Develop Reference

Skobbler: centerMapOnCurrentPosition() centers me in Aftrica even though blue dot is correct

I am using the skobbler sdk for maps.
I use this code to center map view on current position, but even though the blue dot is at my correct current position in Los Angeles (I verify by manually going there), the map centers me at gps(0,0).
public void onCurrentPositionUpdate(SKPosition currentPosition) {
this.currentPosition = currentPosition;
mapView.reportNewGPSPosition(this.currentPosition);
if(firstPositionUpdate){
firstPositionUpdate = false;
mapView.centerMapOnCurrentPosition();
}
}
and heres my code for initializing the map:
private void initializeMapView() {
currentPositionProvider = new SKCurrentPositionProvider(getActivity());
currentPositionProvider.setCurrentPositionListener(this);
if (DemoUtils.hasGpsModule(getActivity()) && ((LocationManager)getActivity().getSystemService(Context.LOCATION_SERVICE)).isProviderEnabled(LocationManager.NETWORK_PROVIDER)) {
currentPositionProvider.requestLocationUpdates(true, true, true);
}
SKMapViewHolder mapViewGroup = (SKMapViewHolder) getView().findViewById(R.id.map_surface_holder);
mapView = mapViewGroup.getMapSurfaceView();
mapView.setMapSurfaceListener(this);
mapView.getMapSettings().setFollowerMode(SKMapSettings.SKMapFollowerMode.NONE);
mapView.getMapSettings().setMapRotationEnabled(true);
mapView.getMapSettings().setMapZoomingEnabled(true);
mapView.getMapSettings().setMapPanningEnabled(true);
mapView.getMapSettings().setZoomWithAnchorEnabled(true);
mapView.getMapSettings().setInertiaRotatingEnabled(true);
mapView.getMapSettings().setInertiaZoomingEnabled(true);
mapView.getMapSettings().setInertiaPanningEnabled(true);
SKVersioningManager.getInstance().setMapUpdateListener(this);
mapView.centerMapOnPosition(new SKCoordinate( -118.123,34.123));
//launchRouteCalculation();
}

It seems that reportNewGPSPosition(this.currentPosition); does not work instantly.
I noticed that if I simply delay the call to centerMapOnCurrentPosition(), the map is centered correctly. There are two work arounds:
-set location manually:
mapView.centerMapOnPosition(new SKCoordinate( currentPosition.getLongitude(), currentPosition.getLatitude()));
-or create a delayed runnable to call to perform the centering at a future time:
android.os.Handler handler = new android.os.Handler();
handler.postDelayed(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
mapView.centerMapOnCurrentPosition();
mapView.setZoom(10);
}
},100);
note: This issue only becomes evident because of the if statement I put in to only center the map on the first update of location. Another work around would be to put a use a counter and center map on the second time the location is updated.
Also if implementing this with the mentioned if statement, don't forget to consider accuracy; it would be bad to center when the location is not accurate, and not center on a future location update which IS accurate.

Android maps v2 becomes low quality when map area is automatically moved

I am simulating a car moving on a pre-recorded path on Android maps v2. When I zoom on the path by hand, it works great, but when I move the camera over the path with mMap.animateCamera(), it doesn't load the visible map area, I only get a very pixelated, low quality map. If I touch the screen and move the map or zoom a little, then it loads again this part.
How can I achieve, that it always loads clearly the visible part?
EDIT:
I added an example image: this is what I see when I don't touch the map. After I touch it, it becomes clear (similar to the bottom left part).
EDIT2:
I have an idea, that this is because Google want's to prevent the map to be cached by quickly moving the camera over an area. Is it possible, that this is the cause of this issue? (The map is showing Budapest, Hungary, which part of the map you can not download for offline use...) But here I only want to show the animation and place markers, I only need the visible area to be cached - are there any way to workaround this behaviour?
EDIT3:
The animation code:
new Thread(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
// ... Calculating and sending new location, in an infinite loop with sleeps for timing
MainActivity.this.runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
mMap.animateCamera(CameraUpdateFactory.newLatLng(new LatLng(location.getLatitude(), location.getLongitude())));
}
});
}
}).start();

Finally found a solution. I was able to recreate your problem using the code you provided. I replaced your code with the following and it worked for me.
Timer timer = new Timer();
timer.scheduleAtFixedRate(new TimerTask() {
#Override
public void run() {
// ... Calculating and sending new location, in an infinite loop with sleeps for timing
MainActivity.this.runOnUiThread(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
mMap.animateCamera(CameraUpdateFactory.newLatLng(new LatLng(location.getLatitude(), location.getLongitude())));
}
});
}
}, 0, 2000);
Just remove your code for sleeping and replace the last argument in scheduleAtFixedRate (the 2000) with whatever value you were using for sleeping.

