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A Better Breed of GPS Software?
willo asks: "I recently built an on board computer for my Grand Cherokee.
The initial uses for it include music, gps navigation, on board diagnostics and a baby cam so I can see how my kid is in that rear facing seat. After lots of research and testing, I'm really disappointed with the
mapping software out there for Linux. Gpsdrive provides the basic functionality I need, but the street names are built into the image and
are difficult to read at a glance while driving. Not to mention that it has to download the maps it needs ahead of time. Xastir can handle almost any map out there, but it reads through every map for each redraw! It also seems to lack the ability to zoom intelligently based on location. Note that it's not really designed to be a navigation aid, but rather a ham radio APRS tool. (I am a ham). Delorme Street Atlas USA does what I really want, but it's been a pain to make run properly under wine. Is anyone else out there working on a decent navigation application?"
Map Sources do exist for this! Bruce Perens made TIGER/line data availible. NAVTECH is the map source for pretty much all the vehicle navigation systems out there, and high resolution maps are availible from the Geographical Information Survey."
"To be really usable navigation software should do the following:
- handle maps efficiently and draw them quickly
- have intelligently organized map sets for countries/states. (You can't download a friggin map in the middle of Montana!)
- include serial gps/gpsd support. (just about everyone has this)
Map Sources do exist for this! Bruce Perens made TIGER/line data availible. NAVTECH is the map source for pretty much all the vehicle navigation systems out there, and high resolution maps are availible from the Geographical Information Survey."
Pull into a service station and buy a map - much better suited for the problem at hand and much less expensive.
You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.
Okay, this might be a really stupid question. Why not install Windows with some commercial software instead of trying to patch together some half-baked solution?
Jason.
Dude - shouldn't you be focussed on driving?
For another higher-end app, check out FUGAWI (fugawi.com).
You may want to try VMWare or Win4Lin for Windows apps on Linux, the latter being *much* more lightweight than the former. I don't know if WIn4Lin can utilize the serial ports, but VMWare certainly can.
Method of processing duck feet
So long as you have a flashing font, below the image of your baby, saying "Baby Cam", so you don't forget what it is and suddenly think it's a TV documentary or your radio is talking to you; Can be dangerous whilst driving.
and the problem is the datasets....
I have the complete specs and entire dataset for the USA for the 1997 Census data set.. which includes streets,addresses,etc... It's free for public use and most companies base their dataset on this (although a current version of the data) or they use a closed and secret dataset... The problem is that the closed data set... I have the full specs on how to use it with sample C code from them on how to use it, and they basically wrote me my app except for the GUI... but the Dataset SUCKS (NavTech comes to mind).. and is horribly expensive... a 3 state CD costs $150.00 and is missing anything that is not a major metropolitan area.. which is useless as when you get lost it's out in the middle of nowhere...
gpsd is a must have, it's the best GPS data server on the planet (and the only one) but except for GPS drive, there is nothing that is worth even messing with as they are either too young to use, or havent been worked on cince 1999 and are dead/dying...
I'd help but I'm no C programmer... and C++ is plain evil (in my opinion) I dont know GTK, or Qt (Please PLEASE stay with GTK so I can use it with xfce or another window managet that is sane in size and resources needed)
But the same thing is happening on the windows side... Delorme tripmate software from 1998 is nice but needs help... the newer stuff is nothing but a rehash with the latest libs and designed to use the newest dataset. but as far as GPS navagation software, Microsoft platforms have crappy software too.. I want to do many different navigation things, How about storing a waypoint easily? how about storing the current position as a waypoint right now without disrupting the current nav operation? Nope...
Linux doesnt have that "itch" that needs to be scratched. At least not by a talented programmer.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Baby cam? Do you really need to be looking at your baby while driving? I guess this will allow you to see how the baby's car seat holds up when you get in a wreck because you were watching him vomit on himself instead of paying attention to the stoplight.
Surely it's safer for your kid if you watch the road ahead while driving a large, lethal piece of heavy metal, rather than try to zoom in and read street maps and watch your kiddy cam.
What's your kid gonna be doing, anyway ? Holding up a large sign saying "Daddy, stop being so bloody stupid" ?
I was searching for some software similiar to your requirements and found a windows app from down under which actually meets most them. It's called OziExplorer. It makes extentsive use of map types (including GeoTIFF, which almost none of the commercially available GPS software vendor provide) and has a fairly configurable setup. It is a windows app, but it may fit the bill.
Don't feed the trolls.
