This might be an exaggeration, but if I wanted to summarize your post into 3-4 sentences, I would do it like this...

Roughly, your summary was about right.

It would be great though, if you would help us with some information like the data format of the maps you use, NMEA communication routines etc.

Sure. If you get a project moving (will it be whatever), I'm happy to help if you are having problems with something that I've gone through or would have a clue otherwise. It would be nice to see more 3rd party projects and applications going on with empeg as so far they have been pretty limited to DisplayServer and Tony's logo editor plus some smaller helper tools.

Still, what goes for the map formats, the one that I currently use is based on raw MapInfo mid/mif files which are relatively easy ascii files to interpret. However, most of the other formats used by NavTech, TeleAtlas and other car manufacturers (Mercedes, VW, etc) are using their own proprietary binary format, for which they are not likely to release any specs.

I'm aware of the SDAL project which is supposed to fix the situation but as it's owned by NavTech, it automatically means that TeleAtlas (which is their direct competitor) is very likely not going to support nor use it. That kind of breaks the idea of having a one common file format for the maps. Perhaps, it should have been designed by an organization who has nothing to do with the existing companies working on the field to ensure that everybody is on the same line.

However, if somebody happens to have more information or specs on various vector map formats, feel free to let me know.

Kim