I'm looking into a solution that will allow to use OpenStreetMap data to render a 2D top-view vector-based map in iOS, instead of using pre-rendered tiles from a server. Similar to Apple and Google Maps in iOS6+.
I've done extensive research on this matter, but didn't found too much information.
There are a number of iOS apps that do this, but no information on how they implement it. A couple of these apps are:
ForeverMap 2 by skobbler
Galileo Offline Maps
OffMaps 2
The first 2 apps work similar to Apple and Google Maps. The map is drawn in real time whenever the zoom changes.
The last one appears to be using a slightly different approach. It renders the vector data at specific zoom levels and creates tiles which are then used as normal tiles downloaded from a tile server. So the rendering engine could actually be a tile source for the Route-Me library, but instead of downloading the tiles it renders them on the fly.
The first method is preferred.
[Q] I guess one could switch between methods fairly easy, once the OpenGL ES renderer is in place. I mean you could use the renderer as a source for Route-Me to create tiles, or you could use it as a real-time drawer, similar to a game. Am I right?
The closest solution I found is OpenStreetPad. However, it is using Core Graphics instead of OpenGL ES, so the rendering is not hardware accelerated.
Mapbox stated they are working on vector tiles and they'll probably provide an iOS solution for rendering, however it may use Mapnik so I am not sure how efficient will that be. And there's no ETA on since mid 2013.
[Q] Do you know of any other libraries, papers, guides, examples, or some other useful information on how to approach this? Basically how to handle the OSM data and how to actually use OpenGL ES / GLKit to draw that data on the device. Maybe some of the people who have done it can share a few things?
Old question, but there's a new answer.
WhirlyGlobe-Maply will render tile based vector maps on iOS. http://mousebirdconsulting.blogspot.com/2014/03/vector-maps-introduction.html
The technology that powered skobbler's ForeverMap 2 and their current GPS Nav & Maps app is now available on a pay-per use basis. See their developer platform.
Note: they also have a free tier that can be used to develop/launch small apps.
They render the map using OpenGL and "vector data tiles". This vector data tiles contain information regarding road geometry (so you can have routing), POI data & other map features. (eg. boundary limits).
There is a list of OSM-based applications for iOS. It also includes a few open source projects, for example Navit. Navit seems to render the map using SDL/OpenGL. See the Navit iOS wiki page for more information.
Related
I am working on augmented reality app. I have augmented a 3d model using open GL ES 2.0. Now, my problem is when I move device a 3d model should move according to device movement speed. Just like this app does : https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/augment/id506463171?l=en&ls=1&mt=8. I have used UIAccelerometer to achieve this. But, I am not able to do it.
Should I use UIAccelerometer to achieve it or any other framework?
It is complicated algorithm rather than just Accelerometer. You'd better use any third party frameworks, such as Vuforia, Metaio. That would save a lot of time.
Download and check a few samples apps. That is exactly what you want.
https://developer.vuforia.com/resources/sample-apps
You could use Unity3D to load your 3D model and export XCODE project. Or you could use open GL ES.
From your comment am I to understand that you want to have the model anchored at a real world location? If so, then the easiest way to do it is by giving your model a GPS location and reading the devices' GPS location. There is actually a lot of research going into the subject of positional tracking, but for now GPS is your best (and likely only) option without going into advanced positional tracking solutions.
Seeing as I can't add comments due to my account being too new. I'll also add a warning not to try to position the device using the accelerometer data. You'll get far too much error due to the double integration of acceleration to position (See Indoor Positioning System based on Gyroscope and Accelerometer).
I would definitely use Vuforia for this task.
Regarding your comment:
I am using Vuforia framework to augment 3d model in native iOS. It's okay. But, I want to
move 3d model when I move device. It is not provided in any sample code.
Well, it's not provided in any sample code, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's impossible or too difficult.
I would do it like this (working on Android, C++, but it must be very similar on iOS anyway):
locate your renderFrame function
simply do your translation before actual DrawElements:
QCARUtils::translatePoseMatrix(xMOV, yMOV, zMOV, &modelViewProjectionScaled.data[0]);
Where the data for the movement would be prepared by a function that reads them from the accelerometer as a time and acceleration...
What I actually find challenging is to find just the right calibration for a proper adjustment of the output from the sensor's API, which is a completely different and AR/Vuforia unrelated question. Here I guess you've got a huge advantage over Android devs regarding various devices...
I am new to iOS programming and am interested in working with images. Basically, I want to be able to obtain the (0,255) and RGB tuples of every pixel in a given image. What would be the best way of doing this? Would I need to use Open GL, or something similar?
Thanks
If you want to work with images, get a copy of Apple's 'Quartz 2D Programming Guide'. If you want even more detailed how-to, get a copy of the "Programming with Quartz" book on Amazon (its says Mac in the title as it predates iOS).