GPSDrive *is* a great solution...you just have to have roving connectivity, or trace the route before you go. Yeah, I know- I've been waiting for roving connectivity since 1978...
In the big picture, GPSDrive is probably it; the way open source works is to take requirements, tips, and inspiration from users and turns them into reality. And every day it gets more polished, better, more capable.
I've wanted to take my whole life on the road full time since 1978. I got distracted by a wife and kids, but now I'm working on it again. I've seen LEO satellites launched, go bankrupt, and get re-used. ($3000 to start, and $6 a MINUTE?!?!)
Given time, it'll be there....contact the guys at GPSDrive, offer'em help and maybe you can stay free, in the car...
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
...if you can code in Java, my open source GPS library will make this a much easier process. Demo applications are included (for PC's and Palm's).
.pdf format). I built some mapping/tracking display software (based on the GPS Library) that is used as part of this project.
All at Chaeron GPS Software
Also check out the Mobile GPS Demonstration Platform (MGDP) project info (in
Enjoy!
Chaeron Corporation
I write GPS mapping software for Windows, aimed at the outdoor recreation market. You can check it out at http://www.expertgps.com/
ExpertGPS is unique in that it pulls down topo maps and aerial photos over your Internet connection, so you can scroll the map across the country and the program automatically downloads and displays the correct maps. For the geocachers out there, ExpertGPS reads geocache data downloaded from http://www.geocaching.com/, and even links back to the geocaching website to report your finds.
The next release will support scanned paper maps and additional file formats, and a PocketPC version is in the works.
About a year ago, a bunch of GPS developers got together to work on a standard XML file format for exchanging GPS data. A number of programs now support GPX (the GPS Exchange format), including programs for Mac, Windows, and Linux. For details, see http://www.topografix.com/gpx_resources.asp
Nice example you're setting for your kid.
God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve for a reason! Get your faggotry somewhere else!
MCS is an open source self hosting c# compiler for linux that doesn't need any microsoft libraries
Eat any good books lately?
Way to go you insensitive bastards!
More intelligent map handling is in the works for Xastir. For things like Tiger maps it already doesn't read thru every map for each redraw and the maps are nicely detailed. And organizing the tigermap sets is high on the list of todo's.
If you see features that are needed, come on by the sourceforge project page at http://sourceforge.net/projects/xastir/ and leave a feature request. Or join us on the mailing lists at: http://krypton.hscs.virginia.edu/mailman/listinfo/ xastir-dev
and http://krypton.hscs.virginia.edu/mailman/listinfo/ xastir
The developers are active and very responsive to reasonable feature requests. (heck we even accept some of the unreasonable ones :-)
The screenshots for Gnomad made me think we'd have a good solution someday soon, but it still doesn't appear to even be available for download.
I would think that an application like that could use sound/voice so the driver doesn't need to be staring at the screen. Why not use a text to speech program to read the road names and also set up sounds to go off at certain key points. If you get really fancy you can have it say "Make the next left onto main street in one quarter mile." You could also hack the code of gpsdrive to make a large text window on the bottom of the screen. In there you could display vital information like road names/directions in very large font.
Upon rereading I've notice gpsdrive doesn't actually know the road names, it's "built into the image." That's huge problem for systems that do things like direct you. I think it's about time that some dedicated people figure out ways to get around that because the software will not be fully functional til it reaches that point..
The OpenGIS Consortium is a standards body which has been thinking a lot about the technologies, protocols and infrastructure needed to support the kind of tasks you want to perform. (Acualy, so far a lot of it has been behind closed doors as the Open in OpenGIS tends to come into effect once they think they have the standards right)
You can find out a bit more about one initative that they are involved in here:
http://www.openls.org/about.htm
And a google on OpenLS will bring you back more.
Now, all that tells you is about the standards, but doesn't give you any tools you actualy need.
[big self plug]
I am one of the lead developers of GeoTools2 an open source Java project which is aiming to implement as many of the OGC standards as make sense (and those of other standards groups if they seem appropriate). So far the toolkit will give you the parts you need to read a number of datasources, filter them to show what you want to see and render them using a detailed styling descriptor aimed at geographic information.
It dosn't hook to GPS yet, though the ChaeronGPS library mentioned in other posts may merge well with what we have alrady.
I'm not a mobile map expert, though I would be happy to combine the map rendering expertese I have with someone who is activly developing GPS solutions.