I had the same issue. Since it did not happen when not animating the camera, it had to be something related to that.
Apperently the camera has to be able to finish its operation, before it will update the background/roads etc.
Since my app updates the position every second and the map needs about 2 seconds to complete I end up with pixelated roads and no surroundings at all.
The solution is to use one of overloads of animateCamera:
public final void animateCamera (CameraUpdate update, int durationMs,
GoogleMap.CancelableCallback callback)
Moves the map according to the update with an animation over a
specified duration, and calls an optional callback on completion. See
CameraUpdateFactory for a set of updates.
I used for my case a duration of 900msec, so the animation is done before it receives a new location.
To get the callback to work you need to implement GoogleMap.CancelableCallback to your class. This requires you to add two overrides:
#Override
public void onFinish() {
}
#Override
public void onCancel() {
}
They are not required to get the problem solved, altough you are free to add extra logic there.
The call to update the camera can look like this:
cameraPosition = new CameraPosition.Builder()
.target(current)
.zoom(zoomLevel)
.bearing(bearing)
.tilt(tilt)
.build();
CameraUpdate update = CameraUpdateFactory.newCameraPosition(cameraPosition);
map.animateCamera(update, 900, this);

Android Google Maps v2 Camera Animation

So im not sure if this is a bug or not yet... might be or I may have missed something.
Anyway so here is the link to Google Maps V2 Camera Controls. https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/android/views#moving_the_camera
The issue :
Animate to a location already animated to does not call onFinish();
How to replicate:
mMap.animateCamera(CameraUpdateFactory.newLatLngZoom(mLocation.getLatLng(), zoomLevel), 200, new GoogleMap.CancelableCallback() {
#Override
public void onFinish() {
//DO some stuff here!
Log.d("animation", "onFinishCalled");
}
#Override
public void onCancel() {
Log.d("animation", "onCancel");
}
});
This issue may well come about when a user double taps something which called the same animation even if there is a long time between, onFinish will only be called for a successful animation. When the camera is already positioned the onFinish method will not be called!
I could go around doing checks before I do any camera animation but I don't like that as its wasteful.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.

I have the same problem when i want to move camera to the same position, it seems like a bug.
Even if old and new position are not the same and the difference is so small , ex: old position.latitude = 94.54284009112, new position.latitude = 94.54284003451, it dosen't work.
my solution is to truncate values to get only old_position.latitude = new_position.latitude = 94.54, then i do a test.
There is another problem with moving camera and scroll the map in the same time, for that i disable scroll gesture before moving and enable it on the onFinish() and the onCancel().
public void animateCameraTo(final double lat, final double lng)
{
_googleMap = getMap();
CameraPosition camPosition = _googleMap.getCameraPosition();
if (!((Math.floor(camPosition.target.latitude * 100) / 100) == (Math.floor(lat * 100) / 100) && (Math.floor(camPosition.target.longitude * 100) / 100) == (Math.floor(lng * 100) / 100)))
{
_googleMap.getUiSettings().setScrollGesturesEnabled(false);
_googleMap.animateCamera(CameraUpdateFactory.newLatLng(new LatLng(lat, lng)), new CancelableCallback()
{
#Override
public void onFinish()
{
_googleMap.getUiSettings().setScrollGesturesEnabled(true);
}
#Override
public void onCancel()
{
_googleMap.getUiSettings().setAllGesturesEnabled(true);
}
});
}
}
Hope this helps you ;)

Your should check the pixel distance, not the geo distance:
LatLngBounds myBounds = YOUR_BOUNDS;
LatLngBounds visibleBounds = map.getProjection().getVisibleRegion().latLngBounds;
Point myCenter = map.getProjection().toScreenLocation(myBounds.getCenter());
Point visibleCenter = map.getProjection().toScreenLocation(visibleBounds.getCenter());
int dist = (int) Math.sqrt(Math.pow(myCenter.x - visibleCenter.x, 2) + Math.pow(myCenter.y - visibleCenter.y, 2));
if (dist > YOUR_THRESHOLD) {
map.animateCamera(CameraUpdateFactory.newLatLngBounds(myBounds, YOUR_PADDING), new GoogleMap.CancelableCallback() {
#Override
public void onFinish() {
// do something
}
#Override
public void onCancel() {
// do something
}
});
} else {
// do something
}

The only solution I have found is doing the wasteful pixel value checks, setting up a bogus (but close) CameraUpdate object and making a nested animateCamera() call using the bogus CameraUpdate first and then calling another cameraUpdate() inside the first onFinish() with the correct CameraUpdate. I installed the Google MAP v2 update today but it didn't help. This is a problem on device rotation for me. I am displaying bounding rectangles and the centroid doesn't change on rotation so the animateCamera() doesn't work and when the device is rotated the selected rectangle may be partially off the screen.
Did you find another solution yet?
Thanks

Here's another workaround:
You do know the animation duration of your map animations. So you can post a delayed runnable with a delay of the animation duration + some offset and there you can check if the finished/canceld listener was called... if not you can fetch it there and call the apropriate listener

