I am currently wondering whether to bother using a carputer, i love the flexability of a carputer and the fact that i can create software to do what i want (i can do programming) but what is driving me crazy is the GPS software... as Centrafuse is the only software that has the latest Destinator, and i know you can run the destinator.exe from it without using centrafuse but it doesn't nicely integrate with the frontend then...
I am wondering whether to just go for something like this:
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/GPS-DVD-TV-MP3-PLAY...1QQcmdZViewItem
what are other people thinking?
Full Version: Wondering whether to bother with a carputer...
im running D6 + latest (q4 2006 maps) and it integrates fine.
Dest 6 pros:
better maps
better navigation engine
big easy buttons
avoid roads options
dest 6 cons:
i cant find how to set the HOME location
the popup picture to show "Turn left" is quite small.. and cause i have all GPS sound off, I dont always see the instructions/turn. (But I never miss it.. just a PITA)
distance to TURN/VEER/CIRCLE is very small. D3 was much easier to read.
Havent tried speed cam database yet.
D6 seems to give me heaps of lag from my gps.. dunno if its a software thing.. or what
GPS take forever to lock, and sometimes doesnt keep lock. Dest3 never seemed to have that issue.. and generally found a lock quickly and kept it.
does ur PM work?
mine says FULL but its only got 80 msgs.
Dest 6 pros:
better maps
better navigation engine
big easy buttons
avoid roads options
dest 6 cons:
i cant find how to set the HOME location
the popup picture to show "Turn left" is quite small.. and cause i have all GPS sound off, I dont always see the instructions/turn. (But I never miss it.. just a PITA)
distance to TURN/VEER/CIRCLE is very small. D3 was much easier to read.
Havent tried speed cam database yet.
D6 seems to give me heaps of lag from my gps.. dunno if its a software thing.. or what
GPS take forever to lock, and sometimes doesnt keep lock. Dest3 never seemed to have that issue.. and generally found a lock quickly and kept it.
does ur PM work?
mine says FULL but its only got 80 msgs
.
the message limit on PMs is now 50msgs...
QUOTE (Iceman_jkh @ Sep 13 2007, 08:00 PM) 
im running D6 + latest (q4 2006 maps) and it integrates fine.
Dest 6 pros:
better maps
better navigation engine
big easy buttons
avoid roads options
dest 6 cons:
i cant find how to set the HOME location
the popup picture to show "Turn left" is quite small.. and cause i have all GPS sound off, I dont always see the instructions/turn. (But I never miss it.. just a PITA)
distance to TURN/VEER/CIRCLE is very small. D3 was much easier to read.
Havent tried speed cam database yet.
D6 seems to give me heaps of lag from my gps.. dunno if its a software thing.. or what
GPS take forever to lock, and sometimes doesnt keep lock. Dest3 never seemed to have that issue.. and generally found a lock quickly and kept it.
does ur PM work?
mine says FULL but its only got 80 msgs .
Dest 6 pros:
better maps
better navigation engine
big easy buttons
avoid roads options
dest 6 cons:
i cant find how to set the HOME location
the popup picture to show "Turn left" is quite small.. and cause i have all GPS sound off, I dont always see the instructions/turn. (But I never miss it.. just a PITA)
distance to TURN/VEER/CIRCLE is very small. D3 was much easier to read.
Havent tried speed cam database yet.
D6 seems to give me heaps of lag from my gps.. dunno if its a software thing.. or what
GPS take forever to lock, and sometimes doesnt keep lock. Dest3 never seemed to have that issue.. and generally found a lock quickly and kept it.
does ur PM work?
mine says FULL but its only got 80 msgs
.Ice, what GPS software are you using with the Destinator 6 maps?
Im using Roadrunner FE with dest 6.1 and 2006q4 maps with BU-353 usb gps.
QUOTE (Iceman_jkh @ Sep 13 2007, 08:56 PM)
Im using Roadrunner FE with dest 6.1 and 2006q4 maps with BU-353 usb gps.
Ah ok, so Destinator do actually make an application themselves which can be used on a PC, they don't just distribute maps and leave the application building up to other people?
I think thats correct - not exactly sure though. They also make an SDK for license to other people to dev with. They make Dest 6 for palm/PDA... funny thing is, you can get that PDA version to work on PC (so Ive been told) if you mess with the dll. *shrug*
The only PC versions that I know of are DestiPLUS and the Dest6 that comes with CentreFuse. The centrafuse guy (david) bought a license for dest6 and DestiPLUS is done (somehow) by a german programmer I think.
The only PC versions that I know of are DestiPLUS and the Dest6 that comes with CentreFuse. The centrafuse guy (david) bought a license for dest6 and DestiPLUS is done (somehow) by a german programmer I think.
