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ShowMeHills / ShowMeHills

Android augmented reality application which overlays mountain peak names over a camera view
http://www.showmehills.com
30 stars 16 forks source link

Must hold phone upside down #28

Open jidanni opened 7 years ago

jidanni commented 7 years ago

This is the only app I know that forces me to turn my cell phone, Android 7.0, totally upside down to use the app. At least a start up screen should say why in the world this is necessary. Why can't it just be like all the other apps and figure out what way I'm holding my cell phone?

nikcain commented 7 years ago

Some phones like the Nexus 5x and Nexus 7 have a camera chip that's mounted upside down (http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/9/9696774/google-nexus-5x-upside-down-camera). Android can handle this just fine if the app uses the latest Google camera software, but that software was only introduced a year or so ago and many older apps needed to be updated to keep up.

I updated Showmehills, but found it still causes problems for other users (causes a black screen). So I gave you the option to use the new camera software or the old - if you go to preferences there's the option for alternative camera settings. Try this, it might solve the problem.

jidanni commented 7 years ago

Ok I found the option but it was cut off in portrait mode, so be sure the options are visible completely in portrait or landscape and not cut off. However unfortunately it didn't solve my problem here with my Asus Zenfone 3. Anyway if it would have then I would say that upon initial start Maybe have a little box at the bottom of the screen that says is this upside down? It's so push this button...

jidanni commented 7 years ago

If so, push this button.

nikcain commented 7 years ago

That's a shame it didn't help (switching between the modes requires a restart of the app to activate). It'll be difficult for me to find the cause without having that model of phone myself.

The option in preferences wasn't the ideal way of doing it, when I put it in I was pretty sure people wouldn't realise it's there. Unfortunately the app has no idea if the image is upside down (if the app knew I'd just have it flip modes automatically, or change the settings to flip the image), so it was difficult to know when to show a button like that.

So I'm sorry, but it looks like I might not be able to help, which is disappointing but sometimes it's hard to get every phone out there to work.

jidanni commented 7 years ago

How well does https://github.com/sky-map-team/stardroid App work on your phone? If it's working good then just use the same method that it uses to determine if it's upside down or right side up.

nikcain commented 7 years ago

Maybe I've misunderstood - is it the camera view that's upside down (with the hill markers the right way up, i.e. the text is ok, but the view isn't), or is the whole thing upside down? That's the main difference between apps like skymap - they're rendered graphics (like the hill markers), while showmehills main view is the camera view.

jidanni commented 7 years ago

Right from the welcome screen it is upside down...

jidanni commented 7 years ago

I can used the app just fine, I just have to turn my phone over.

nikcainC4 commented 7 years ago

I'm still puzzled - is it using the wrong camera so that you have to face the screen side towards the hills? Or is it that it's rotated left when you want to rotate it right? (when it comes to landscape view there isn't an upside down, it's either a left or right rotation from the portrait view - some apps do both, some apps only do one)

jidanni commented 7 years ago

Let's just talk about the screen which says welcome to show me hills. (Which by the way sometimes I see, and sometimes it just starts without it. Odd.) In https://goo.gl/images/f6r1Cp if I am holding my ZenFone 3 in screenOrientation 90, and start your app, I must turn it around to screenOrientation -90, else the welcome screen, mountain names, and image of the mountains are all upside down.

If I am already holding my phone in screenOrientation -90 when I start the program, all is well.

Nothing to do with the front camera.

nikcainC4 commented 7 years ago

Ah, ok. That's normal enough - the app is only shown in the -90 orientation. I didn't think anyone would find it too complicated to turn their phone round.

Getting it to do both might be straightforward - I'll have a go when I add in the saving of slider positions.

jidanni commented 7 years ago

Thanks. Yes. Good. I don't think young people even know how to turn their phone around these days.