Optimize the HERE SDK

This optimization guide lists several options to shrink the size of the HERE SDK and to optimize the runtime behavior by reducing the data that needs to loaded or processed.

Use the Feature Configuration

With feature configurations you can specify how much map data should be loaded when panning the MapView or when downloading a new Region for offline usage. For example, if a feature like turn-by-turn navigation is never used in an application, it can be removed.

As a result, when panning the MapView less data will be downloaded into the cache. In addition, when downloading a new Region, its size will be smaller.

By default, all features are enabled. However, if a "FeatureConfiguration" is present in the AndroidManifest and/or PList file, then only the listed features will be enabled, all others will be disabled. If you want to disable only one feature, then all other features need to be present, or they will be also disabled.

For example, the following enables only navigation and truck features and disables all others. On Android devices modify the AndroidManifest file like so:

<meta-data
  android:name="com.here.sdk.feature_configuration"
  android:value="NAVIGATION, TRUCK" />

On iOS devices modify the Plist file like so:

<key>FeatureConfiguration</key>
<array>
  <string>NAVIGATION</string>
  <string>TRUCK</string>
</array>

As of now, these features can be specified:

1. "DETAIL_RENDERING": Additional rendering details like buildings. Only used for the MapView. When not set, the data will be excluded when downloading offline regions or prefetching areas that contain such data. However, during online usage such data may still be downloaded into the cache and shown.
2. "NAVIGATION": Map data that is used for map matching during navigation. When not set, navigation may not work properly when being used online or offline.
3. "OFFLINE_SEARCH": Map data that is used to search. When not set, the OfflineSearchEngine may not work properly when being used.
4. "OFFLINE_ROUTING": Map data that is used to calculate routes. When not set, the OfflineRoutingEngine may not work properly when being used.
5. "TRUCK": Map data that is used to calculate truck routes. When not set, the OfflineRoutingEngine may not work properly when being used to calculate truck routes. It is also used for map matching during truck navigation. When not set, truck navigation may not work properly when being used offline. Online truck navigation will still work when the device has an online connection.
6. "LANDMARKS_3D": Map data that is used to render textured 3D landmarks. When not set, the data will be excluded when downloading offline regions or prefetching areas that contain such data. When the landmarks layer is set to be visible for a MapScene, 3D landmarks will still be visible during online usage.

Feature configurations can be updated after the installation of the next application update by calling mapUpdater.performFeatureUpdate(). Call this method once a feature configuration has been updated in the AndroidManifest/PList file.

As a result, the cached map data will be deleted and subsequently updated. Also, the downloaded regions will be updated to reflect the changes.

Note that it is the developer's responsibility to decide when to perform the update. The HERE SDK does not decide or notify when such an update can be made. Calling performFeatureUpdate() is only necessary once - after an application has been updated. It is not necessary to call this, when the feature configuration has not been changed by a developer.

As listed above, for some disabled features, a device may still download corresponding data when a device has online connectivity and the feature is needed. For example, when the "LANDMARKS_3D" feature is disabled, but the corresponding MapScene layer is enabled, then the device will still download the needed textures to render a 3D landmark when it becomes visible in the MapView viewport.

For all listed features from above - except for "OFFLINE_SEARCH" and "OFFLINE_ROUTING", the HERE SDK will first check if the needed data is available in the cache. If not found there, it will look if there is a downloaded Region for offline use. If not found, the HERE SDK will try to download the needed data over the air. For "OFFLINE_SEARCH" and "OFFLINE_ROUTING" the behavior will be the same, but no data will be requested over the air.

Remove Unused Fonts

By removing unused fonts you can reduce the size of the HERE SDK. This is explained here.

Remove Unused Voices

By removing unused voice guidance files you can reduce the size of the HERE SDK.

These files are only needed when you want to use turn-by-turn navigation with text-to-speech voice messages.

Do the following to remove the unused files.

For Android:

• Unzip the HERE SDK framework and search for the assets/voice_assets folder.
• If you want to shrink the size of the framework, you can remove the voice packages you do not need.
• Re-archive the AAR with Android Studio.

For iOS:

• Inside heresdk.framework open the folder ios-arm64/voice_assets and remove the voice packages you do not need.

Here you can find a list of all supported voice languages together with the name of the related voice skin that is stored inside the HERE SDK framework.

More Options

Other options to optimize the HERE SDK include:

• Optimize the map cache.
• Use custom map styles that contain less elements to render.
• Preload map data with offline maps.
• Manually initialize the HERE SDK only when it is needed.
• Adjust the frame rate of the MapView.

In addition, all engines contain several options that allow how to configure a feature. For example, when using the SearchEngine, you can specify SearchOptions to limit the returned search results.