GeoTools2 is available under the LGPL (www.geotools.org), the OGC can be found at www.opengis.org
--
Spell checker (c) Creative Spelling inc. (aka my dyslexic brain)
Spell checker (c) creative spelling inc. (aka my dyslexic brain)
If you wan't to try something fancy, you can have overlapping maps of various scales and use PostGIS to select the correct map
PostGIS adds support for geographic objects to the PostgreSQL
object-relational database. In effect, PostGIS "spatially enables" the
PostgreSQL server, allowing it to be used as a backend spatial database
for geographic information systems (GIS), much like ESRI's SDE or
Oracle's Spatial extension. PostGIS follows the OpenGIS "Simple Features
Specification for SQL" and will be submitted for compliance testing at
version 1.0.
PostGIS has been developed by Refractions Research Inc as a research
project in spatial database technology. PostGIS is released under the
GNU General Public License. We intend to continue development as time
and resources permit. Our list of future projects includes enhanced
technology for data loading and dumping, user interface tools for direct
data access and manipulation, and support for advanced topologies at the
server side, such as coverages, networks, and surfaces.
http://postgis.refractions.net/
http://qgis.sourceforge.net/
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
http://grass.itc.it/
I concur that the mapping and trip planning software for any OS:(OS != Windows) is pretty poor. Yes, there are mapping programs out there that will show you where you are, but there are few trip planning programs that will help you select your route, identify items of interest along your route, and help you schedule your time. Of the Windows programs that I've used I have to give the nod to the various Delorme packages. However, Delorme is pretty much Windows only (yes, they do have MacOS versions of some of their programs, but the Mac versions lag the Windows version significantly).
/.'ed with requests for a Linux version (or even a Wine version) of their software - they might actually consider it. (In point of truth, setting here on my desk is a mailing from Delorme for their newest Street Atlas program - I am going to reply nicely to it and inform them that until such time as they can tell me truthfully that I can run their program under Linux they can remove me from their mailing list).
As I see it, the problem is that creating a trip planning program is hard - not only do you need the map data (which is available), you need the route computing algorithm, you need the map drawing algorithm, you need the database of attractions, rest stops, gas stations, restaurants, and hotels. You need to pull all of that together. A proper trip planning program would be a project of greater magnitude than a good word processor.
While I would definitely agree that the best solution would be a Free Software solution, with a Free Software database, if you look closely at my ID you will notice that I'm Wowbagger, not RMS - I will accept a closed solution.
Unless someone is (actually, severel someones are) interested in creating a project on Sourceforce for this, I think the best solution is to bring pressure to bear on the vendors. Imagine if Delorme's suggestion box were
I have to wonder if the "give away the razor, sell the blades" model would work for a Delorme - make the actual mapping program Free Software, and make the old versions of their maps freely available (a la the AlladinSoft Ghostscript model), but sell access to the latest maps. This way, we could create a good mapping program under Linux, and have access to a database to feed it, but Delorme could still make money off their value-added - the up to date databases.
What I'd like to have is a scriping interface - so that I could write my planning script to say "Don't bother looking for hotels along the way - only look within 50 miles of a nighttime stop. Look for GOOD attractions within 100 miles of the route, mediocre attractions within 25 miles, and whatever within 5 miles. I want to leave at 17:30 Friday, I want to stop around 21:00 +/- 1 hour, start my days at 07:00, and stop for lunch around 12:00+/- 1 hour. Try to schedule stuff around those times." In other words, let my script generate trial routes, query the database relative to that route, and make changes.
Also, give me the ability to plug in my own databases (something Delorme is lacking in) - I want to get the database of 2 meter and 70 cm repeaters from the ARRL and plug that in too.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Advantages:
This isn't trolling, so I hope I don't get flamed, but here goes...
Have you tried getting Microsoft MapPoint 2002 to run under Wine? I've been playing with the MSDN version from work and it seems to work real well. It's just, obviously, Win32-based. It might be worth investigating... Huge install, but that's all the maps.
Although GRASS (GPL) is just now running on PC's via Cygwin, it was designed as a Unix GIS. What it provides:
* A framework for organizing, storing and retrieving maps.
* Map information that can be presented multiple layers at a time.
* A means of generating an image file based on various map layers.
* A map feature attribute mechanism. This is what allows you to control street names and how they appear as you zoom in and out.
* A C api with over 800 GIS functions. (Also a Java interface)
With GRASS, you could write a C program that monitors the GPS fix queries the map database and repeatadly presents the info as a image on your screen.
BTM
That was the turning point of my life--I went from negative zero to positive zero.
As my high school football coach/drivers ed teacher used to say, "Keep your God damn eyes on the road before I smack you in the head!".