Essentially you are going to take images, draw them into bit map contexts, then determine the rgba layout by querying the image.
If you want to use system resources to assist you in making certain types of changes to images, there is a OSX framework recently moved to iOS called the Accelerate Framework. and it has a lot of functions in it for image manipulation (vImage).
For reading and writing images to the file system look at Apple's 'Image I/O Guide'. For advanced filtering there is Core Image, which allows you to apply filters to images.
EDIT: If you have any interest in really fast accellerated code that uses the GPU to perform some sophisticated filtering, you can checkout Brad Larson's GPU Image project on github.
I am working on an image processing app for the iOS, and one of the various stages of my application is a vector based image posterization/color detection.
Now, I've written the code that can, per-pixel, determine the posterized color, but going through each and every pixel in an image, I imagine, would be quite difficult for the processor if the iOS. As such, I was wondering if it is possible to use the graphics processor instead;
I'd like to create a sort of "pixel shader" which uses OpenGL-ES, or some other rendering technology to process and posterize the image quickly. I have no idea where to start (I've written simple shaders for Unity3D, but never done the underlying programming for them).
Can anyone point me in the correct direction?
I'm going to come at this sideways and suggest you try out Brad Larson's GPUImage framework, which describes itself as "a BSD-licensed iOS library that lets you apply GPU-accelerated filters and other effects to images, live camera video, and movies". I haven't used it and assume you'll need to do some GL reading to add your own filtering but it'll handle so much of the boilerplate stuff and provides so many prepackaged filters that it's definitely worth looking into. It doesn't sound like you're otherwise particularly interested in OpenGL so there's no real reason to look into it.
I will add the sole consideration that under iOS 4 I found it often faster to do work on the CPU (using GCD to distribute it amongst cores) than on the GPU where I needed to be able to read the results back at the end for any sort of serial access. That's because OpenGL is generally designed so that you upload an image and then it converts it into whatever format it wants and if you want to read it back then it converts it back to the one format you expect to receive it in and copies it to where you want it. So what you save on the GPU you pay for because the GL driver has to shunt and rearrange memory. As of iOS 5 Apple have introduced a special mechanism that effectively gives you direct CPU access to OpenGL's texture store so that's probably not a concern any more.
Our software produces a lot of data that is georeferenced and recorded over time. We are considering ways to improve the visualisation, and showing the (processed) data in a 3D view, given it's georeferenced, seems a good idea.
I am looking for SO's recommendations for what 3D libraries are best to use as a base when building these kind of visualisations in a Delphi- / C++Builder-based Windows application. I'll add a bounty when I can.
The data
Is recorded over time (hours to days) and is GPS-tagged. So, we have a lot of data following a path over time.
Is spatial: it represents real 3D elements of the earth, such as the land, or 3D elements of objects around the earth.
Is high volume: we could have a point cloud, say, of hundreds of thousands to millions of points. Processed data may display as surfaces created from these point clouds.
From that, you can see that an interactive, spatially-based 3D visualisation seems a good approach. I'm envisaging something where you can easily and quickly navigate around in space, and data will load or be generated on the fly depending on what you're looking at. I would prefer we don't try to write our own 3D library from scratch - for something like this, there have to be good existing libraries we can work from.
So, I'm hoping for a library which supports:
good navigation (is the library based on Euler rotations only, for example? Can you 'pick' objects to rotate around or move with easily?);
modern GPUs (shader-only rendering is ok; being able to hook into the pipeline to write shaders that map values to colours and change dynamically would be great - think data values given a colour through a colour lookup table);
dynamic data / objects (data can be added as it's recorded; and if the data volume is too high, we should be able to page things in and out or recreate them, and only show a sensible subset so that whatever the user's viewport is looking at is there onscreen, but other data can be loaded/regenerated, preferably asynchronously, or at least quickly as the user navigates. Obviously data creation is dependent on us, but a library that has hooks for this kind of thing would be great.)
and technologically, works with Delphi / C++Builder and the VCL.
Libraries
There are two main libraries I've considered so far - I'm looking for knowledgeable opinions about these, or for other libraries I haven't considered.
1. FireMonkey
This is Embarcadero's new UI library, which is only available in XE2 and above. Our app is based on the VCL and we'd want to host this in a VCL window; that seems to be officially unsupported but unofficially works fine, or is available through third-parties.
The mix of UI framework and 3D framework with shaders etc sounds great. But I don't know how complex the library is, what support it has for data that's not a simple object like a cube or sphere, and how well-designed it is. That last link has major criticisms of the 3D side of the library - severe enough I am not sure it's worthwhile in its current state at the time of writing for a non-trivial 3D app.
Is it worth trying to write a new visualisation window in our VCL app using FireMonkey?
