GpsDrive 2.10pre3 review
DownloadGpsDrive is a car, bike, ship and plane navigation system
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GpsDrive is a car, bike, ship and plane navigation system. GpsDrive displays your position provided from your NMEA capable GPS receiver on a zoomable map, the map file is autoselected depending of the position and prefered scale.
Speech output is supported if the "festival" software is running. The maps are autoselected for best resolution depending of your position and can be downloaded from Internet.
All Garmin GPS reveiver with a serial output should be usable, also other GPS receiver which supports NMEA protocol. GpsDrive is written in C with use of the GTK+ graphic toolkit and runs with Linux and FreeBSD.
Here are some key features of "GpsDrive":
User Interface:
GUI is GTK-+2.2 based, supports unicode and antialiased fonts.
Shows speed, position and altitude.
Zooming.
Sliding controls for preferred map scale.
Switchable between statute miles, nautical miles and kilometer units.
Supported languages: german, english, spanish, italian, dansk, dutch, turkish, hungarian, slovak, swedish, japanese and french.
Display for battery status on notebooks.
Autodetects screen size for automatic fitting.
Fits automatically on screen size.
Shortcuts for most used functions.
Displays battery and temperature display if supported by ACPI
Maps:
Autoload of map files.
Assistant for importing own maps.
Network Maps:
1. Download of maps from internet built in (Expedia). Can also load topo-maps (avail. for USA only)
2. GpsDrive can use NASA satellite images (see Nasamaps section).
3. gpsfetchmap.pl: Script to load maps from internet.
4. Supports internet connection through proxy server.
Friends server:
If people connect to the friendsd server, they can see each others' position on the map.
Messages: You can send messages to other peoples using the same friends server.
Tracks:
Shows your track.
Store and load tracks.
Waypoints:
Select destination from waypoint list.
Shows waypoints on the map.
Selectable waypoint file.
Waypoints can be stored in SQL database (currently MySQL is supported). This enables use of a huge amount of waypoints without slowing down GpsDrive.
Shows icons for predefined waypoint types.
Add a waypoint with a mouseclick.
Add a waypoint at current position with a mouseclick or key shortcut (x).
Add a waypoint at mouse position with a key shortcut (y).
You can define a waypoint type while creating a waypoint.
Routes:
Shows distance, direction and time to go for destination.
Routes can be created using existing waypoints.
GPS Interface:
The gpsd daemon reads the data from your NMEA capable GPS receiver.
On some GARMIN receivers a faster 'GARMIN transfer mode' can be used.
wpget: Script to read waypoints from GARMIN GPS.
Shows satellites signal level (only in NMEA mode).
Shows EPE (estimated position error) if supported by your GPS receiver.
Supports differential GPS over IP (DGPS-IP) if you use the included gpsd.
Simulator mode: you can test without GPS receiver. Select a waypoint and the marker moves toward it.
Program "gpsreplay" replays your stored tracks
"gpssmswatch" sends your position to the phone number which sends a SMS with the content "PLSSENDPOS", needs a working "gnokii" installation
Sound Abilities:
Supports 'festival' in server mode and also 'flite' (small and fast version of festival) for speech output.
Speech output in english, spanish and german.
Speech output of status information (direction, speed, radar warning, GPS signal, distance to destination, Battery level, access point).
What's New in This Release:
The changed map was fixed.
New download URLs were added.
POI/Vector support was started.
Problems with actual gpsd were fixed.
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