Zooming and animating to point mapview android

So in my current application, I want to zoom to a lat/long point, but also use the animateTo (or equivalent) to make sure the screen is properly centered. Currently I'm just doing something like this:
_mapController.animateTo(new GeoPoint(googleLat, googleLng));
// Smooth zoom handler
int zoomLevel = _mapView.getZoomLevel();
int targetZoomLevel = AppConstants.MAP_ZOOM_LEVEL_SWITCH;
long delay = 0;
while (zoomLevel++ < targetZoomLevel) {
handler.postDelayed(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
_mapController.zoomIn();
}
}, delay);
delay += 350; // Change this to whatever is good on the device
}
This kind of works, but what happens is that my thread starts, BEFORE the 'animate to' finishes, so it zooms in and then 'jumps' to display the correct center geoPoint. Is there a way to smoothly 'drill down' to a certain zoom level, as well as move to a geoPoint at the same time? Similar to how the official Googl eMaps application zooms to an address after you've searched for it is what I'm looking to do.

I would do something like:
_mapController.animateTo(new GeoPoint(googleLat,googleLong), new Runnable() {
public void run()
{
_mapController.zoomIn ();
}
});
This will achieve a pan-then-zoom effect. You can try your same logic inside the runnable to perform multi-step zoomIn's.

How can I draw an animated view in android?

I created a custom view from scratch. Extended View and overrided onDraw().
When comes down in animating the view i generate a custom animation using offsets.
eg.
while(!isOnTop){
mOffset++;
//draw the component a a it higher using the offset
if(position == 0)
isOnTop==true;
invalidate();
}
The thinking is that my frames come from invalidate it self. The problem is that invalidation of this view can come just by scrolling a listview at the same screen.
This "shared invalidation()" causes lag to my animation.So is there a way out of that lag?
Do you have any other suggestion of performing animations in that shared enviroment?
Creating an animation using a seperate thread that calculates the offset also needs forced invalidation() calls to display the animation (correct me if i'm wrong).
Is the only solution to perform the animation in eg 10 invalidation requests with a larger step? It will ease the lag out but i think i can use a different approach on that.

"What is best" of course depends greatly on exactly what you are trying to do. You haven't said what you are trying to accomplish, so we can only guess at what may be best for you.
Here are some simple things:
If you want to animate bitmap frames, use AnimationDrawable: http://developer.android.com/reference/android/graphics/drawable/AnimationDrawable.html
If you want to animate the movement of views within your hierarchy, use the view animation framework: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/graphics/view-animation.html
The new more general animation framework can do a lot more stuff an is often easier to use: http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/graphics/animation.html. This is natively available in Android 3.0+ but can also be used in Android API level 7 with the support v7 library.
If you want to write a custom widget that is an integrated part of its view hierarchy and manually does its own animation drawing, you can use a Handler to time the updates (usually you'll want 60fps or 20ms between each invalidate()) and then in your onDraw() method draw your view's state based on SystemClock.uptimeMillis() as a delta from when the animation started.
Here's a simple repeated invalidate using Handler:
long mAnimStartTime;
Handler mHandler = new Handler();
Runnable mTick = new Runnable() {
public void run() {
invalidate();
mHandler.postDelayed(this, 20); // 20ms == 60fps
}
}
void startAnimation() {
mAnimStartTime = SystemClock.uptimeMillis();
mHandler.removeCallbacks(mTick);
mHandler.post(mTick);
}
void stopAnimation() {
mHandler.removeCallbacks(mTick);
}

Since this question has some interest I will reply.
The best way to to that is to have a separate canvas thread. A "separate" canvas can only be achieved with a SurfaceView. LunarLanding is an excelent example of that use. Each frame is calculated separately than the main view sharing only CPU time, not drawing time. Therefore is faster, even with the combination of for e.g a regular view at the top and an animating view at the bottom.
But you have to set an interval if you are in that shared environment. That interval is used for the FPS cap. If you don't set FPS cap then the CPU will running wild managing to get good animation to the SurfaceView if it was alone. Capping it at 60fps or even less will do the trick to draw all views efficiently with no CPU overload.
So see the drawing thread of the Lunar Landing from the API demos and set a FPS cap.
private long timeNow;
private long timeDelta;
private long timePrevFrame;
private void capFps(int fps) {
timeNow = System.currentTimeMillis();
timeDelta = timeNow - timePrevFrame;
try {
//ps you can always set 16 instead of 1000/fps for 60FPS to avoid the calculation every time
Thread.sleep((1000 / fps) - timeDelta);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
timePrevFrame = System.currentTimeMillis();
}
and then the drawing thread will look something like this:
#Override
public void run() {
Canvas c;
while (run) {
c = null;
sleepFps(60, false);
try {
synchronized (surfaceHolder) {
c = surfaceHolder.lockCanvas(null);
widgetView.doDraw(c);
}
} finally {
if (c != null) {
surfaceHolder.unlockCanvasAndPost(c);
}
}
}
}