Mapping - Map overlay, voice command directions

[CaydenPierce]

Pulling out one's phone all the time while navigating a new place is difficult, dangerous, and forces one to stop in their journey. This is made worse if the individual is operating some vehicle (bicycle, car) where they must disengage all together.

The current idea:

1. User issues a voice command, asking for directions to their desired location. " directions to x"
2. The system pulls up a map, centered on the current users position, and with the direction path highlighted. The system also output speech to give the user turn-by-turn directions.

Implementation

OsmAnd Mapping app for Android combined with OsmAnd-Api

OsmAnd~ app - https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.osmand.plus/ (this is like the Google Play OsmAnd+ version, but ~ for devs)

Osm-and-api: https://github.com/osmandapp/osmand-api-demo/
^this demo app runs the app IN ITSELF - it doesn't start the OsmAnd activity with some arguments (like running a program that takes over) but OsmAnd maps show up directly in the parents app/activity

Use OsmAndApi to call OsmAnd and display OsmAnd maps in the app. Use the "Navigation" -> "Navigate and Search"

For see the folder osmand-api-demo in the osmand-api-demo repo and read the README.md in that folder for instructions on how to use the osmand-api

[CaydenPierce]

Test 1:

• Make sure to turn on GPS sharing on the vuzix companion app
• you may find gps keeps dropping and you have to turn off gps sharing and turn it back on repeatedly in order for OsmAnd to update user location
• we need to fix this gps dropping issue... it may be our fault, but considering this fails with stock OsmAnd, it may be a deeper system issue on the Vuzix Blade

[CaydenPierce]

A new piece of intel that makes this more important than before - Vuzix Store has no map apps. Looking around, it seems the only actual consumer facing implementation of maps on everyday smart glasses is Google Maps on Google Glass, which of course is all closed source an not portable.

Let's try to get this going soon, especially considering OsmAnd will most of the work.

Voice command and a tiny touchpad are probably bad interfaces to plotting a route. I have tried exploring a way for this to make sense, and it really doesn't for the immediate term (with limitations in wearable human output).

So a good approach here will be to make a mapping ui on the ASP with OsmAndApi, then, once the user has chosen their route, send it over WebSocket to the ASG, which can then use OsmAndApi to open and start that route locally.