Hi Andreas, Thanks for the quick response. This is a really good idea. Currently, my focus was just on getting users used to the idea of using a plus code as an alternative to an address. But I didn't think enough about how helpful the plus code would be in navigation because I thought you'd still need to be online to make use of plus codes to get directions.
I wonder if it would be possible to build even more detailed offline text navigation through the geo tiling idea. E.g if someone wants directions from current location to point B and the app has stored plus codes of some points in between e.g. road intersections, then we could string together a complete route by calculating the distance between closest plus codes at each point of the route. While the urban areas within countries like Tanzania have good data connectivity yet still expensive, the rural areas sometimes don't have any connectivity at all so a completely offline routing system would be really useful for organizations working within these areas. On Tuesday, December 3, 2019 at 9:49:19 AM UTC, Andreas B wrote: > > If you are including the OLC library in your project directly, you will be > able to calculate a plus code from the user's device location, and also > translate any plus code back into latitude/longitude coordinates. All on > device, without any need for connectivity: > https://github.com/google/open-location-code/tree/master/java > > Calculating the distance could then be performed on the lat/lng > coordinates using something like the Haversine formula ( > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haversine_formula) - or, alternatively, > following something like this wrapper class I created a while ago if very > rough approximations are good enough for an offline, step-by-step > navigation: > https://github.com/bocops/open-geotiling/blob/master/java/org/bocops/opengeotiling/OpenGeoTile.java > > In any case, displaying the current and destination plus codes while the > user approaches might help them find the exact location more easily. > > On Tuesday, December 3, 2019 at 6:20:27 AM UTC+1, Abizer Jafferjee wrote: >> >> Actually, connectivity is a big issue because mobile data is still >> relatively expensive in Tanzania. >> >> Currently the QR code has a deep-link back to the digital address within >> the app. >> >> One option I thought of was to create a USSD application which can be >> triggered from the app and would retrieve text directions to the location. >> >> I like your idea about giving some helpful information. How would I >> calculate the distance between two plus codes? And how would I know the >> plus code of the location the user is standing at? >> >> Thanks Andres >> >> On Monday, December 2, 2019 at 3:52:54 PM UTC-5, Andreas B wrote: >>> >>> That makes sense, thanks for the explanation. I agree with the >>> conclusion that plus codes aren't that useful in any scenario where both >>> users are online, and can just access a database with all the necessary >>> information. I wonder if it would make sense for your app to use plus codes >>> as a fallback for scenarios where one or both users sharing an address are >>> currently *not *online? >>> >>> For example, I assume the QR codes displayed by your app contain an ID >>> value referencing the address data. If the QR code *also* contained a >>> plus code directly, that could be used to at least display *something* >>> even if the user is not currently online. >>> >>> Would a statement like "1.5km to the north-west - more information if >>> you're back online" be useful, or is connectivity not an issue that needs >>> to be solved in your app's case? >>> >> -- Public site: http://www.openlocationcode.com/ Github project: https://github.com/google/open-location-code Demo site: http://plus.codes/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Plus Codes Community Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to open-location-code+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/open-location-code/328c05d9-1271-4f09-b45d-770e16888c42%40googlegroups.com.
