Navigation For Pandora

[WizardStan]

Exact same way. It works perfect for me.
Try opening a dos prompt, and then executing
c:\Program Files\navit\bin\navit.exe
See if it produces any output or errors.

 

[borgqueenx]

Exact same way. It works perfect for me.
Try opening a dos prompt, and then executing
c:\Program Files\navit\bin\navit.exe
See if it produces any output or errors.

it works now strange....
Now i need it to reconise the map

EDIT: .....how do i do that. I have a file called: osm_bbox_-11.1,35.5,18.8,58.9.bin from planet extraction.

 

[WizardStan]

Hmm, there seems to be some problems. I can't get it to load anything other than the sample map. Everything else it tries, it just crashes.
At any rate, when using the sample map, even in Linux, when hitting the Destination button, it brings up a nice search box. This does nothing in Windows for me. Zooming out doesn't even seem to be doing anything.

To add your map, open the file C:\Program Files\Navit\share\navit\navit.xml in a text editor (not Notepad, you'll just get a mess), search for "<mapset enabled="yes">", set the map type="binfile" (if it wasn't already) and change the data="location/of/your/map.bin"
It may be better to make a copy of that block, and set the original to enabled="no" so that you can go back and experiment with the sample map if you want to.
I'll keep playing around with it to see if I can get it to work. Let me know if you have any sort of success as well.


edit: AHAH! The map I downloaded first was corrupt. I re-downloaded and it works now. Just change the data line in the navit.xml to point to it, and it loads. I had to find it, though, by zooming out until I saw lines, and then zooming in on those lines. The Destination button still doesn't seem to be working. Also missing are the Point of Interest markers: it's nothing but roads. The linux version is much nicer to this, but it should give you a general idea of what it looks like.

edit 2: apparently the "destination" and "orientation" buttons have been linked to "zoom in" for some reason. Probably a bug that the devs should be informed about. I'll do so.

 

[borgqueenx]

Hmm, there seems to be some problems. I can't get it to load anything other than the sample map. Everything else it tries, it just crashes.
At any rate, when using the sample map, even in Linux, when hitting the Destination button, it brings up a nice search box. This does nothing in Windows for me. Zooming out doesn't even seem to be doing anything.

To add your map, open the file C:\Program Files\Navit\share\navit\navit.xml in a text editor (not Notepad, you'll just get a mess), search for "<mapset enabled="yes">", set the map type="binfile" (if it wasn't already) and change the data="location/of/your/map.bin"
It may be better to make a copy of that block, and set the original to enabled="no" so that you can go back and experiment with the sample map if you want to.
I'll keep playing around with it to see if I can get it to work. Let me know if you have any sort of success as well.


edit: AHAH! The map I downloaded first was corrupt. I re-downloaded and it works now. Just change the data line in the navit.xml to point to it, and it loads. I had to find it, though, by zooming out until I saw lines, and then zooming in on those lines. The Destination button still doesn't seem to be working. Also missing are the Point of Interest markers: it's nothing but roads. The linux version is much nicer to this, but it should give you a general idea of what it looks like.

edit 2: apparently the "destination" and "orientation" buttons have been linked to "zoom in" for some reason. Probably a bug that the devs should be informed about. I'll do so.

followed your instructions....nothing. Just like before. No sample map or real map.
I dont see anything! Just one color and the buttons on top.(and dos prompt on background.)

edit: i got it to work. Just put the map file into the c: root and made the name smaller of the map. and ofcource changed the location in the xml file.
Everything looks good! but how can i search for a location? and why cant i see shit when i zoom out to much?

 

[WizardStan]

Like I said, the Destination button is supposed to be the search. It works perfectly on my Linux desktop, but does a "zoom in" on Windows.
And you can't see anything when you zoom out too far because it doesn't render smaller roads when you zoom out. Zoom out far enough and it doesn't even render big roads. It seems strange that it doesn't render water though. Maybe that should be a feature request: render oceans, even when zoomed out.

