Alturion Professional Advanced GPS 6 - The New D3 ? Is There A SDK ? - Page 5

stevieg · 07-22-2005, 04:57 AM

Why oh why do ALL navigation software companies not give a ***** about PC products?

Even infomap navigator don't seem to be bothered.. And they only make PC products!!!

The only software that does have a good SDK resource, and a good SDK community is mappoint 2004 - but that doesn't allow map rotation, 3d mapping or 'night mode'.

Next stop on the road to navigation software...?

http://www.navipc.com/inglese

ccsnet · 07-22-2005, 05:00 AM

Unfortunatly D3 its look like... although I still think one eye on this might be worth it...

Terran

sweetlikealemon · 07-22-2005, 05:25 AM

I thought I would give Alturion a try.
Its not TS friendly at all.
You have to select city/postcode/street from drop down box.
It does not remember window settings.
It constantly hangs.
My car sometime disappears from the map and if i go from full screen to non-full screen it fixes itself.
Its a resource hogger, my poor little disk works hard to get it loaded.
The routing goes from Milton Keynes to London via Cape Town.

0l33l · 07-22-2005, 05:30 AM

Anyone check out teletype? They've got an SDK

Maximus · 07-22-2005, 06:12 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by 0l33l

Anyone check out teletype? They've got an SDK

The free version is pretty much the same as Alturions, a remote.

The $495 is the destinator version.

"TeleType offers a Free Software Development Kit (SDK) for basic interaction with the TeleType GPS program."

"TeleType GPS SDK w/ API Price:$495.00"

rickster · 07-22-2005, 09:22 AM

Well I have received an email from Alturion. Heres my questions:

Quote:

Sirs

I am interested in converting our current application that is using another mapping software to using Alturion as the mapping engine. But I have some questions please.

1. Is it possible to use the SDK to pull the maps into our own front end without having to embed the full Alturion application. This is quite key as it will need the look and feel of the rest of the software.
2. We will basically need to control the software completely from the SDK. For example, create routes, points of interest, mph or kmh and so on. Is this possible

Thank you for taking the time to read my questions and I hope for a positive response. I hope we can do business in the future.

Regards

Ricky Cross

Quote:

And... to my surprise - I got a response

Dear Sir,

Not everything you ask for is possible. You can take a look at the desktop SDK on www.alturion.com -> software development kit for a description and samples of the SDK.

Kind regards,

alturion support

Talk about customer service. What is not supported? Why won't they be specific? Dam - if this is how they are niow, what are they gonna be like if we started buying the software

I have now replied to the above email with:

Quote:

Sirs

Thank you for your response. I have looked at the Alturion SDK and samples but the samples don’t work. VB crashed whenever you wish to add a waypoint. Also, routing of the waypoints is extremely slow. Is this normal

Many Thanks

Ricky Cross

We shall see

ccsnet · 07-22-2005, 03:01 PM

Right guys - chatting to Stevig today about my upcomming GPS software review and we started talking about NaviPC... now its an OK app but it does have one feature that Steveig picked up on - it uses ( directly ) Navtech SDAL DVD's.

For those that dont know ( and then ment me today ) basically its a open standard of mapping that Navtech sell, they have a royalty free spec so ANYONE aslong as they can understand it write any GPS app to go with it.

Steveig also said this was not easy task but NaviPC shows it can be done...

So... my point is - are looking at this all wrong - do we collectivly need a new approach to use a standard that is avaible in just about any contry going.

Terran

PS - Alot of car systems that use Navtech maps use the same format

BIG THANKS TO STEVEIG FOR THIS

http://www.navteq.com/sdalformat/
http://www.navipc.com/

rickster · 07-22-2005, 03:15 PM

do you/anyone have any idea how to read the sdal format into an app

I thought about this but thought you would need a few quid to buy the developer licence to read the raw data

ShawJohn · 07-22-2005, 03:50 PM

So would this mean we could buy DVD nav disks for mainstream cars like the BMW & VW cheap off ebay that would work on a CarPC?

rickster · 07-22-2005, 03:55 PM

as long as it was a navtech cd in the sdal format

This includes most car manufacturers and companies like pioneer

stevieg · 07-22-2005, 04:08 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by rickster

do you/anyone have any idea how to read the sdal format into an app

I thought about this but thought you would need a few quid to buy the developer licence to read the raw data

Have a look on the SDAL link in terran's post. It's an open standard, there is a massive PDF with the file format definitions. It would require some decent file handling coders and graphics coders at least.

It's worth looking at with the idea to perhaps make an open source (sourceforge?) project just need some navtech DVDs to have a proper look and see if the specifications match the actual DVDs. If I can get hold of them I'll have a look and pass them onto Baggers to have a look at too as he will be interested in looking at it to see if it's of any use in BagNav.

RoyN · 07-22-2005, 04:13 PM

that would be amazing... I wonder if they have maps for brazil too.... the only i found was destinator for brazil....

RoyN · 07-22-2005, 04:15 PM

where does it say what areas there are DVDs for? or are all of navtechs data available?

RoyN · 07-22-2005, 04:17 PM

update: bahh, europe and north america only.... I guess thats 99% of all carpcs

Where does the destinator data come from? I thought it was navteq/ch too!

rickster · 07-22-2005, 04:28 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by stevieg

Have a look on the SDAL link in terran's post. It's an open standard, there is a massive PDF with the file format definitions. It would require some decent file handling coders and graphics coders at least.

It's worth looking at with the idea to perhaps make an open source (sourceforge?) project just need some navtech DVDs to have a proper look and see if the specifications match the actual DVDs. If I can get hold of them I'll have a look and pass them onto Baggers to have a look at too as he will be interested in looking at it to see if it's of any use in BagNav.

Yeah I saw the pdf file. Could be complex. Its possible.

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