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
OziExplorer is the package that i use the most, it's a really qick windows application and has lots of maps redially available. I've tried it under wine but for some reason it slows down quite drastically but you can still talk to the gps w/ it. If gpsdrive could support the map formats from Ozi easily that would be a good solution and if there was a native linux verison of OziExplorer that would be even better
There isn't one. Sorry, but them's the facts.
Right now, the best solution available is from Alpine. By combining these products you can have everything that you want with the exception of the web cam. But, you can hack that yourself.
No, none of these are free. In fact, they are really quite expensive but, it sounds like you want the best so, here it is.
The other alternative is to get another vehicle that already has this equipment installed and beautifully integrated into the vehicle. You will think that you have died and gone to heaven if you trade your Grand Cherokee for an Acura MDX. The vehicle is one of the finest SUVs available and the gadgets are sweet! The navigation system does all that you want, has voice prompts integrated into the mind blowing Bose audio system and your rear passengers will truely appreciate the DVD changer.
Then you'd be able to track how driving a gas guzzler affects other people.
Quote from article: " Under pressure from Los Angeles- based Occidental Petroleum and the U.S. government, the Colombian military has redeployed its forces to protect a key oil pipeline, leading to an explosion of violence in the undefended countryside."
By slug do you mean the slang word for bullet, or are you referring to the sticky wormlike creatures that sadomize garden gnome statues?
I just helped my brother assemble and set up one of those aluminum small Shuttle barebones computers in his SUV. Since he has no opposition to using Windows, the software side of GPS mapping software is no problem. He wanted to get the Rand McNally Streetfinder software and GPS bundle that Staples had for $89, but it seems to have been discontinued.
Streetfinder is inexpensive enough by itself at $30, but finding a GPS that includes a PC cable seems to be running in the area of $150. Anyone have a recommendation on an inexpensive GPS unit that can connect to a PC and works with Streetfinder?
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Is anyone else out there working on a decent navigation application?"
Telmap are doing just that. The client is written in Java, and will run properly under Linux.
Here is my baby cam. I'll bet it was a lot cheaper than yours!
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
Hey I was going to do my Master's thesis on creating better navigation software using GPS dammit!! So wait a few years.
And don't forget, it's Unamerican not to go to the Cavalcade of Chrome!
If you want a good laugh, visit a Hummer dealer. The Hummer 2 is a mommymobile. Everybody looking at them has rugrats in tow. The thing doesn't even have enough driver legroom for tall guys, and the towing capacity is low (less than a Ford Explorer) for the size of the thing.
He actually made an intelligent point and was the first thing to come to my mind. Everything he wants to do will work with Windows, the baby cam, the music player, and the nav system. Sometimes you've got to bite the bullet and go with the (closed source) thing that works. Unfortunately there isn't a counterpart in the opensource world for every closed source peice of software, so the only real choices are start an open source project to fill this niche, or move to the platform that has the software/hardware already working.
Few more feature ideas:
You really want a commercial GPS nav unit with voice prompting. You might be able to kludge something in Linux, but it won't work well, won't have an easy and low-distraction interface, and will take your eyes off the road. Commercial products (not PC software, but GPS nav systems from Alpine & others) have pretty good datasets and voice prompting, etc.
A PC in the car makes sense as a jukebox, but you should really consider just getting an off-the-shelf mapping system. (A side benefit to this is that you may be able to use the video input to the head unit for the map as a monitor for your pc)
-Isaac
I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
For a few hundred bucks, you can pick up a standalone GPS unit with mapping and routing capabilities, and the maps on CD to download to the unit. Either the Garmin GPS V or StreetPilot III will give you far more detailed maps and better navigation than anything I've found on Linux.
There are downsides. You will need windows capabilities to download maps to the unit, but you won't need to do it while driving. You'll have all the maps on CD, so they won't be autoupdated but you won't need an internet connection to upload maps. It won't integrate into the rest of your systems beyond waypoint, route and track, and position transfer.
But if you want navigation, it's a better solution.
TIGER/Line data for the entire country (U.S.) is always available for free from the Census Bureau in TIGER format. If you find free datasets online you can pretty much bet they are based on TIGER. If you need data in a more standard industry format, ESRI makes TIGER available in their Shape format here although it may not always be the latest available. TIGER is not the best data for routing and/or GPS applications, but being complete and free it will generally do the job in a pinch. There are lots of other companies that resell this data in more useful formats, sometimes with many enhancements.