 

[borgqueenx]

Like I said, the Destination button is supposed to be the search. It works perfectly on my Linux desktop, but does a "zoom in" on Windows.
And you can't see anything when you zoom out too far because it doesn't render smaller roads when you zoom out. Zoom out far enough and it doesn't even render big roads. It seems strange that it doesn't render water though. Maybe that should be a feature request: render oceans, even when zoomed out.

and the more big roads and big cities. for easy scrolling.

 

[WizardStan]

I built Navit for my BeagleBoard. The one that already exists in the Angstrom repository I couldn't get to work at all, and the 0.1.1 package I downloaded from the Navit sourceforge page was as bad as the Windows one.
Building from scratch, I got a fully working navigation software.
I had the following problems:
1) Not really a "problem" but certainly annoying, there's about a 3 second response time when zoomed in too close; ie, suburb view. Drag the cursor around the screen, search for a destination, whatever. Takes about 3 seconds before it gets where it needs to be. This was the result of more and more roads needing to be redrawn. Zooming out to highway view, everything was nice and smooth. With GPS data streaming in, moving it small amounts at a time rather than the huge jumps I was testing with, it should be smooth. Attempting to move the map in much smaller steps (mm at a time) shows much better response than dragging halfway across the map. (Incidentally, gpsd (the GPS daemon which reads GPS data and makes it available to applications like Navit) was also installed, seemingly automatically. More experimentation needed to make sure it came with the right package)
2) Every time I did a search, it assumed I was in the US. I had to blank out the country and type Canada. This could be because the default "center" is in the US, so (without updated GPS data) my last location was somewhere east coast United States. Again, not a real problem, just annoying. Unless it really does use my position to fill in the country, in which case it's useful. It does not fill in the city, however. That could be because I didn't have city information for wherever it thinks it is, though. If you actually have a map for the area you are in, it might know better where you are. I'll have to experiment a little more.
3) This is an annoyance leading up to a real problem. To search, you enter a country (Canada), city (Toronto), district (Toronto again. This is required, even if it's the same as the city, hence the annoying), and then street (Front Street West). The good thing was, as I was typing, it was making suggestions in real time. I typed "Front Street" and in the list box below it was "Front Street East" and "Front Street West", which was good. The problem is when I went to enter a street number: it didn't recognize it! It didn't recognize the street address. I entered "65" for the number, select box went empty. No options, no anything. Clicking "Map" and "Destination" did nothing. From the Wiki

Right now, zipcode, district, and street number (?) searches are unimplemented; only Country, Town, and Street actually work (as of svn r1175). Furthermore, there is no US State or County information; when searching for a US town, you may get hits from all over the US with planet.bin, and unfortunately, the states that each hit is in are not displayed. You basically have to use the Map button to examine them one-by-one, until you find the one you want (or, only travel to towns with unique names).

So it's a feature they're missing, and are hopefully working on with priority. There is a work around: search for the street, kinda guess around where it would be, right click (or click and hold for a second) on that location, and select "Set as Destination".
Also a nice feature that's missing is POI search. You can see the POIs around you, you can select one and "Set as Destination", but you can't actually do a search for "McDonald's" or "Gas Station" yet.

edit: oops, forgot to add screen shots
This is Navit loaded in Angstrom in a window
This is with the "Fullscreen" option selected. The problem with this is that, when fullscreen, no other windows (ie, the destination window) can gain priority. Mostly a useless feature in this case, then. However...
This is Navit maximized. Accomplishes the same thing as fullscreen, but doesn't prevent other windows from stealing focus.
Keep in mind, my resolution is 1280x900 (I think, something like that, I can't remember exactly) so it's redrawing a lot more than it needs to. If I were to compile a Pandora specific one, I'd make sure the default window size was less than 800x480, (probably 400x240) but maximized by default.

edit again:
Navit at 400x240. At this size, the response time is definitely much better, almost instant, and it's still big enough to see a turn or two ahead. I also tried 800x480. It was also faster, but still about 1.5-2 second delay dragging across the entire map.

