(Alpha) BusiNav - External POIs for iGuidance

b8bboi · 08-28-2007, 09:28 PM

BusiNav

This app allows you to search for nearby POIs (it grabs your current location from RR). For eg., you can search for "Burger King" etc. You can also browse by categories. Once you find your POI, you can navigate to it with iGuidance by clicking on a button.

Limitation: As of now I only have data for VA, MD, DC, NY, Atlantic City, and Philadelphia.
I'm not sure if I'll be able to add more POI data for other states. (I wrote a crawler to grab data from Yahoo Yellow Pages and Yahoo has since changed their format so my crawler doesn't work anymore. I'll try and write another one.)

Requirements:
IGuidance 3.0 or above (haven't tested with iGuidance 2) embedded in RR
GPS port defined in RR (RR can show your speed and heading)
Your IGuidance must be Reshack'ed to have the Coordinates window. Click here for instructions.
Microsoft Access (not sure if this is needed but I use Access for my database)

Known problems
1. It will crash if there're too many results. Always use Search Near. Include as many search terms as you can. Don't search for something too generic like "bank."
2. While the "Searching..." popup comes up, don't click away. Just wait until it's finished.

Download:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=R4NASE8B

Read Readme.txt for instructions.

The app is pretty basic looking, if not ugly (LOL). It also has to be run at around 800x600 (so it probably won't work with 800x480 screen yet).

(You're welcomed to use my database to write another frontend.)

Wiredwrx · 08-28-2007, 09:33 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by b8bboi

BusiNav

This app allows you to search for nearby POIs (it grabs your current location from RR). For eg., you can search for "Burger King" etc. You can also browse by categories. Once you find your POI, you can navigate to it with iGuidance by clicking on a button.

Limitation: As of now I only have data for VA, MD, DC, NY, Atlantic City, and Philadelphia.
I'm not sure if I'll be able to add more POI data for other states. (I wrote a crawler to grab data from Yahoo Yellow Pages and Yahoo has since changed their format so my crawler doesn't work anymore. I'll try and write another one.)

Requirements:
IGuidance 3.0 or above (haven't tested with iGuidance 2) embedded in RR
Your IGuidance must be Reshack'ed to have the Coordinates window. Click here for instructions.
Microsoft Access (not sure if this is needed but I use Access for my database)

Download:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=R4NASE8B

Read Readme.txt for instructions.

Cool, it would be awesome if you could get the data for other states. California (my home state) springs to minf

Michael

b8bboi · 08-28-2007, 09:42 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Wiredwrx

Cool, it would be awesome if you could get the data for other states. California (my home state) springs to minf

Michael

Yes, I will try. I can't promise anything now, though. The biggest problem is Yahoo will temporarily ban your IP if it detects the crawler (ie., if you have been downloading too much from their site). To get around that, I have to find a bunch of public proxy IPs to hide the crawler behind. Then these IPs will stop working after a while so I'll have to find more IPs. It's a big PITA. Took me 2 months to download data for those states.

EL CAMINO · 08-28-2007, 10:23 PM

i second that, california is needed also,you know what, i remember seeing a website some time ago, where people uploads database's of poi's including walmart, home depot, burger king etc. etc., all based in lon. and lat. information. that can be ported to this. i'll see if i can find it for you. once again, glad to see you active in here.

Sal R. · 08-29-2007, 10:01 AM

Awesome...can't wait to implement this.

kbreeden · 08-31-2007, 07:55 AM

b8bboi,

This is hugely cool! It seems to me that the Yahoo site that it's searching will be more up to date than the iGuidance POIs and that it will be more accurate than the iG POIs even though iG now boasts 6,000,000.

Anyway, I have tested it in my car and the main problem I've seen is that it doesn't seem to know where I am. Even though I was in Warrenton, VA, when I did a search for Walmart, it showed me that the closest one was in Owings Mills, MD. I had similar results for a number of other searches - it always showed the closest one being somewhere bizarre and very far from my current location, despite there being many closer. I don't know what's going on with that.

The good news is that it seems to work well with the version of iGuidance that's been hacked to do gas station searches. When using that version I am able to choose navigate on the search results and iGuidance will load the coordinates and route to that location.

Very nice work. Hopefully, the results issue can be resolved so that it's usable.

b8bboi · 08-31-2007, 09:40 AM

kbreeden, it's because Walmart is listed as "Wal-mart" in the database (with the dash, yeah I know it's stupid LOL). Try searching for "Wal-mart" (or even "Wal mart") and it should show the correct listings.

When in doubt, enter the words separately. "Wal mart" should return all the "Wal-mart" and "Walmart".