Regarding software:
Communication with a GPS via NMEA sentences is relatively simple. NMEA is a standard text format that most (all?) GPSs are able to use. I have written several simple objects that parse NMEA into usable information and I'm sure there is lots of existing code available to do just this if you dig.
GIS was originally a UNIX market and some vendors (ESRI atleast) still sell GIS software for these platforms. The problem is, GIS has been traditionally expensive and tools like ArcInfo are way beyond your needs. I have yet to find a simple GIS with routing for Xwindows.
There is a small company in Poland called TatukGIS that sells an excellent GIS toolkit called the TatukGIS Developer Kernel. It includes a very capable GIS viewer object and a GPS object for NMEA. These tools are written with and originally designed for Borland Delphi although they now make an ActiveX version available. Last year they made a release that was compatible with one of the earlier versions of Kylix. I'm not sure if the current version is still focused on cross-platform compatibility, but this would be an excellent tool to use and would do the job with no problems.
I have both Kylix and the DK here as well as plenty of data and have worked with the DK quite a bit on the Windows platform. I'll have to see if I can get a little tool built on one of the XWindows machines. From previous posts it seems that there may be an interest if such a tool were created.
Maybe he was able to buy all that stuff cause he didn't spend his money on stupid things like Windows.
Duh!
This is just sort of a side-note, but I noticed there's a project underway to give GPS capabilities to the Empeg Car/Rio MP3 Car players out there.
Once again though, the lack of good quality GPS tools and maps for Linux is sort of a stumbling block.
I've been playing with GPS stuff for years now - and I agree with the assertion that DeLorme's Street Atlas USA has the best. Unfortunately, I never cared much for some aspects of their interface. It's just that the maps themselves look the best, and it seems to track your position on the streets quite well. The biggest problems I saw in the product were related to ease of locating specific addresses or locations, so you could mark them as start or end points in a complete route.
Right now, I have a Clarion AutoPC in my car, and I'm using the 3rd. party Odyssey GPS package with it. The map data it uses is quite good, but the AutoPC itself doesn't have a fast enough CPU in it. It always lags behind where your car really is. It shows you coming up on an intersection just after you've driven past it. Quite annoying.
Delorme vastly improved the importing of data in LAT / LON format back in Street Atlas 6. All that took was a bunch of us rockhounds requesting the feature. While it can't directly read other database files, it can import properly formatted text files. Fellow rockhound Gerry Brown exported the USGS MASMILS database into state and commodity extracts. When imported into SA, it places a blue diamond icon for every line. It is possible to turn most of the state of California blue with all the mines and mineral occurances.
You could use the Java version of MapX, (I think it's called MapeXtreme...) if you have the cash to throw at it. We use it for mapping vehicles over the web. It's pretty fast, uses standard USGS map data, and is very easy to implement.
At one time I thought that as well. Currently I'm working part time for a company that does some ship navagation software in testing (I can schedule around classes), and I can say that that model really dosen't work.
The big problem is that you don't have to buy the charts from us, we're compadable with other charts as well, and there are standards for electronic charts that many vendors follow (I'm not sure, but I'd assume that street-level charts have a simular standard). So in this case, the company making the software could end up not making money at all. The give the software away for free method works best where people/companies would pay for services, the only way this could work out for the company would be if the software somehow could only use the maps they sell, and they charged a lot more money for them.
I always prefer to start the year off with a bang - or, to be more precise, a series of loud hums, a crackle or two, and
I am running Delorme StreetAtlas under wineX. It can track using a gps through the serial port, but audio navigation seems to crash the app.
I'm very glad that Delorme was responsive to your needs, but your story tends to confirm my hypothesis.
Consider the nature of the feature you asked for - given a simple file format, for each object in file, create an icon on the map. Since they already have the "create an icon" code, the rest of this feature is a pretty simple one to implement.
Unfortunately, the code to implement what I want (Linux support) is NOT already present in their code base. And given some of the other replies to my posts, my conjecture about the nature of the code base seems to be correct - they would have great difficulty porting to anything that isn't MS Windows.
www.eFax.com are spammers
If the Windows program meets your needs, why not run Windows?
:) Oh and while you're at it make sure you throw away that Grand Cherokee of yours as well as your Televisions, DVD players, game systems, video cameras, all your major appliances, and any store bought clothes you own because those too are manufactured by big "evil" empires. Because you wouldn't want to be caught violating your own principles.