 

[borgqueenx]

nice is it easy to make it work for windows?

Those screenies and the search function seems nice
I hope the annoying things can be fixed in the future as well
Does navit has 3d bird view by the way?

 

[WizardStan]

The Windows setup file is probably much out of date. It would have to be compiled from source, and I'm not set up to do that. Someone else is welcome to take a crack at it, however.
I'm looking at some other open source GPS software, Gosmore and Roadnav
Roadnav is very US centric. It downloads official map data from the government as needed, though I was able to get it to download maps wherever I needed. In theory you could run this, connect your Pandora to the internet somehow, download the section of map you want, and then go offline. For outside the US, it can supposedly connect to the OpenStreeMaps servers (after you've entered your own login information), but I haven't gotten that to work. The biggest benefit is that I was able to select two locations, request a route between them, and it automatically downloaded all the map data I needed to get from one point to the other. On the downside, there's no POI data, and no obvious way of saving or importing maps: every time you want a map, it needs to be downloaded.
Gosmore needs to have the OSM data converted. The instructions direct you to download planet.osm, and run the converter on that. Unfortunately that takes an estimated 5 hours, so I'm trying to strip down to just a small section I can test with. I'll report back my findings later.

And yes, Navit does have 3D perspective view: I've seen screen shots, but I'll be danged if I can figure out how to activate it.

 

[WizardStan]

Gosmore is not navigation software, it's just a renderer of OSM data. It'll take GPS data and tell you where you are, but no routing or anything. It was, however rendering very fast. This could be because I only had a small bit of map, rather than an entire city like I had with Navit. As a bonus, it could also search for POIs on the map. It couldn't tell you how to get there, but if you wanted to know where the nearest Shoppers Drug Mart was, you could select it from the list. If there's more than one, you need to look at each one to see where it is. Not very useful if you've downloaded the entire planet, but if you've only got a small city, it might work. No special features beyond displaying where you are on a map.
Roadnav doesn't seem to be working very well either. No POIs, limited searching, all map data must be downloaded. Doesn't seem like a suitable solution.
I tried Traveling Salesman as well. Pro: it's Java based, so it can run on anything that has a jvm. Con: it's java based, so it can only run on something that has a jvm. It also has very limited search capabilities, but on the plus side, it can automatically download OSM data of where you are, import from file, and save that all to a directory to load later. It's routing capabilities suck though.
Looks like Navit is still the best bet. If it can be made a little more responsive, and at least given nearby POI search ability, it should work out perfectly.

edit: oh, right. Navit I was playing with on my BeagleBoard; Gosmore, Roadnav, and TS I was using on my desktop. That probably accounts for why they were running smoother than navit, as navit is also perfect on my desktop.
It could also be because I'm using my BeagleBoard through VNC. I'll try a direct connection

edit update: yeah, it was VNC. Plugging directly into my monitor, there was still a delay as I dragged across the map, but it was tolerable. Noticeable, but less than a second to refresh.
I also discovered a few things.
(1) The country is assumed to be whatever country you happen to be in, so good. I discovered this because...
(2) You can change your position by click/holding (or right clicking) a location to make a menu appear, and choosing Point->Set as Position
(3) By setting my position in this way, I was then able to set another location as my destination in a very similar way, and it almost immediately created a route for me.
(4) You can then change your position, and it will automatically recalculate your route to the existing destination.
Unfortunately, without an actual GPS to test this with, I can't comment on the Turn-by-Turn navigation. The wiki claims to have it, but I don't know how good it is.
So, to summarize: Navit == good enough. Excellent routing ability, with less than ideal search capabilities, but there are work arounds for the searching. Maybe the searching will be improved over the next few months, or someone with a Pandora will find the time to improve it once it's in hands and we can do some proper testing.

 

[DAP]

Last thing I want in GPS software is something that assumes an internet connection and downloads maps on the fly. I want to be able to download the entire world to the device so that when I am out in the boonies somewhere and really need a map, I already have it. I don't want to loose maps when I loose the internet connection.

