[kismac] Re: Suggestion for map interface

I download maps from Canada's government map service:

        http://toporama.cits.rncan.gc.ca/En/frame.html

The are quite good quality and use a standard system of naming and 
sizes (I use the 1:50000 ones). It is possible to calibrate them, once 
you know the pattern of naming, without even using the GPS - you open 
it up and set waypoint 1 (top left) and then waypoint 2 (bottom right) 
and once you save the map in the "kismap" format you don't have to do 
that again, it opens up all set.

For my trip, I downloaded all the maps I thought I would need, 
calibrated them by the lat/long that they are advertised as having (the 
1:50,000 maps for canada are .25 degrees of latitude and .5 degrees of 
longitude in each file) and then saved all those files using the same 
naming convention that the government uses. Then, I marked up my paper 
map with the little numbers (thankfully, the provincial highway map 
placed little hairlines that follow the national mapping "grid"). This 
helped pick the right map file for the area I was in.

Alternatively, you could name the map files for the city or some 
significant landmark in the area.

As I moved from area to area, I would pick the map from a folder of 
maps (I placed the folder in the dock). Occasionally kismac would lose 
track of the gps or something, so I just quit the program and started 
it again. Having the kismaps sensibly named and in a folder in the dock 
was handy when driving.

It would be nice to have the program store the "relative" location of 
other maps and jump there when necessary, but the pop-up folder and a 
naming scheme you know is a substitute.

...r

On Sunday, August 24, 2003, at 06:08 PM, Robert B.Peirce wrote:

> This talk of maps makes me wonder, where do you get them and how do you
> install them?
>
> On Sunday, Aug 24, 2003, at 13:26 US/Eastern, Richard Smith wrote:
>
>> Michael,
>>
>> I spent a wonderful week driving and camping through British 
>> Columbia's
>> southern interior earlier this summer (luckily prior to the horrible
>> fires that are sweeping through much of the province), accompanied by
>> my iBook, Deluo GPS, and Kismac. Everything performed flawlessly, and
>> in my view Kismac has a better implementation of GPS features than
>> other shareware or freeware GPS software, even through the mapping is
>> an addition to the scanning functions. Congratulations.
>>
>
>

--
Richard Smith, Associate Professor School of Communication
Director, Centre for Policy Research on Science and Technology
Simon Fraser University, 515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, CANADA
Phone: 604 291 5116 Web: http://www.sfu.ca/~smith/

Other related posts: