SDAL GPS Map Access Navtech Open Standard Thred

ccsnet · 07-24-2005, 03:43 PM

Right all, there have been a few of us chatting about the open standard from Navtech. This all started from a convo about Alturion and NaviPC which directly uses these disks. BTW These are the same format used in cars today

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This is the thred - towards the end... post 67 onwards....

Re - http://www.mp3car.com/vbulletin/show...0&page=1&pp=15

More info

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

So, comments from the community please around making a SDK, what format - ie C or VB and any thing else...

I'm no programmer so I can only make suggestions but if Navipc.com can do it who look to be a 'smaller' company I am sure one of you clever lot ( or a number of ) can do this too... yes if successful you would not need to rely on PC apps developed for this community - more just right the software and buy your own Navtech disk... or if you have one with the car use that one

Terran

ldawg221 · 07-24-2005, 03:55 PM

I was surfing around yesterday and found this website ... GgpsDotNet . It basically is an sdk aimed people wishing to design their own gps solution. You can download a 30 day trial and its 153 dollars for a developers license.

hope this helps

ccsnet · 07-24-2005, 04:39 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by ldawg221

I was surfing around yesterday and found this website ... GgpsDotNet . It basically is an sdk aimed people wishing to design their own gps solution. You can download a 30 day trial and its 153 dollars for a developers license.

hope this helps

Intresting idea and basically how I see this part ( the map reading part ) working.

That site seems to just cover the reading of the GPS data and then doing some thing with it...

Terran ( Although I could be wrong )

0l33l · 07-24-2005, 04:47 PM

Why not use Delphi?

Quattro · 07-24-2005, 05:08 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by 0l33l

Why not use Delphi?

because only you use it.

0l33l · 07-24-2005, 05:54 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Quattro

because only you use it.

Not really. There is a frontend made totally in Delphi. What's funny is that 2 OTHER Delphi programmers showed up for the SoCal meet

RoyN · 07-24-2005, 08:48 PM

signing up for progress

RoyN · 07-24-2005, 08:55 PM

ok, so from gpsdotnet stuff lets see if I understand...

it is basically a reading and interpretation toolkit for GPS data, doesnt do mapping and/or routing does it? Also it wouldnt be cross-platform as its only designed for MS stuff right?

I understand this is no small task by ANY measure... and I wasnt belitteling (splng?) the task of writing a frontend, but was merely stating that it might be more efficient to develop the "sdk" (of sorts, that is being discussed here) with some sort of frontend already (I mean the developers will need some framework to test it, it can then be cleaned up and released as well one should think)...

Yeah, it will take a hell of a long time to dvelop, but it can be very useful, surely something people will pay for (more so than other GPS tools based around crapinator and such)... E-bay has a ton of map dvds 1yr old or so for cheap, so most people would probably be willing to pay or donate to this I'd think...

Open source might be a good idea in this, I wouldnt mind helping out at some point, but at least for now there would not be any GPS support in terms of maps in my country so I'd be limited in any help I can lend.

I think it is a large and difficult task, but definitely doable by a community of very motivated and intellignet and good developers like we have seen here on Mp3Car...

s003apr · 07-24-2005, 11:13 PM

If the idea is to allow others to make their own custom frontends then there is only two right ways to do it. C or C++.

Once you get a simple front end for querying the database written in either of these languages then it is almost trivial to make wrappers for almost every other language that anybody would use.
Also you keep it cross-platform this way, which may not seem important but the Linux/BSD community can put a lot of help behind any OSS project.

rickster · 07-25-2005, 05:24 AM

I know navtech is probably the way to go but if we already own the maps etc from teleatlas (ie. destinator et al) then can't we use our own engine to create a sdk using this

http://www.na.teleatlas.com/products/formats.html

stevieg · 07-25-2005, 05:56 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by s003apr

If the idea is to allow others to make their own custom frontends then there is only two right ways to do it. C or C++.

Once you get a simple front end for querying the database written in either of these languages then it is almost trivial to make wrappers for almost every other language that anybody would use.
Also you keep it cross-platform this way, which may not seem important but the Linux/BSD community can put a lot of help behind any OSS project.

Yep agreed any navigation software mad 'from scratch' ought to be cross platform, probably QT and C or C++; there seems little point doing all that work and limiting it to windows or writing it in VB/C#.net et al and slowing it down!

stevieg · 07-25-2005, 05:58 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by rickster

I know navtech is probably the way to go but if we already own the maps etc from teleatlas (ie. destinator et al) then can't we use our own engine to create a sdk using this

http://www.na.teleatlas.com/products/formats.html

We'll have to look into this do you have any idea which format the D3 data is provided in?

rickster · 07-25-2005, 06:27 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by stevieg

We'll have to look into this do you have any idea which format the D3 data is provided in?

Im not sure but i found some more info and some sample downloads of map data in different formats

http://www.adci.com/products/navteq/index.html

stevieg · 07-25-2005, 06:40 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by stevieg

We'll have to look into this do you have any idea which format the D3 data is provided in?

I've had a look it doesn't look like it's on the CD in a format we know, it looks like they get the raw data from Navteq (current D3 maps) or Teleatlas and compile into their own format.

If anyone can get me a SDAL CD/DVD I can have a look and see if we have everything we need to start coding.

I would assume that if the format is readable and usable then the next step is to contact Navteq and let them know what we're doing and make sure they know it's going to be done whether or not they agree, and it's gpoing to be free/multi platform, then start a sourceforge project.

rickster · 07-25-2005, 07:27 AM

Quote: Originally Posted by stevieg

I've had a look it doesn't look like it's on the CD in a format we know, it looks like they get the raw data from Navteq (current D3 maps) or Teleatlas and compile into their own format.

If anyone can get me a SDAL CD/DVD I can have a look and see if we have everything we need to start coding.

I would assume that if the format is readable and usable then the next step is to contact Navteq and let them know what we're doing and make sure they know it's going to be done whether or not they agree, and it's gpoing to be free/multi platform, then start a sourceforge project.

I don't think they'll mind as they will be getting revenues from the sales of the cd's.

I had a look at bmw's cd and they are a bit weird. They have loads of files and folders of images that I presume are for poi (ie icons for the map and photos of hotels etc for more detail). There is one file called "incar" that has no file extension on it at all.

I am currently getting a friend to have a look at Audi's/blaukpunkt's data cd to see what that one is based on.

I will keep you posted.