It would be fine if it tried to download an updated map for the current location, but it better be able to fall back to the already downloaded map on the device.

Also I want it to use OpenStreetMap data. I have a Garmin unit, and when I went to Ecuador a few years ago, there were no maps available for that country from Garmin. (at the time, the OpenStreetMaps had no roads in Ecuador either, but since then roads have been showing up).
OpenStreetMap maps have the advantage that when you find an error (or a change), you can fix the map yourself. With Garmin, you have to wait for them to update it, which may or may not fix the error, and then you have to purchase the same map again.

 

[WizardStan]

I have just finished downloading the planet.bin file, and I got to say, everything continues to work. Even with 2.4 gigs of map data, there are still no major slow downs.
As an experiment, I put in a long route: Toronto, Ontario to Hartford, Connecticut, an 8 hour drive to the south east. This was a good test of the routing because there's Lake Ontario in the way. It took a total of 18 seconds to calculate the route. Normally I go west to go around the lake. This is the way Google says to go, and takes about 8 hours, as I said. Navit had me going east and north, towards Montreal, a trip which would increase the time by about 2.5 hours. So the heuristic they're using isn't quite perfect for long distances. I moved my starting position the west side of the lake, and suddenly it started matching up with what Google had.
I am not going to complain about the route heuristic they used: it was intentionally a hard route to calculate. For shorter distances without huge bodies of water in the way (no, it won't give me directions across the ocean, I just tried ) it should be very good.
So, from what I can tell, to be truly useful, Navit will need 3 things:
1) A complete address search. Not just the street search it has now, but actually being able to enter a numeric address. Even if it's not perfect (and I've yet to find any navigation software (free, commercial, and google) that is right all the time), so long as it comes kinda close, you can then count from there.
2) POI search, both by name and by type. This doesn't actually seem like that difficult of a thing to do, it's just something the developers haven't had time to do.
3) Way points; being able to say "go here, and then here, and then here" in a single route would solve that tricky routing problem. When in doubt, let the human do some of the work for you.
One other thing I found annoying was that, when I zoomed out, country and land mass borders disappeared. It'd be nice if they were always drawn, especially for Europeans who might need to see where they are relative to 3 or 4 other countries.
oh, and 4) there's no seperation by state. There are over a dozen Hartfords across the US, and currently no way to tell the difference when searching. The data is there, they just haven't found a way to use it yet.
That's my opinion. With a few tweaks, I believe this will be very good software for the Pandora, and look forward to using it on my car trips.

 

[borgqueenx]

I have just finished downloading the planet.bin file, and I got to say, everything continues to work. Even with 2.4 gigs of map data, there are still no major slow downs.
As an experiment, I put in a long route: Toronto, Ontario to Hartford, Connecticut, an 8 hour drive to the south east. This was a good test of the routing because there's Lake Ontario in the way. It took a total of 18 seconds to calculate the route. Normally I go west to go around the lake. This is the way Google says to go, and takes about 8 hours, as I said. Navit had me going east and north, towards Montreal, a trip which would increase the time by about 2.5 hours. So the heuristic they're using isn't quite perfect for long distances. I moved my starting position the west side of the lake, and suddenly it started matching up with what Google had.
I am not going to complain about the route heuristic they used: it was intentionally a hard route to calculate. For shorter distances without huge bodies of water in the way (no, it won't give me directions across the ocean, I just tried ) it should be very good.
So, from what I can tell, to be truly useful, Navit will need 3 things:
1) A complete address search. Not just the street search it has now, but actually being able to enter a numeric address. Even if it's not perfect (and I've yet to find any navigation software (free, commercial, and google) that is right all the time), so long as it comes kinda close, you can then count from there.
2) POI search, both by name and by type. This doesn't actually seem like that difficult of a thing to do, it's just something the developers haven't had time to do.
3) Way points; being able to say "go here, and then here, and then here" in a single route would solve that tricky routing problem. When in doubt, let the human do some of the work for you.
One other thing I found annoying was that, when I zoomed out, country and land mass borders disappeared. It'd be nice if they were always drawn, especially for Europeans who might need to see where they are relative to 3 or 4 other countries.
oh, and 4) there's no seperation by state. There are over a dozen Hartfords across the US, and currently no way to tell the difference when searching. The data is there, they just haven't found a way to use it yet.
That's my opinion. With a few tweaks, I believe this will be very good software for the Pandora, and look forward to using it on my car trips.