Yeah my PM box was full too.. (103 messages) (empty now though, so you can PM me if you want 
)
What i mean by can't integrate it is, you can't make the music mute, pause when the D6 gives a voice instruction (which i use), you can't get the instructions out of D6 so it means you are restricted to using the built in D6 interface for input and output...
I might also look into seeing if i can get a SDK for TomTom or one of those to develop some decent software which isn't dependent on you using the frontend (ie Centrafuse) i dunno if i'll have any luck but its worth a try, Destinator won't release the SDK without a massive upfront investment (as in 10s of thousands IIRC :S)
)What i mean by can't integrate it is, you can't make the music mute, pause when the D6 gives a voice instruction (which i use), you can't get the instructions out of D6 so it means you are restricted to using the built in D6 interface for input and output...
I might also look into seeing if i can get a SDK for TomTom or one of those to develop some decent software which isn't dependent on you using the frontend (ie Centrafuse) i dunno if i'll have any luck but its worth a try, Destinator won't release the SDK without a massive upfront investment (as in 10s of thousands IIRC :S)
ahh.. gotcha. well if u already have d6.. then u dont need my pm 
i didnt know what u meant by integrate.. but yes.. d6 integrates like ass atm.
Id be willing to pay for software (if u wrote it) that could use up-to-date maps and have good routing/features,etc
I dont really use the voice stuff (cause i found it never properly integrated with audio -- would often say instructions at full volume or mute the audio,etc) im quite happy just with nice big icons/indicators/pop up icons when turns/obstacles exist. My LCD is in a good spot and big enough that a FLASH up (like in mapmonkey) turn indicator could draw my attention quite well.
I dont know much about the other brands.. but i would pick a dev engine that looked really good/had good features from the start.. then dev from there. destinator hasnt really impressed me that greatly.. and not other people either from what ive read.
good luck
ice
i didnt know what u meant by integrate.. but yes.. d6 integrates like ass atm.
Id be willing to pay for software (if u wrote it) that could use up-to-date maps and have good routing/features,etc
I dont really use the voice stuff (cause i found it never properly integrated with audio -- would often say instructions at full volume or mute the audio,etc) im quite happy just with nice big icons/indicators/pop up icons when turns/obstacles exist. My LCD is in a good spot and big enough that a FLASH up (like in mapmonkey) turn indicator could draw my attention quite well.
I dont know much about the other brands.. but i would pick a dev engine that looked really good/had good features from the start.. then dev from there. destinator hasnt really impressed me that greatly.. and not other people either from what ive read.
good luck
ice
QUOTE (Iceman_jkh @ Sep 14 2007, 05:21 PM)
ahh.. gotcha. well if u already have d6.. then u dont need my pm
i didnt know what u meant by integrate.. but yes.. d6 integrates like ass atm.
Id be willing to pay for software (if u wrote it) that could use up-to-date maps and have good routing/features,etc
I dont really use the voice stuff (cause i found it never properly integrated with audio -- would often say instructions at full volume or mute the audio,etc) im quite happy just with nice big icons/indicators/pop up icons when turns/obstacles exist. My LCD is in a good spot and big enough that a FLASH up (like in mapmonkey) turn indicator could draw my attention quite well.
I dont know much about the other brands.. but i would pick a dev engine that looked really good/had good features from the start.. then dev from there. destinator hasnt really impressed me that greatly.. and not other people either from what ive read.
good luck
ice
i didnt know what u meant by integrate.. but yes.. d6 integrates like ass atm.
Id be willing to pay for software (if u wrote it) that could use up-to-date maps and have good routing/features,etc
I dont really use the voice stuff (cause i found it never properly integrated with audio -- would often say instructions at full volume or mute the audio,etc) im quite happy just with nice big icons/indicators/pop up icons when turns/obstacles exist. My LCD is in a good spot and big enough that a FLASH up (like in mapmonkey) turn indicator could draw my attention quite well.
I dont know much about the other brands.. but i would pick a dev engine that looked really good/had good features from the start.. then dev from there. destinator hasnt really impressed me that greatly.. and not other people either from what ive read.
good luck
ice
Find someone who makes good maps and also doesn't protect the SDK like their first child and you're half way there
. Iceman about a week or so back you linked me to a guy who had cached some Google maps for a PDA app, I had a bit of a chat with him about the prospects but the Google maps option isn't looking overly feasible right now either. Firstly, Google temorarily bans you if they "think" you're abusing the system (i.e. sending truckloads of requests to their server while mass harvesting their maps for a carputer app
). There were a few other issues with things like point to point navigation and the fact that Google maps can't be given lat/long values and give you a street name string as a return value (which is something that would probably be required if someone were to cache large quantities of maps index them in any sort of consistent format).
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