Release FoxtrotGPS

[ekianjo]

I tried it with the Nokia LD-3W I received recently and it works fantastic !!

 

[TrashyMG]

Yeah I got it working on my Copilot bluetooth GPS with a bit of command line tweaking. very cool.

 

[ekianjo]

By the way, there is now way to search for an address yet with foxtrot? that point it still missing if that is the case - ideally when i go out i'd like to have mark a point on the map first by looking up an address and then not having to worry about finding it again.

 

[TrashyMG]

yeah, it seems like the only way to plot a course is to find where you need to go manually on the map and mark it.


You could go to google maps search the address and get the Longitude / Latitude.. not ideal but good in a pinch.

 

[ekianjo]

You could go to google maps search the address and get the Longitude / Latitude.. not ideal but good in a pinch.

Yeah why not but if I do that I have enough time to print a map then

 

[Lafazar]

You can set a point as home and a little flag will be displayed there in all zoom levels. It's not as good as routing, but you'll easily be able to find it again at least.

 

[ekianjo]

You can set a point as home and a little flag will be displayed there in all zoom levels. It's not as good as routing, but you'll easily be able to find it again at least.

I understand there are work-arounds, but shouldn't the look-up of an address be a kind of key feature of ANY gps software?

 

[Lafazar]

Well, Foxtrot is still in development. But the main problem is that it's based on PNG-tiles and not on vectors. Tiles are nice for map viewing but next to useless for routing, because the maps are just pictures without additional information.


If we want routing, we need a port of the vector-based map software. It has many advantages, including the possibility to store the complete world map in a few GB. It's very likely that one of the open source android packages could be ported:


http://wiki.openstre...rg/wiki/Android


Edit: The best candidates for a port are imho Gosmore and Navit:


http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Gosmore


http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Navit

 

[ekianjo]

Well, Foxtrot is still in development. But the main problem is that it's based on PNG-tiles and not on vectors. Tiles are nice for map viewing but next to useless for routing, because the maps are just pictures without additional information.


If we want routing, we need a port of the vector-based map software. It has many advantages, including the possibility to store the complete world map in a few GB. It's very likely that one of the open source android packages could be ported:


http://wiki.openstre...rg/wiki/Android


Edit: The best candidates for a port are imho Gosmore and Navit:


http://wiki.openstre...rg/wiki/Gosmore


http://wiki.openstre....org/wiki/Navit

What are the dependencies for those ?


To come back on my original question, I understand tiles are in PNG and do not contain any information, but what could be done is to get all POIs from online databases, store them on the memory card, and then use the POIs database to look for buildings, restaurants, etc... at least the key kind of things people are usually looking for. That could probably be done.

 

[Lafazar]

Sure it can be done, but if you have poi coordinates you might as well store and display everything including streets in vectors. Takes much less space and is automatically routable.


Here are the dependencies for Navit:


http://wiki.navit-pr...hp/Dependencies


The only problem I can see is the opengl that would have to be wrapped in opengl es. As far as I understand you can choose between Qt, GTK or SDL for output.


And here are some build instructions for similar systems, but they seem to be very old:


http://wiki.navit-pr...vit_on_Ångström


http://wiki.navit-pr...t_on_freerunner

 

[ekianjo]

Navit looks very cool !!


I quickly checked the dependencies and it seems very light... probably very portable to the Pandora. Opengl is optional so it is not needed to run the GUI, you can go through GTK which is standard on Pandora firmware.


I don't have a toolchain to build it, but if someone can do it, it should be relatively easy.

 

[TrashyMG]

Hmm the Angstrom instructions tells you what to disable to get it to compile right.. Once I get settled in at work I'll see if I can compile it.

 

[ekianjo]

Hmm the Angstrom instructions tells you what to disable to get it to compile right.. Once I get settled in at work I'll see if I can compile it.

TrashyMG, go for it

 

[Lafazar]

That would indeed be awesome. First the whole wikipedia (14GB), now a detailed map of the whole planet (8.5GB) can actually fit in your pocket on a Pandora. We truly live in the future.

 

[TrashyMG]

It seems to have compiled okay, I need to test the PND still.. will have to wait a few hours.. have to run to a meeting or two.

 

[TrashyMG]

Could a mod split out this Navit GPS application talk out of this thread into a new thread?

 

[ekianjo]

It seems to have compiled okay, I need to test the PND still.. will have to wait a few hours.. have to run to a meeting or two.

Feel free to make a new thread for now

 

[mcobit]

Navit is available from the angstrom repo in an older version. i once got the newer sources to compile, but it just showed some errors and a blank window.


Hope somebody can get it to work.

 

[TrashyMG]

i once got the newer sources to compile, but it just showed some errors and a blank window.

yeah getting kind of the same results. It may be something simple, need more time to look at it. At work currently.

 

[ekianjo]

Hope you can find what is wrong !