings available (☰ > Configure map > Map style). You may find OsmAnd good enough, you may want to have a look at Topo, Touring view, UniRS. Need something specifically made for hiking? Give this excellent rendering style a try!
  • Now switch to a different profile and see how the above changes only affected the active profile.
  • Navigate to areas where you don't have a detailed map downloaded. You should see a pop-up offering you to download the area. Great. What if you accidentally discarded the offer to download? You could go back to the menus, or you could long-press somewhere on the map, press Actions > Download map.

Going a bit further: online maps and layers

Online maps are great, but some maps are only available as online tiles. Online maps can sometimes be preferable to offline ones for various reasons: possibly more comfortable rendering, easy browsing without having to actively download stuff, satellite views, heatmaps. AFAIK the extremely useful WayMarkedTrails layer is only available as an online map.

Hiking profile #1: offline vector maps, hiking waymarkedtrails overlay

  • Use the default walking profile or create a new profile for this. To create a new profile: ☰ > click on the profile name at the top-left > Manage.
  • I like to use the hiking rendering for this.
  • In ☰ > Configure map > Overlay map..., select Waymarkedtrails Hiking, toggle on Show transparency slider and Show map symbols.
  • in ☰ > Configure map, toggle on Hiking routes, Difficulty classification (can have no effect depending on rendering), Fitness trails, Running routes.
  • You can now use the slider to adjust the visibility of the Waymarkedtrails layer. I find it useful to be able to quickly adjust it, but that might just be me.
  • This profile is partly offline, partly online. The online part is just a more visible rendering of main routes, the profile is definitely usable offline.

Hiking profile #2: satellite view, IGN-25

  • Use the Microsoft Earth online map as your main map (☰ > Configure map > Map Source...).
  • (France-specific) Install the IGN-25 map. For other countries, we'll use the offline vector maps instead.
  • Configure the overlay to use IGN-25.

You may prefer to create just 1 hiking profile and use quick actions (more below) to rotate through layers.

Strava heatmaps

Fork and deploy this, then use https://strava-heatmap-proxy.<USER>.workers.dev/global/hot/run/{z}/{x}/{y}@small.png as map source.

<run> and <hot> can be tweaked to different activities or colours, look it up online for details.

Note: the heatmap tile URLs can be used in brouter web, see below.

Profile suggestions

In addition to the above profiles, I also like to have 2 cycling profiles:

Quick actions to display specific items (POIs)

Configured via ☰ > Configure screen > Quick action.

Two examples of how I use quick actions:

  • As a complementary/alternative ways to using multiple profiles, to modify the day/night view mode or the underlay/base/overlay maps, however:
    • Not all settings can be modified via quick action items (e.g. routing engine).
    • Map source rotation will be the same for all profiles (you cannot have a specific map rotation for a hiking profile and a different rotation for a cycling profile).
  • To display specific POIs as I need. POI groups can be prepared in Add action > Show/hide -- POI. I have 4 custom categories: emergency (police, firefighters, hospitals, ...), sleep (camping grounds, hostels, ... + water sources), water/food/toilet, bike repairs (bike shops, car garages).

Better routing: preparing your routes, and routing within the app

I pretty much never use routing for hiking/trekking/running, but I find routing super useful when cycling. The default routing engine can be slow and end up with inadequate routings. Check out brouter: website and app.

The website is great to prepare your routes on the computer. Be sure to select the correct routing profile at the top-left.

Follow this OsmAnd help page to set up brouter on OsmAnd. Careful, this needs to be done for each profile you want to use brouter with! In addition to the help page, there is some mapping you can do within the brouter app. I personally map both fast and non-fast to the same profiles, I use "trekking" for cycling. This mostly results in great routing.

OSM editing

You must be logged in in the OpenStreetMap editing plugin.

You can then select a rendered POI (point of interest), or long-press somewhere on the map, click Actions, then Create POI, Modify POI, Open OSM Note.

Tags (key=value combination) are not straightforward and can be deceiving, do not edit unless you know what you're doing!

Some more settings worth exploring

  • ☰ > Navigation. Consider your options: native OsmAnd routing, brouter, online routing.
  • ☰ > Configure screen:
    • Especially handy are the widgets. I love the Radius ruler widget (then click on the widget multiple times to get the display you like) which lets you quickly see distance from current location to the middle-of-the-screen location. I also use the two Altitude widgets together which I find very handy when hiking. (possible bug: if the widget doesn't show on screen, go back to home screen then come back to the app)
    • Distance by tap can be useful but I find the previous trick more ergonomic.
    • 3D mode is amazing for planning or better understanding your whereabouts in the mountains. Swipe vertically with 2 fingers. Great with a satellite layer.

More on overlays

  • You can add an overlay manually via URL if you don't have an sqlitedb file. This is slightly confusing because you need to first change the base map in order to add the overlay:
    • Go into ☰ > Configure map > Map source... > Add manually...
    • Add the URL, confirm, etc. Typically a zoom of 13-18 is what you need but that may vary. Leave the other options alone.
    • Now that the overlay is added, change the Map source... back to what you had initially.
    • You will now have the overlay listed in ☰ > Configure map > Overlay map....
  • You have an overlay as an sqlitedb file? Just open it, let OsmAnd open it, and that's it.
  • Want to remove an overlay? Go into ☰ > Downloadmaps... > LOCAL, and you'll be able to remove it there.

What more?

I hope this helps give you a better grasp of the tool. The above is only a fraction of what OsmAnd offers.

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