MapThis! in 3D!

[califrag]

Hi Deniska,
I searched the forum for "3D" but got absolutely no hits. I'm not sure if this has been asked before, but what are the chances that you could incorporate a "3D" view similar to

http://www.bombanakup.sk/images/Navman%20ICN%20520.jpg

or this one:
http://gpsinformation.info/bruce/navman750/iCN750%20Pictures/iCN%20750.jpg
http://gpsinformation.info/bruce/navman750/iCN750%20Pictures/Sample%20Route%2015.jpg
?

I think this would really make MapThis! on par with a lot more of the commercial GPS devices. for example my friend just purchased a new gps device and it had this kind of a view as well as the typical overhead view.

And if it would be possible to pull the topographical data from Google Earth and provide a 3D view of buildings/landscapes using in7ane's GMDL tool and then display that in MapThis! it would really be another amazing feat.

Though if none of this is possible, or planned then that's understandable as it may require a complete overhaul and revamp of the existing source.

Well please let me know your thoughts or point me to some threads if it has been addressed already.

[brammy]

I think it is too heavy for the processor.
And i think other (main) features and stability go first :)

[MIB.42]

We tried this before, it's very much doable, however, there are a couple of issues with it:
1. We'd need to load several more tiles in the memory - you probably can see, that in 3D there is a wider field of view - and memory is not quite a freely available resource for the PSP...
2. The PSP's 480x272 did not give enough resolution to be able to read the resampled textures for the polygons as easily as in 2D; for example street names at a distance ( which were easily readable in 2D ) were hard to read compared to the 2D view. If you are looking for streets around your present position, 3D was not a useful feature...
3. More intelligent directional tile loading - using prediction - code needs to be developed. As brammy pointed it out, we need some other features first...

I could put the 3D code back, maybe the config file will have an entry for it... but not soon...

Cheers,
MIB.42

[deniska]

We tried this before, it's very much doable, however, there are a couple of issues with it:
1. We'd need to load several more tiles in the memory - you probably can see, that in 3D there is a wider field of view - and memory is not quite a freely available resource for the PSP...
2. The PSP's 480x272 did not give enough resolution to be able to read the resampled textures for the polygons as easily as in 2D; for example street names at a distance ( which were easily readable in 2D ) were hard to read compared to the 2D view. If you are looking for streets around your present position, 3D was not a useful feature...
3. More intelligent directional tile loading - using prediction - code needs to be developed. As brammy pointed it out, we need some other features first...

I could put the 3D code back, maybe the config file will have an entry for it... but not soon...

Cheers,
MIB.42
I think that you can get away with current number of tiles if
1) proper angle is chosen (no need to see the horizon
2) map view is "zoomed", i.e. the stuff in front is ~2 times larger than the flat view..

In any case, caching slightly larger area is not a huge problems - all you need is to change a couple of variables in the code...

[Codaz]

Hmm this 3D view is only possbile on vector maps right ? I thought it wasn't available on jpg/png tiles ?

I thought you said something in the past, Deniska.

[MIB.42]

Hmm this 3D view is only possbile on vector maps right ? I thought it wasn't available on jpg/png tiles ?

I thought you said something in the past, Deniska.

It's just texturing polygons with jpgs/pngs...

[califrag]

Well I am very glad to hear that it is possible and has been implemented before!
I tried to convince my friend who already owns a PSP to buy a holux or psp290 instead of dropping $250 on the other GPS-only thing but he was not convinced! This would be a great thing for me to show him it is possible!

I would imagine that using the GU would make the texturing a lot stabler. I'm not very familiar with the GU or how to texture a 3D plane with tiled images but there have been many GU psp demos with 3D horizon landscapes (all wireframe) but I would imagine those could easily be modified to texture the floor-plane with the map tiles.

Perhaps you can set a maxdistance option in the config that could be editable and would show more/less distance into the horizon. This way resource heavy maps like the hybrid maps or satellite maps could be changed to run quicker otg.

I wouldn't rely on the 3D so much for viewing street names, but more for when it is in routing mode and giving you directions. all you would really want to see anyways is in how far do you need to turn.
Tiles that are resampled in the far distance could have far less quality, then by time you are on that tile the resampling quality gets clear enough to read. Tiles would only need to be resampled when the next one is reached, rather than every frame, as you could pretty much just change the camera angles to change direction, I believe..

Well anyways hope to see some future developments on this and possibly test some possible solutions. Thanks for all the replies and input.