A little offbeat for this board yet somewhat relevant (I am still working on this in the few free minuts I have).

There is now a route planner for PocketPC's including the Ipaq which as most of you will know is based on pretty much the same CPU as our beloved empeg. It has GPS capabilities and comes with several maps most of which range from a few hundred Kbytes to a few Mbytes. The software is completely Windows (the pocketpc version of windows that is) based but manages to draw some fairly impressive maps considering the size of its files. Surely this means that a route planner for the empeg (a little less graphical because of the display albeit) must be possible. I for one am thinking of buying the CD version (which has more maps then the online buy and download version) just to see if I can make something of the map files.

Quietly I am hoping one of the empeg/riocar team reads this, maybe even gives the company a call to see if some collaboration on the matter is not possible ...

Okay the link without further ado : http://www.palmtop.nl/ce/poc_route.html

Actually, I just ordered one while writing this.

Mk2 - Blue - 080000431

We know that a route planner is possible, because Kim Salo has already written one. The question has to be where he now choses to take it (excuse the pun).

Rob

You are of course right as ever Rob and I should have stated more clearly why I found the link interesting. 3 Main reasons :

- The file size, best I can tell all of them are smaller then 4 mb though that is not likely to be much of a problem judging from the tag lines here on the board. Still it suggests the maps are quite lean. One thing I found that complicated the whole idea (and if I recall Kim confirmed that to some degree) is the filtering of useful information from the current formats. These maps seem to have lost a lot of excess weight already. Wether they lost too much is hard to tell. The pictures and explanations on the site are inconclusive. I did notice they offered free addon packs (with location tags for various fields of interest, airports, hotels, etc) suggesting some open mindedness towards the user and his needs.
- Second is the price, sure you could start copying the (Kim mentioned this also) expensive Euro-mapcds but that would be illegal (don't look at me that way). The price for these maps is peanuts compared to some others. Again, these maps might not be what some people need (they are probably not down to street level etc). But as an extra fairprice addon for some empeg users it would be good.
- A third reason is the nature of the product itself. The maps are used for several types of palmtops and pocket pcs as well. So if you own one of those (like I do) it would be catching two birds with one stone. Maybe you could even use the IR port to up/download them to/from your empeg.

I agree though that it is not detailed enough for those that need a really intelligent route planner. Still imho it is worthwhile to look at.

Hans


Mk2 - Blue - 080000431

Hi.

As I owned and still own the Psion/EPOC as well as the PalmOS version of that software, I can confirm that Palmtop/TomTom's route planning software is stable, userfriendly and the maps are quite detailed yet small in size. There are problems though:
1) Route Planner Millenium is a long distance route planning software only,
it does not contain street level city maps (as the Street Planner/CityMaps does).
2) Integration with StreetPlanner/CityMaps is nearly non-existant.
This results in a rather uncomfortable situation because you have to plan your route from town to town using Route Planner, and the final route to your target has to be calculated using Street Planner/CityMaps, with no convenient way to switch between the two (at least none that I would call useful).
The better sides of those two software packages shouldn't go unmentioned however:
The maps are of good quality (supplied by AND for europe) though not faultless, but that's not surprising, because I haven't seen _any_ route planning software with perfect maps. GPS integration is stable, convenient and most importantly: Useful. The software (at least on EPOC) has an option to either keep the maps north-up or adjust the view to represent your current driving direction (heading upwards of course). I never had any problems with the software aside from the above mentioned draw-backs.

cu,
sven

cu,
sven
(proud owner of a MkII 12GB blue now green, #080000113)

Having received and installed the package a few days ago I agree with all you say. Still, I am now convinced more then ever that it is a worthwhile idea to explore. No street level maps for this package, still overall it would be a nice addon. Simplistic yet useable and affordable for small time needs. Simpelest implementation would be to display the directions-list on the empeg screen perhaps.

It's a start I guess.

Cheers.
Hans

Mk2 - Blue & Red - 080000431