open streetmap – heightmaps

a problem in visualizing maps is how to render the height differences. the spring rts has a very nice solution to this issue, see yourself:

the next two pictures are ordinary renderings. this kind of rendering is commonly used on printouts. this is nice when having a big map in your hand and if the detail level is as low as in the first picture below.

however if the detail level increases as in the next picture (opencyclemap.org renderer)  the usability gets lost. at least on very small displays as handhelds having sunlight and reflections on the display.

i don’t like using the opencyclemap renderer for biking tours. i’ve tested this quite some times with my openmoko device with the program called: tangoGPS

i would love to have an osm renderer using the spring rts ‘colorful heightmap’ renderer. i could think of a switch between normal osm maps and the heightfield renderer of spring. or even an overlay with local rendering would be cool.

maybe we can come up with such a renderer…

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openmoko – xbuffer screwup issue

today i had the already mentioned problem: xbuffer screwup

i played with the openmoko to get an idea what could cause this and i come up with this:

• system widgets are not affected much but they are.
• tangogps draws the map on the screen afterwards it draws an overlay over the map:
  this overlay is used to draw the track with red color, you probably have used this already
  the funny thing is that on a move event of the map the second layer isn’t drawn and does NOT contain screwed images. after i release the screen the overlay is drawn and the map is filled with black random pixels and some other colors as well.
• later i restarted tangogps and then all the pixmaps were screwed no matter if i used the map move or not

openmoko using shr # dmesg

[   63.660000] Restarting tasks … done.
[   86.405000] rxerr: port=1 ch=0x00, rxs=0x0000000c
[  189.895000] JFFS2 notice: (445) check_node_data: wrong data CRC in data node at 0x0d93a5bc: read 0x41c01a60, calculated 0x8116099a.
[  266.440000] HDQ error: 1
[  266.455000] HDQ responds again
[ 1470.260000] g_ether gadget: full speed config #1: CDC Ethernet (ECM)
[ 1470.270000] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE): usb0: link becomes ready
[ 1472.610000] pcf50633 0-0073: usb curlim to 500 mA
[ 1480.365000] usb0: no IPv6 routers present
[ 2267.715000] rxerr: port=1 ch=0x00, rxs=0x0000000c
[ 2282.025000] rxerr: port=1 ch=0x00, rxs=0x0000000c
[ 2293.020000] rxerr: port=1 ch=0x00, rxs=0x0000000c
[ 2317.940000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0xc120
[ 2317.940000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 2317.940000] mmcblk0: error -110 sending status comand<3>mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x0
[ 2317.950000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0xc120
[ 2317.950000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 2317.950000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0xc120
[ 2317.950000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 2317.950000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0xc120
[ 2317.950000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 2317.950000] mmcblk0: error -110 requesting status
[ 2317.950000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0xc120
[ 2317.950000] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 10486864
[ 2317.950000] Buffer I/O error on device mmcblk0p1, logical block 1310856
[ 2317.950000] lost page write due to I/O error on mmcblk0p1
[ 2330.500000] rxerr: port=1 ch=0x00, rxs=0x0000000c
[ 2467.610000] rxerr: port=1 ch=0x2e, rxs=0x00000001
[ 3152.305000] rxerr: port=1 ch=0x12, rxs=0x00000001
[ 3335.135000] rxerr: port=1 ch=0x00, rxs=0x0000000c
[ 3336.000000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 3336.000000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0xc120
[ 3336.000000] mmcblk0: error -110 sending status comand<3>mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x0
[ 3336.010000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 3336.010000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x8120
[ 3336.010000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 3336.020000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0xc120
[ 3336.020000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 3336.020000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0xc120
[ 3336.020000] mmcblk0: error -110 requesting status
[ 3336.020000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 3336.020000] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 10208
[ 3336.020000] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 10216
[ 3336.020000] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 10224
[ 3336.035000] Aborting journal on device mmcblk0p1.
[ 3336.055000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0xc120
[ 3336.055000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 3336.055000] mmcblk0: error -110 sending status comand<3>mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x0
[ 3336.085000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0xc120
[ 3336.085000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 3336.085000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0xc120
[ 3336.085000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 3336.085000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0xc120
[ 3336.085000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 3336.085000] mmcblk0: error -110 requesting status
[ 3336.085000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0xc120
[ 3336.085000] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 4176
[ 3336.085000] Buffer I/O error on device mmcblk0p1, logical block 520
[ 3336.085000] lost page write due to I/O error on mmcblk0p1
[ 3363.365000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 3363.365000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0xc120
[ 3363.365000] mmcblk0: error -110 sending status comand<3>mmcblk0: error -110 sending read/write command, response 0x0, card status 0x0
[ 3363.380000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 3363.380000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0xc120
[ 3363.380000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 3363.380000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0xc120
[ 3363.380000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 3363.380000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0xc120
[ 3363.380000] mmcblk0: error -110 requesting status
[ 3363.380000] glamo-mci glamo-mci.0: Error after cmd: 0x4120
[ 3363.380000] end_request: I/O error, dev mmcblk0, sector 15204384
[ 3363.380000] Buffer I/O error on device mmcblk0p1, logical block 1900546
[ 3363.380000] lost page write due to I/O error on mmcblk0p1

currently i would like to fix that issue since it seems to happen frequently

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openmoko thoughts

this is actually my first blog entry here and i would like to start bloggin about my openmoko – neo freerunner phone. it’s been a while ago since i bought this smartphone and i love it i have lots of problems with it.

i’m currently using SHR which is great in concept and would serve all i require which is basically:

• gps software and tracking using tangogps
• basic gsm usage as using this device to receive phone calls and to make phone calls
• having a offline wikipedia

all other things i consider nice to have.

the main problem i am facing is the instability of the software. i think of a few different bugs which happen to force a restart since it makes the neo unusable

• the ‘white’ screen of death: suddenly after clicking something on the screen it gets white and the moko freezes. already logged in usb ssh sessions are frozen instantly and i have to eject the battery to force a restart
• the ‘white vertical flash’ of annoyance: sometimes the screen just starts to have this pattern which looks like a white wave of ‘white’ – one can get rid of this using xrandr. normally i rotate the screen 180 degrees and it’s gone
• kernel panic – this does not happen so often and i don’t see any pattern in that (i only see a blinking red led)
• ‘sd freeze’ – sometimes processes having a reference to the sd card seem to wait forever and the mobile can’t be shut down – one has to remove the battery to reset the device
• the ‘xbuffer screwup’ issue: this didn’t happen after i reinstalled the SHR image to SHR unstable. i might have introduced this issue with my ‘opkg update; opkg upgrade’ updates. developers have already told me that the packages are not meant to be updated and that i should reinstall the moko with a testing or unstable SHR image instead. this issue however would screw up x buffers in a way that the images (best seen in tangogps) have colored pixels in a random pattern all over the image. in tangogps the map tiles where kind of rerendered with this pattern in an additive way. looked funny somehow. using xrandr made the widgets render correct after the rotation but the tiles from tantogps still were broken – my fix was a device reset.

my current conclusion for the neo freerunner is – i hate it. i regret spending 300 euro on that device. BUT i didn’t expect this phone ‘sold as a developer platform’ to be working perfectly. however i expected that at least the device drivers where in a better shape and a basic system would be working. on the other hand i see great potential:

• the dbus integration in SHR is the best i’ve ever seen on any device
• the look and feel is appropriate for a phone
• the opkg.org repositiory is a great idea and a lot of work must have been spent to design this page
• the software stack has already some very nice programs, namely: woosh, tangogps and evopedia (a offline wikipedia) which is very usable right now

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