And actually, it doesn't search from the Yahoo site. The database is downloaded locally so it'll work even if you don't have Internet connection. (The downside is the database won't be up-to-date. All the data is from last year.)

kbreeden · 08-31-2007, 12:09 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by b8bboi

kbreeden, it's because Walmart is listed as "Wal-mart" in the database (with the dash, yeah I know it's stupid LOL). Try searching for "Wal-mart" (or even "Wal mart") and it should show the correct listings.

When in doubt, enter the words separately. "Wal mart" should return all the "Wal-mart" and "Walmart".

And actually, it doesn't search from the Yahoo site. The database is downloaded locally so it'll work even if you don't have Internet connection. (The downside is the database won't be up-to-date. All the data is from last year.)

Yes, GPS is all set up and working. I tried a bunch of searches in addition to Walmart (Wal-Mart, Wal Mart, Pizza Hut, McDonald's, McDonalds, etc.) and the results were always skewed. The distances from me were not correct. For example, when I searched for Walmart, it showed the closest one in Herndon, VA at 2.9 miles, when I was at least thirty miles away. It seems like it doesn't know where I am for some reason.

I'm going on a drive in a few minutes and will try some more searches.

Sonicxtacy02 · 08-31-2007, 12:20 PM

i'm having those same issues and me and kbreeden are in the same area. Does this require you to have the GPSLAT and GPSLON labels in the skin file when its reading?

b8bboi · 08-31-2007, 12:29 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by Sonicxtacy02

i'm having those same issues and me and kbreeden are in the same area. Does this require you to have the GPSLAT and GPSLON labels in the skin file when its reading?

No it doesn't. You can use the sample skin included in the download. That's what I use in mine.

This is weird, though. Seems like BusiNav is not able to talk to RR and get the location. I'll take a look.

kbreeden · 08-31-2007, 12:32 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by b8bboi

No it doesn't. You can use the sample skin included in the download. That's what I use in mine.

This is weird, though. Seems like BusiNav is not able to talk to RR and get the location. I'll take a look.

For what it's worth I was running iGuidance and BusiNav outside of RR.

Also, I didn't have Access or any other database running at the time. Your first post suggests that a database program may be necessary.

b8bboi · 08-31-2007, 12:57 PM

Access might not be necessary. If BusiNav was able to display some results, it means it can talk to the Access file.

You can run BusiNav outside of RR. It doesn't have to be in a skin. Make sure of the following.

1. RR is running and has valid a GPS location.
2. When the "Searching..." popup in BusiNav comes up, don't click anywhere else. Just wait for it to finish.

I'll give you guys a debugging version to see what's going on.

b8bboi · 08-31-2007, 02:12 PM

Here's a debugging version. Extract and save it over BusiNav.exe.

Please try it out and post your debug.txt file.

kbreeden · 08-31-2007, 06:11 PM

Okay, I have verified that RR needs to be running for this to work. I have attached the debug file. The first time I ran the program I again ran it outside of RR, meaning that RR wasn't running, and had the problem I described above. I saw that the debug file referenced a RR failure, so I loaded RR, made sure iGuidance was running and satellites were locked, and it ran perfectly, showing me the Warrenton Staples when I was in Warrenton. That resulted in the second line of the debug file. Very nice!

Now I have only two questions:

1. Is it skinnable?

2. Is anybody else noticing a flickering of the skin when it's running the search?

Boy, if there was an easy way to compile the data for other states this would be a necessary component of RR. As for me, since I spend about 98% of my time in Maryland and Virginia I'm loving life. Nice to have you back b8bboi.

b8bboi · 08-31-2007, 08:00 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by kbreeden

Okay, I have verified that RR needs to be running for this to work. I have attached the debug file. The first time I ran the program I again ran it outside of RR, meaning that RR wasn't running, and had the problem I described above. I saw that the debug file referenced a RR failure, so I loaded RR, made sure iGuidance was running and satellites were locked, and it ran perfectly, showing me the Warrenton Staples when I was in Warrenton. That resulted in the second line of the debug file. Very nice!

Now I have only two questions:

1. Is it skinnable?

2. Is anybody else noticing a flickering of the skin when it's running the search?

Boy, if there was an easy way to compile the data for other states this would be a necessary component of RR. As for me, since I spend about 98% of my time in Maryland and Virginia I'm loving life. Nice to have you back b8bboi.

Yes, RR needs to be running because it grabs the current location from RR. I can add the ability for it to read its own data from a separate port but I'm lazy.

1. No not yet

2. Yes, that is normal. What it's doing is filling the result panel with records. Kinda bugs me, too.

kbreeden, do you have Access installed? Just need to verify that it works without Access.