GPS nav

Hi all,

are there any news on the GPS navigation system? I keep checking back here but nothing has happened. Smu, have you been contacted by TeleAtlas?

Till

Hmm.. Did NavTech ever get in touch with you smu?

Calvin

Yeah, i'm a flinch away from buying a Garmin V, 'cause it's too painful to wait for the empeg nav anymore. It sucks SO much that there's a working program for it, just no maps. One small obstacle that is preventing a killer app from flying loose in empeg land. *sigh*.

I'm in the same boat. I'm currently looking for something that I can put in my 97 BMW M3. Obviously I can't get one of the head unit based ones, unless it will fit in the sunglass holder. I also looked at the alpine systems with the seperate LCD screen, but I don't want to stick a mount to my dash for it. I want to be concealable. Are there any other M3 owners out there that have a GPS system? Let me know what you have, or if you have any info on a GPS system that might work for me.

As I see it, the main issues are as follows, in no particular order...

1) Maps - No one will sell them in an openish format. Is there any hope of reverse engineering a map data CD? Most people here would be perfectly willing to buy the nav CD's if they could "rip" them to the empeg.

2) Routing algorithms - I have no idea what complexities are involved with this at all.

3) Text to Speech - Most phrases could easily be prerecorded, but street names and such can't all be.

All in all, I'd say that without an open source navigation system being used by another project, the likelyhood that everything will come together on the empeg is fairly low.

Matthew

I'm still working with my project, mainly trying to overcome the map sourcing problem. I have some good leads, but I won't go into too much detail until I have something actually running.

I'll keep you guys posted, but since it's my hobby project I don't have full time to dedicate to it.

Kim

I reported any info I got from TeleAtlas and NavTech right in this board. I forwarded the contact from either NavTech (more likely) or TeleAtlas (less likely) over to Kim, but neither of the two contacts seemed to be of any real interest.

Basically, both companies think in sizes of at least 10,000 units sold (that is units that incorporate the navigation system, not units that could do so). Our best bet seems to be to go find a company that is already a customer of NavTech or TeleAtlas (or AND for that matter) and try to make a deal with those, sub-licensing the maps.

Anyway: I am under huge stress right now with my diploma thesis, and can't afford a single hour to work on that. This will continue this way up to July, 21st.

cu,
sven

Thanks for the update fellas. I appreciate it (and all your work on this). Kepping fingers crossed for some good map data!!

Could somebody fill me in on the map issue? Why can't someone go out and buy a map CD from any of the numerous companies that sell them, and import that onto the empeg? Couldn't the empeg program just read the coordinate data that would be included with the maps on the CD?

To see what I mean, check out this site, in particular the Cartographer program:

http://www.gpspilot.com/

If I understand correctly: The map data they've been able to use successfully so far don't have directional information for the roads, so it will sometimes direct you the wrong way down a one-way street, for example.

There might be better map CDs available, but I don't think they've reverse-enginnered the file formats or if they even can?

In reply to:

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The map data they've been able to use successfully so far don't have directional information for the roads, so it will sometimes direct you the wrong way down a one-way street, for example.

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Yes, it's basicaly the difference between jpegs and vector graphics. No navigate you need to know if that line is road or a county line or if the two lines crossing means an intersection where you can turn right, or an overpass with no onramps.

Wait, Tony, you just said "the map dada they've been able to use successfully"? What map data is this? All I've seen is the GPS project displaying cordinates.

Matthew

What map data is this?

Kim Salo's project was using the free TIGER data which unfortunately wasn't accurate or detailed enough for decent navigation. There is a rather long thread (started by me) discussing it a month or two back in the Projects forum. He is looking into alternate data sources at this point. Kim's project is way ahead of the other one, but it certainly doesn't hurt to have multiple groups working on this.

-Mike

Wow, I had no idea that even existed. Very cool. I didn't realize that searching for map data really is the last step towards salvation. I compleetly withdraw my "it's never going to happen" comment above, and eagerly await the day when it does.

Matthew

Navtech uses the TIGER data as a basis. They employ hundreds of drivers with GPS recorders and whatnot, to plod the roads regularly to add directional data and more. They use satellite maps and whatnot to improve the accuracy quite a bit. As you can expect this is pretty expensive to maintain... They seem fine with the idea that if you can't meet the minimum 10,000 units, just find either a company to sublicense, or band together with other interested people (like 5 smaller projects that need 2000 units, etc).

Calvin