Colour Schemes

mpwilson99 · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:25 pm Post subject: Colour Schemes

Hi All (Andy_P),

A quick question about the good ole tomtom colour schemes.

I was wondering, why is it when im under Browse Map, where I have the colour of a Toll road edge (say Black), that its this colour is shown when zoomed out. (the road changes to the inside colour if zoomed right in/nav view)

However, if I have a black edged motorway and a blue inside, it is still blue when i zoom in or out (as if it appears to be taking the road inside colour)

A similar yet stranger thing happens if I have a local road which is white inside and has a black edge when zoomed in on Browse map, but if i zoom out then it turns yellow!

The 3 scenerios dont appear to be consisent, so wondered what the rule of the thumb is to keep the road colours the same whether zoomed in or out in browse map/navigate.

Thanks
MPW
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TomTom 700 GO user since Dec 2005.
TomTom PDA XDA user since Dec 2007.
TomTom HTC HD2 user since Jul 2012.

Andy_P · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 3:48 pm Post subject:

Ah... by coincidence I was playing with some colour schemes myself only yesterday! Very Happy

My favourite scheme "GB_New" was showing toll-roads as completely transparent on NAV3 TomToms!
That's because old schemes are missing the last few lines of descriptions, which TomTom added later, and that includes the colours for toll roads.
NAV2 is clever enough to make something up for them, but NAV3 is stupid... and just ignores them completely! I finally got round to adding the extra bits.

Now as for your issue...
I ain't gonna come up with a very good explanation, because I think it's all been 'fudged' more than a bit (see my example above)

But here's what I've found so far...
As well as lines in the file describing "inside" and "edge" for each classification of road, you should also have a line for "solid"?

I thought the program USUALLY uses that for when you were zoomed right out.
But you'll notice for toll roads there isn't a description for "solid", so it must be making it up from some where else. Now, is it also ignoring the "solid" description for some other types of roads?

Questions, questions!

Also in some lines "local" and "destination" roads share the same data (inside and edge) but for other bits they are separate (solid and text).

Lines that say "text" don't actually mean "text" as in the road name display, don't know what it DOES mean.

A lot of lines are ignored in all recent software, and NAV2 (v8+v9) behaves slightly differently to NAV3 (v10 + v11)

I really wish the guy who created the Colour Scheme Editor utility would make a new version with a few tweaks and changes for the new software and scheme files. Trying to work out what's going on on the devices themselves is tortuous!
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mpwilson99 · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 4:49 pm Post subject:

Thanks Andy, so basically its the solids for zoom outs? (tolls excepted).

Im building a new eu colour scheme for my 1000+ miles drive shortly.

I never did find out what the navviews were, I don't always use cse, just notepad and my head pallet to mix the digits up!

Its all good fun & love to play!

Cheers,
MPW
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TomTom 700 GO user since Dec 2005.
TomTom PDA XDA user since Dec 2007.
TomTom HTC HD2 user since Jul 2012.

Andy_P · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 5:03 pm Post subject:

I'm sure you know most of this already, but here's the scheme description from TomTom, and some notes I've gleaned in the past:

051,051,000 // background
153,051,102 // built-up area (city)
168,168,255 // water solid
204,255,153 // park
153,204,153 // woodland
255,255,153 // beach/dune/sand
204,153,255 // industrial zone
204,204,204 // harbor/marina
255,204,204 // moor/heath
153,255,204 // marsh
255,204,255 // pedestrian zone
153,153,204 // airport
204,204,204 // runway
192,192,192 // route background ('below' the road)
136,000,000 // route foreground (on top of the road)
255,102,153 // blocked road (dotted on top of any road)
255,000,153 // traffic jam (dotted on top of any road)
000,136,000 // highlighted / selected (line on top of any road)
255,153,255 // unreachable / not allowed to drive (dotted on top of any road)
255,000,000 // motorway solid
255,000,000 // motorway edge
255,255,000 // motorway inside
136,000,000 // motorway text
153,051,000 // major/international road solid
136,000,000 // major/international road edge
255,255,000 // international road inside
255,255,000 // major road inside
051,051,000 // major road text
255,255,000 // secondary road small
255,255,000 // secondary road solid
000,000,000 // secondary road edge
255,255,000 // secondary road inside
153,153,000 // secondary road text
255,255,000 // connecting road small
255,255,102 // connecting road solid
000,000,000 // connecting road edge
255,255,102 // connecting road inside
153,153,000 // connecting road text
255,255,255 // (major)local road small
255,255,255 // major local road solid
255,255,255 // local road solid
000,000,000 // local/destination road edge
255,255,255 // local/destination road inside
085,085,085 // local road text
255,255,255 // destination road solid
085,085,085 // destination road text
255,255,255 // ferry background
000,000,136 // ferry dots
000,000,136 // ferry text
170,170,170 // railroad dashed A
000,000,000 // railroad dashed B
153,153,255 // water edge outlines
000,000,000 // borders (dot-dash)
000,000,000 // arrows (road direction)
255,255,255 // arrows border (road direction)
000,128,000 // Route indication arrow color, normal
000,255,000 // Route indication arrow color, highlighted
000,128,000 // Tollroad edge color
133,227,135 // Tollroad inside color
000,000,092 // NavView: status/safeview panel background (default:dark blue)
080,080,190 // NavView: status/safeview panel borders (default:blue)
255,255,255 // NavView: status/safeview panel text (default:white)
206,207,255 // NavView: status/safeview panel dim text (default:lightblue)
000,000,092 // NavView: next highway background
255,255,255 // NavView: next highway border
255,255,255 // NavView: next highway text
000,128,000 // NavView: next highway EXIT background
255,255,255 // NavView: next highway EXIT border
255,255,255 // NavView: next highway EXIT text
095,100,215 // NavView: routeplanning progressbar color
192,092,092 // Distant route color

****
Notes:(some mine, some filched from elsewhere)

The last 14 lines are NEW additions (i.e .not in files created by Colour scheme Editor)

Navcore 9 would substitute default values if these new lines were missing, (so Toll roads appear light green to me) but Navcore 10 or 11 just ignores them, so Toll roads disappear off the map!

There seem to be 9 road classifications, from multi-lane divided high-speed super highways down through local "destination roads" that are dead ends or loops. There is some "interaction" between many of these groups. In order (except for toll roads, which are "unique") they are:
Motorway
International
Major
Secondary
Connecting
Major local roads - In the U.S. this means 4-lane roads with stoplights.
Local roads
Destination roads
Toll Roads - Toll roads are an odd duck. There are no "solid" and "small" colours for a toll road, but only inside and edge. As the map is zoomed out to the point where the inside and edges cannot be displayed discretely, the road takes on the colour of the edge.
If you have a black background and a black edge, when you zoom the map out, all the toll roads will disappear.

My advice is to use an edge colour the same or similar to the "solid" colour of whichever road category the toll road most resembles. This can look weird however.
Generally speaking, each road has three colours - one for close up (inside and edge), one for when the map is zoomed way out (small), and one in the middle (solid).

There is some "interaction" between these groups of Inside/Edge,Solid,Small. For example there are separate inside colours for International and Major highways, but they share edge and solid colours. When you get down into the local roads, the different road classes are shown in "close up" mode but will share a colour when the map is zoomed out, with the destination roads disappearing first, then the local roads, then the major local roads, and so on.

Tip: Start with all roads set to the background colour or similar, then start assigning them some gaudy colours so that you can easily identify them. Then add to or change the "comment" to indicate what YOU call this category of road. The comments are ignored. A default set is supplied, but you can put anything in there you want.

Tip: Don't get carried away with trying to make every element a different colour. Pick a few colours and follow a theme, using different shades of those colours. Hey, do whatever you want, but the maps can get awfully "busy" and do you REALLY care where the moors and heaths are? At the other extremes are the monochrome night colour schemes, but to each his own! That's the beauty of the custom schemes and CSE.

Tip: Very generally speaking you will want to use similar colours for inside, solid, and small. It doesn't make a lot of sense for a road to be green at one magnification level, yellow in another, and red in the third.

- Pedestrian walkways and no access roads are marked by lines 19 and 45 "Destination road solid" and "unreachable"
- 100m dots are coloured by Line 66 "Next highway Text"
- Previous Route travelled is coloured by line 70
- Routing arrows are coloured by lines 56+57 "Route indication arrow color, normal" and "Route indication arrow color, highlighted"
- The "route you've already travelled" is set by the very last line "Distant route color". That seemed to be ignored in NAV2 but is definitely used in NAV3 - my "GB_New" scheme had it as a horrible turquoise until I added the missing lines.