2. GLScene
GLScene is a well-known 3D OpenGL framework for Delphi. I have never used it myself so have no experience about how it works or is designed. However, I believe it integrates well into VCL windows and supports shaders and modern GPUs. I do not know how its scene graph or navigation work or how well dynamic data can be implemented.
Its feature list specifically mentions some things I'm interested in, such as easy rotation/movement, procedural objects (implying dynamic data is easy to implement), and helper functions for picking. It seems shaders are Cg only (not GLSL or another non-vendor-specific language.) It also supports "polymorphic image support for texturing (allows many formats as well as procedural textures), easily extendable" - that may just mean many image formats, or it may indicate something where the texture can be dynamically changed, such as for dynamic colour mapping.
Where to from here?
These are the only two major 3D libraries I know of for Delphi or C++Builder. Have I missed any? Are there pros and cons I'm not aware of? Do you have any experience using either of these for this kind of purpose, and what pitfalls should we be wary of or features should we know about and use?
We currently use Embarcadero RAD Studio 2010 and most of our software is written in C++. We have small amounts of Delphi and may consider upgrading IDEs, but we are most likely to wait until the 64-bit C++ compiler is released. For that reason, a library that works in RS2010 might be best.
Thanks for your input :) I'm after high-quality answers, so I'll add a bounty when I can!
I have used GLScene in my 3D geomapping software and although it's not used to an extent you're looking for I can vouch that it seems the most appropriate for what you're trying to do.
GLScene supports terrain rendering and adding customizable objects to the scene. Objects can be interacted with and you can create complex 3D models of objects using the various building blocks of GLScene.
Unfortunately I cannot state how it will work with millions of points, but I do know that it is quite optimized and performs great on minimal hardware - that being said - the target PC I found required a dedicated graphics card capable of using OpenGL 2.1 extensions or higher (I found small issues with integrated graphics cards).
The other library I looked at was DXscene - which appears quite similar to GLScene albeit using DirectX instead of OpenGL. From memory this was a commercial product where GLScene was licensed under GPL. (EDIT - the page seems to be down at the moment : http://www.ksdev.com/index.html)
GLScene is still in active development and provides a fairly comprehensive library of functions, base objects and texturing etc. Things like rotation, translation, pitch, roll, turn, ray casting - to name a few - are all provided for you. Visibility culling is provided for each base object as well as viewing cameras, lighting and meshes. Base objects include cubes, spheres, pipes, tetrahedrons, cones, terrain, grids, 3d text, arrows to name a few.
Objects can be picked with the mouse and moved along 1,2 or 3 axes. Helper functions are included to automatically calculate the top-most object the mouse is under. Complex 3D shapes can be built by attaching base objects to other base objects in a hierarchical manner. So, for example, a car could be built using a rectangle as the base object and attaching four cylinders to it for the wheels - then you can manipulate the 'car' as a whole - since the four cylinders are attached to the base rectangle.
The only downside I could bring to your attention is the sometimes limited help/support available to you. Yes, there is a reference manual and a number of demo applications to show you how to do things such as select objects and move them around, however the reference manual is not complete and there is potential to get 'stuck' on how to accomplish a certain task. Forum support is somewhat limited/sparse. If you have a sound knowledge of 3D basics and concepts I'm sure you could nut it out.
As for Firemonkey - I have had no experience with this so I can't comment. I believe this is more targeted at mobile applications with lower hardware requirements so you may have issues with larger data sets.
Here are some other links that you may consider - I have no experience with them:
http://www.truevision3d.com/
http://www.3impact.com/
Game Development in Delphi
The last one is targeted at game development - but may provide useful information.
Have you tried glData? http://gldata.sourceforge.net/
It is old (~2004, Delphi 7), and I have not personally used the library, but some of the output is amazing.
you can use the GLScene or OpenGL they are good 3D rendering and its very easy to use.
Since you are already using georeferenced data, maybe you should consider embedding GoogleEarth in your Delphi application like this? Then you can add data to it as points, paths, or objects.
I've been working with software that generates textured 3D models of Roman archaeological artefacts (see map interface mockup here - click icons for models). The software (3DSom Pro) uses Flash or Java to show the models via a browser.
I need a non-flash/Java solution for web viewing iOS, but WebGL is only supported in Safari's nightly build (or - I understand - for adverts), which excludes the average user.
Has anyone successfully shown textured 3D models in a web browser on iOS? I know Pages (I think) supports native SketchUp files and iOS devices can display 3D, but in a browser...?
While three.js,( a great library for doing in-browser 3D with javascript) also supports canvas rendering instead of just webGL rendering, unfortunately mobilesafari is still fairly unstable in conjunction with three.js' canvasrenderer (what i gather from mrdoob's github discussions, this has been an issue since IOS5)
You could try to find a css3 DOM renderer, but it seems there isn't one available in conjunction with a framework that offers the ability to load textured models for you, which might be a lot of work to realise yourself.