In all seriousness if you just want to run something that's not Microsoft for the fact that you hate the big evil empire, then I advise you to move to a small island in the middle of the ocean somewhere and forgo technology completely because you're never going to get away from large "evil" corporations in the real world. If you have "principles" that state you can't use Microsoft products because they are a big "evil" empire, then those same principles should prevent you from owning a computer all-to-gether (unless you are a hypocrit) because all the hardware is manufactured by big "evil" empires.
While this may not specifically address mobile GIS/GPS, one very good GIS Linux application that I use occasionally is TNTlite, which is part of a group of programs from MicroImages. (I have _no_ association with the company.) It's not opensource, but is is free for personal use, and is somewhat similar to GRASS mentioned above. (Actually it runs on Unix/Linux, Mac, and win.)
http://www.microimages.com/tntlite/
OpenMap is another free application of interest, although I've found it to be a little quirky.
http://openmap.bbn.com/whatis.html
I've placed some email addresses for Delorme, as well as their snail-mail address, as well as a starting letter to send them in my journal.
I would appreciate anyone who emails or hard mails Delorme writing a brief note about what they did as a comment in that journal entry. I've been pestering Delorme for several years, and they've often responded with "Yours is the first request we've ever had for this." I'd like to build up some evidence to refute that assertion.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Since there will be plenty of people attracted to this thread because of the GPS appeal, I think I could post something that may help some of you (but may not help the original article poster)
:-)
If you're on Windows (God forbid!) I found one of the most attractive options to be GPS TrackMaker. Specially if you like hiking/biking outside and then doing calculations, smoothing, altitude profiling or whatever you feel like doing with your track records.
There is a (very complete) freeware version and a paid-for that is more targeted to the geo professionals. It takes a while to get the handle to it, but well worth your time. Don't forget to download the longer manual along with the software.
Disclaimer: no links to the software or its makers. Just another happy user
If you drive a Grand Cherokee you should use Windows. Windows is big, bloated, backward and expensive, just like your car :-)
I ran across this problem last year when speccing up for marine software. All the nautical ones (for non SOLAS anyway) were windows based, Sure if you have a nice integrated bridge system it'll be some flavour of *NIX, but not joe average.
One of the hassles (certainly for UK) is that ARCS (the admiralty raster charts) are _very_ expensive. oh, and dongle protected...
I'm biased, because I've already been hit by two drivers who weren't paying enough attention (I ride motorbikes), but please don't distract yourself like that.
Being hit by a car is not fun - if you don't believe me, try it yourself. "Sorry mate, didn't see you," or "I didn't mean to" don't make it hurt any less.
If you don't know where you need to go, pull over and check your map. Inconvenient, I know, but much less liable to maim.
On another note, this goes to reinforce the maxim that there's always somebody more stupid than you are careful.
pygps will have this feature in time. Right now I'm working on on-demand map downloading, but navigation is next.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Although not strictly for navigation -
since you mentioned the Amateur Radio
APRS system - I just thought I'd men-
tion UI-View (reviewed, at last, in
QST, Feb 2002).
It's 32-bit version (req's registration)
easily imported a 4 MB map JPEG, derived
from a 20 MB TIF (thanks to ImageMagick)
which would be of good use to those of
us interested in navigating around in
non-urban areas, where topographic maps
are more useful than street maps.
The resolution & colors were BEAUTIFUL!
(Now, if we can only get the organisa-
tion that's used -our- taxes to make
the map[book] to -share- access to the
TIFs from which the -other- 99 pages
were printed, we could navigate just
a bit -further- afield with these great
maps... South Australia doesn't work
like it does in Sweden & USA - yet!
Try Navigatrix
People like you have too little of brains to imagine circumstances in which people might GASP actually need a SUV in everyday life.
Like hmm maybe a 2wd Cherokee is used to tow a boat and a Jeep load full of pasengers. Or perhaps he works construction and can't get around in a Geo Metro that you would have us driving.
Your comment about the 2wd thing is the stupidest thing I've heard in a long time. There are tons of reasons why you'd want the durability and groud clearance of a SUV but not the added expense of 4x4. (Ever wonder how expensive it is to fix a 4x4 system?)
Just because some one can't drive a Geo Metro or Honda civic dosen't mean they have a small dick size. I'd say your the one with the problem bringing that into the conversation.
Please try and see past your limited world view. Not all of us want to eat all vegtables either. Some of us want to grow and be over 130 pounds. Or at least not look like a big pale pussy.
Oh, also useful is incorporating elevation data
into the displayed images, which model the land
Ozi seems to be working on this (last time we
looked, there was a beta to download).