and that button to switch to bird 3d view.

It is open source yes? so it should be possible

 

[Tuxedomask29]

Would it be possible to use something like this? http://www.polstargps.com/Polstar_Navigation_Software_PolNav.html

 

[WizardStan]

It looks like, in theory, it will work. It says it can run on Linux, and they have an ARM port, and at 800x480 resolution. Two and a half questions then:
1) Do they have a build which is all three (Linux, ARM, 800x480) at the same time?
2) Where can it be purchased and for how much?
2.5) Is it something you really would be willing to pay for?

 

[Tuxedomask29]

I sent them an email asking their thoughts with the Pandora's Specs. I don't have a problem paying for it, if it will work more like a commercial unit with respect to just point, enter address, and go. When it comes to GPS's fancy features or difficult setup is not something I want. Just get me where I want to go. Thanks for your quick response!

 

[Tuxedomask29]

I sent them an email asking their thoughts with the Pandora's Specs. I don't have a problem paying for it, if it will work more like a commercial unit with respect to just point, enter address, and go. When it comes to GPS's fancy features or difficult setup is not something I want. Just get me where I want to go. Thanks for your quick response!

Just a quick update for those who are interested...

I received a response from Frank, a sales rep., for Polstar. At this point he had more questions than answers such as how the device GPS functionality works. Told him via USB or Bluetooth external GPS Antennas. He ask if we were looking for an individual software solution or if we wanted to distribute the software with the device. I told him an individual software solution. I'll let you know when I hear more.

 

[valhalla]

Data suitable for navit can be downloaded also from http://downloads.cloudmade.com/ where there are extracts for most world countries, updated quite often.

Last thing I want in GPS software is something that assumes an internet connection and downloads maps on the fly. I want to be able to download the entire world to the device so that when I am out in the boonies somewhere and really need a map, I already have it. I don't want to loose maps when I loose the internet connection.

I'm not so sure that downloading the entire world (and loading it on navit / any other device) is a good idea as a rule: loading this much data is going to slow the software to a crawl, and since OSM data is updated quite often, you're probably going to have to download multiple times something you're never going to use. For most people downloading a few country/state extracts and loading them as needed is probably enough for daily usage, with further downloads before planned trips.

 

[WizardStan]

I'm not so sure that downloading the entire world (and loading it on navit / any other device) is a good idea as a rule: loading this much data is going to slow the software to a crawl

Actually I did this, just to test various things (including whether that much data would slow it down, if I could route a path over the ocean, what the "world" looks like zoomed out, etc...)
End result: it did not slow things down at all; it won't even try to create a route over the ocean; if you zoom out enough to see an entire continent, you will see nothing (it doesn't render any roads or even borders because they're "too small" or something).

 

[borgqueenx]

I'm not so sure that downloading the entire world (and loading it on navit / any other device) is a good idea as a rule: loading this much data is going to slow the software to a crawl

Actually I did this, just to test various things (including whether that much data would slow it down, if I could route a path over the ocean, what the "world" looks like zoomed out, etc...)
End result: it did not slow things down at all; it won't even try to create a route over the ocean; if you zoom out enough to see an entire continent, you will see nothing (it doesn't render any roads or even borders because they're "too small" or something).

cant you edit that yourself since its open source? or does it take to much time or is the code one big puzzle?

would be cool to have a nice working 3d navigation on the panda

and have you told the navit dev's the bugs already?