Thread: Overland Navigator

Yes on both counts, though not in the short term. We'll be adding support for Canadian Topos as Map-Packs too.

Some of our customers run Road Runner with both iGuidance and Overland Navigator. Switching between the two depending on whether they are on or off road.

Craig

We've added Overland Navigator regional Map-packs covering the rest of the Western US to our webstore (http://spatialminds.com). Regional Map-packs include 1:250k, 1:100k, and 1:24k USGS Topos for a region.

We now have support for the following regional Map-packs available:
Washington
Oregon
California North
California Central
California South
Nevada
Arizona
Utah
Montana North
Montana South
Wyoming
Colorado
New Mexico
North Dakota
South Dakota
Nebraska
Kansas
Oklahoma
Texas
Mid-Atlantic Region (District of Columbia, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware).

Satellite Imagery Packs and US Wide Packs (1:250/1:100k only) packs are also available.

Additional Regional Map-Packs are on their way...

The latest version of Overland Navigator has been released. It was supposed to be a minor release but we wound up adding a few features anyway.

Overland Navigator is topographic GPS mapping software designed to be simple to use in the field. It has an interface that makes it easy to control with a touchscreen, keyboard, or mouse. Menus auto-hide to make use of every last pixel when displaying the map. USGS Topographic map-packs are available for the Lower 48 US states. You can learn more about it at http://spatialminds.com

Some of the new features include:

• APRS specific NMEA support
• Location specific Sunrise / Sunset times
• UTM Coordinate Display
• Continuous GPS Track Storage to Disk
• GPS Output to external devices
• NMEA logging
• Display preferences
• High end GPS support - Track up to 64 satellites
• Bugfixes and performance enhancements

There is a more complete description on the webpage, but here is a brief explanation of APRS display support as it is the most significant new feature. NOTE: Overland Navigator remains as simple to use as ever for non-HAM/APRS users. APRS allows a GPS and HAM radio to be combined to broadcast your postion over the airwaves. Others listen for these location beacons and can plot them on a map/GPS such as Overland Navigator. Repeaters repeat the signals so they can travel for a very long distance. Gateways take the locations and add them to a database that is accessible via the Internet by friends/family (E.g. http://aprs.fi). APRS can do much more, but this is the basic description.

The software supports the APRS specific NMEA sentences that the Kenwood D7xx radios, Tiny Tracker 4, Argent Data Systems, etc trackers output. This allows Overland Navigator to display APRS specific symbols on the map. The radio/tnc/tracker is still responsible for handling the beaconing of your location.


You connect your GPS to Overland Navigator for input, then connect Overland Navigator to your tracker as it's GPS input. The tracker uses this connection to send any stations it heard back to Overland Navigator. This is, for example, the same way that you'd hook up a Garmin GPS to a tracker. There are some advantages to using Overland Navigator over a regular GPS though.


In contrast to most GPS units, when new stations are heard, Overland Navigator will update the location on the map instead of adding an additional waypoint. This greatly reduces the amount of on-screen clutter and removes the need to manually delete waypoints.

The APRS waypoints automatically fade away and then expire on their own. This lets you visually see how long it's been since you last heard from an APRS station. You can set the interval. If you have it set to 40 minutes, and a symbol is just about ready to disappear then you know it's been about 40 minutes since you last heard from it.



Finally, we tried to redo all the APRS symbols to have a consistent look/feel , offer more contrast with the background maps, and to be distinguishable from regular Overland Navigator waypoints (square).

Primary Symbols


Secondary Symbols



Craig

There's already support for the various geocaching symbols, but I plan to add more extensive support in the future.

There's an undocumented feature for going after multiple geocaches already. We created it for some friends who were competing in the Nevada Trophy. If you create a file called route.gpx that contains a route of the various caches you want to go after, it will do two things:

1. Draw an arrow from your current location to the current waypoint in the route.
2. Add a next/previous button that allows you to switch to the next/previous point in the route.

Craig