Any other similar work out there (pref. Open
Source, which of course Ozi is NOT) ?
while looking at your nifty little toy.
Jerk.
Our friends at BG Micro have a GPS module for $15 ($25 incl antenna)! Now, you might have to solder to a wires to a chip to get serial output, but for 90% off who cares?
... MS MapPoint or StreetMap. Beautiful accurate maps, hi resolution, good features, etc; around $20 at Sam's Club or other larger outlets.
Another possibility is using a DeLorme Earthmate laptop-type GPS, you can get them cheap on ebay et al. Alas they use a proprietary (ick) Rockwell protocol, but it also spits out some NMEA.
Stay away from the Windows/Wine DeLorme software: it sucks hard. The best software I've found, hands down is
just a coupla points for you geeks to pontificate on,
- john
http://lardcave.net/codestack for info. Python, pygame, and a GPS. The maps are bitmapped, but look nice anyway. If you're interested, email me and I'll let you know when it's done. :-)
and a baby cam so I can see how my kid is in that rear facing seat.
People often install mirrors in the back seat to allow them to see the baby in the rear-facing seat. There have apparently been incidents where the car is in a low-speed accident, and the accident itself was harmless, but the flying mirror injured the baby. Of course, this applies to any material in the back seat which isn't tied down.
So make certain you mount that babycam well...
The good news:h ots/
:(
A GPL'd solution is available:
http://www.gnomad-mapping.com/screens
I haven't used it, but it looks awesome and sounds like it will do exactly what you want.
The bad news:
Wolfgang isn't distributing it yet
the google search you recommended turns up nothing useful.
what page exactly were you referring to?
...no one has, because there's no downloads!
No updates since Feb 2002, looks like a dead project.
Surely it's safer for your kid if you watch the road ahead while driving a large, lethal piece of heavy metal, rather than try to zoom in and read street maps and watch your kiddy cam.
What's your kid gonna be doing, anyway ? Holding up a large sign saying "Daddy, stop being so bloody stupid" ?
Ok...I'll have my GPS software read me directions, while you try to unfold your paper map. Who is going to be the safer driver? Don't always assume that technology will be a distraction.
How about storing a waypoint easily? how about storing the current position as a waypoint right now without disrupting the current nav operation? Nope...
Check out the State series of National Geographic TOPO Maps. They are a little spendy, but I have not found anything better for any price. Marking places is as easy as hitting a hotkey or ckicking on the compass tool.
The truth shall set you free!
The website is lacking data on whether the unit supports NMEA. I did a search and found the datasheet. It is NMEA! The link is here; http://www.bgmicro.com/pdf/acs1394.pdf
Sorry about the PDF.
The truth shall set you free!
Yeah, I am working on a system like that. Our prototype does what you describe and more.
Except that calculating a route takes fractions of a second instead of fifteen seconds. :-)
In addition, the car acts as a sensor to measure the traffic speed on the roads it drives on. This information is exchanged directly via a wireless P2P network among other participating cars. Thus within less than 30 seconds after departure your car has a very detailed up-to-date knowledge about the exact traffic conditions in your city/area.
Using this info it can calculate the fastest route to your target and the approximate remaining travel time. It will also constantly adjust/improve your route as new traffic information from other cars pours in.
And no, you can't buy it yet, sorry. But you can nag your preferred automobile manufacturer (please do!), because these guys are a bit slow to grasp that customers actually want this.
And from your description, your software is just like gpsdrive, which schleps maps from other sources like MapBlast, Terraserver, etc.
:( )
Raster maps don't allow zooming unless you download multiple resolutions, and once you've done this, the maps take a LOT more space than a vector map.
Note: The TIGER datasets are not a good example of a vector map size-wise, as they're in an ASCII format for ease of processing - A lot of the numeric fields could have their ASCII representations replaced with binary to save a LOT of space. Also, rather than having each "road segment" include the name of the road, the segments can be chained together to make a road definition that is a series of latitude/longitude points in a chain. Somewhere I've got a Perl script that does this and outputs it in a format used by a neato Garmin Mapsource map generator program. (Long since disappeared from the 'net...
There's apparently a Gnomad project that aims to support vector maps under Linux, but it's vaporware at the moment. Not even an alpha or CVS release.
The data is there, it's just a matter of writing the software...
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
It's only a 6 channel. lame. just get a 12 channel oem gps board off ebay. It'll be better.