Not all the lines "do" something. On a Go 720, at least 20 of them don't do a darned thing. Route background doesn't do anything.

NavView lines seem to be completely ignored, but still need to be there to get the correct total number of lines.
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GerryC · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 10:28 pm Post subject:

Wow Andy, that's some homework. I've also been playing with the schemes some time ago and made up personal schemes based on the GB one.

A few extra tips for night schemes from personal experience...

Use the same colours for roads as your day scheme but make them a bit darker (say 75% of the day colour). You don't want to learn two schemes. However, I've made the local / destination roads have a bright grey edge with dark grey inside (make the solid the same bright grey for viewing zoomed out on the map). This is the only time I use a different scheme.

Make the background black to keep the brightness down. Make the built-up background (dark red for me to match the Renault display).

I'm still trying to work out where the background to "unreachable" roads is set. Mad

Gerry
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Gerry
TomTom730T
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Andy_P · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 12:15 pm Post subject:

M8TJT · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 1:07 pm Post subject:

GerryC · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 1:13 pm Post subject:

All my changes were done in Notepad (remember, I'm the one who did the icons in Paint!). In the main, I've kept to "web safe" colours which often just means using 0, 51, 102, 153, 204 & 255. As you see on your example, most use these values.

You can dim them just by dropping to the next lower figure each time (eg white 255,255,255 becomes dark grey 204,204,204; bright blue 0,0,255 becomes slightly darker 0,0,204 etc).

Gerry

Andy_P · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 3:12 pm Post subject:

Cool, thanks both. Some ideas there!

M8TJT..... Yes the TomTom wants the file in decimal, which is why I can't understand why the Colour Scheme Editor Program uses Hex in it's display... not very intuitive!
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M8TJT · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 3:19 pm Post subject:

Nah, converting hex to decimal or vica versa in my head is not a passtime that I am particularly good at. I know that zero is zero and FF is 255. Presumably there's not a 'switch' dec/hex then. I suppose that would be too helpful. Well the geezer who wrote it has a (double) Dutch sounding name, so he probably thinks in Hex Shocked

Andy_P · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 3:28 pm Post subject:

I tried doing some and ended up with "FFS!" rather than "FF" all the time... Wink

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mpwilson99 · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 11:22 pm Post subject:

Thanks for your replies folks,

After going through a blank list, these are the ones i have found dont appear to do anything but will stand corrected!

route background ('below' the road)
blocked road (dotted on top of any road)
traffic jam (dotted on top of any road)
motorway text
major road text
secondary road text
connecting road text
local road text
destination road text
ferry text
arrows border (road direction)
NavView: status/safeview panel background (default:dark blu
NavView: status/safeview panel borders (default:blue)
NavView: status/safeview panel text (default:white)
NavView: status/safeview panel dim text (default:lightblue)
NavView: next highway background
NavView: next highway border
NavView: next highway EXIT background
NavView: next highway EXIT border
NavView: next highway EXIT text

Cheers
MPW
_________________
TomTom 700 GO user since Dec 2005.
TomTom PDA XDA user since Dec 2007.
TomTom HTC HD2 user since Jul 2012.

Andy_P · Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2012 12:57 am Post subject:

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stuart · Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2012 5:35 pm Post subject:

Has anyone got the Atlantica colour scheme used on the TT 7100 and 1000 series. I quite like it but as yet can't copy it from my sons TT7100 Pro... Sad

Andy_P · Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2012 11:08 pm Post subject:

As far as I know, NONE of the built-in TomTom colour schemes have ever been released officially as user colour schemes. People have just made close approximations of several of them.

I've seen most of the old ones recreated (africa.clr, amerika.clr, antartica.clr, astra.clr, belgica.clr, brittana.clr, germana.clr, greys.clr), but not the newer Atlantica yet.

It needs someone to do the donkey-work of finding RGB colour values for 70-odd map features from some screen shots off the TomTom.

I like it too, so I'd be interested as well if you DO find it.
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