From their email I got a thing like "Market forces.... drop support for Mac.... not in the foreseeable future'
I used to hear that from hardware companies five years ago. I'd invite them to ask their technical staff about Linux, as a significant percent of them are using Linux at home (How did I know? That's what I heard from companies where tech staff answered queries.)...and if Linux has penetrated widely enough that even your staff is using it, consider again its market forces.
I stopped hearing "What's Linux?" from hardware manufacturers within a year. Even their marketing staff now knows.
Small software companies are less likely to know of alternatives, as their few people are less likely to have much experience. (The math is obvious: there are a huge number of small software companies and few people with much experience)
The advantage which many companies have is in their data, not their software. Mapping, geneological, news organizations are selling data.
In the case of mapping, all those dependent upon publicly available data are fighting a losing battle as the public data is massaged and used for public software. Routing algorithms can be a marketing advantage briefly, as there are public routing algorithms and a little public code (some not intended for geographic mapping, such as in circuit layout).
The companies which generate their own mapping data have the greatest data advantage and should be selling the data for any application which wants to use it. Note that any set of data might be sold to a single customer if that customer is willing to pay a sufficiently large price. The creator/user of that data only has an advantage if their data is not available from someone else. And that's a matter of whether or not someone else wants to devote the amount of effort needed to create the data from the publicly available real world. Technology is a strong influence -- mappers used to have to have people extracting data points from photographs, maps, and surveys. Now a computer might be scanning a photo and comparing it with previous maps.
There also are specialty maps, where again it's the effort to create the data which makes it of value. The market for maps of underground mines is small but there are a few mining companies willing to pay a large price. A larger number, such as companies involved in drilling, is less concerned about underground hollows but would be willing to pay a smaller amount for purposes such as reducing the shock on equipment. A much larger number is willing to pay even less, such as prospectors looking for types of minerals previously encountered, environmental groups examining an area, or home shoppers wanting to get a site suitable for trying a geothermal system.
The problem is in how to market the data so as to maximize the profit. Publishing all the data for the many cheap users might mean the few high-priced users won't need to pay the high price. Such things can be handled by methods such as making the price cheaper with a decreasing resolution. The cheapest data might only show there is a mine within a circle of a certain size. The most expensive may be a three-dimensional representation of all the mines in a specific area or highest price for the most recent data.
So... How can you present a business case to Delorme or someone else to make the definition of one of their data sets public? Do they have a product which already only has a data advantage over public code? For years people have been buying CD-ROMs of games solely to get the data file needed for the public code. If a public map program does what I want, I'd gladly buy a reasonably priced set of data for it. Just as I have bought computers preloaded with software priced at thousands of dollars, and immediately erased it all to put Linux on the hardware.
The problem lies with NAVTECH. The GIS TIGER/line databases are horrible. A friend of mine recently made his own custom GPS software using them in only a week or so. The system worked great, except for the fact that the maps were horrendous due to the TIGER/line files being greatly inaccurate. NAVTECH takes the TIGER/line files and basically cleans them up to make them look like the actual world. The problem is that their CDs are in a proprietary format and it costs many thousands of dollars to license the NAVTECH database. Any kind of mapping program more or less uses the NAVTECH files. They are re-branded and re-packaged, but unless someone else goes around surveying the land, there will not be an open-source map db of any quality for a long time.
If you can't read the street names, maybe you should park the car and read the map where you aren't a danger to yourself and everybody else on the road.
And we thought cell phones were bad...
The National Geographic maps seem to work fine for me under the current WINE I have.
wine-20020804-3mdk
No idea about serial/GPS access. Rock on.
-- CH [ Nietsche is dead - God ]
For those interested in contributing, there is an active open GIS community. You can check out the various projects going on at http://freegis.org
An excellent general purpose piece of GIS software is geotools. It is java based, and runs well on linux, reads shapefiles, gml, and raster images. It is not focussed at the GPS field however, and would require modification. http://www.geotools.org
"Xastir ...seems to lack the ability to zoom intelligently based on location."
What does the above mean? Are you looking for zoom level based on speed (like Precision Mapping 3.0 could do) or looking for the feature where details disappear as you zoom out? Xastir has the latter feature for certain map types: USGS DRG Topos, Shapefiles, or DOS/WINAPRS maps, possibly a few others. If you don't like the zoom levels at which different things appear, let the developers know! Nothing is cast in stone.
Zoom level based on speed is listed on the Feature Request list for Xastir/SourceForge.
BTW: It depends how you count it, but Xastir currently handle 115 different map formats. Check it out!
Buy two, they're cheap. :-)
One for the windshield, one for the rear window...