Route Planner

Introduction

This chapter shows you ...

- A quick overview of Route Planner’s features
- How to install and run Route Planner
- Quick Start

About Route Planner

Summary of features

Route Planner has been redesigned to make optimal use of the features that a EPOC device boasts. Touch screen: just tap on the screen to find the name or to set the location as point of departure or destination. Tap on the Toolbar where all the most used menu functions are immediately accessible. Larger screen with 16 grey shades displays the maps clearly and quickly.

Route Planner will find the quickest, shortest or preferred route to your destination (& back), provide you with detailed driving instructions and a route summary with total distance and estimated driving time. Simply provide departure and destination (and up to 4 stopovers) and Route Planner will suggest a route. A ‘Preferred route’ is based on your personal preferences such as, your preferred road types or areas you want to avoid travelling through. Route Planner will provide you with the best route meeting your own personal criteria and circumvent any avoided areas you have indicated.

The Map view displays what you would expect to see on a road map. You can display any section of the map at any scale, zoom in/out and set the level of detail you wish to be shown. There are various ways of displaying location names, routes, legends, locators and scales.

The Table view displays the driving instructions of the planned route. In the Split view you can follow your route on the map as you go through the list of instructions at the same time.

Additionally Route Planner will allow you to add locations. Either by assigning a location to the numerical keys (0-9) or creating overlay files. An overlay is a collection of locations that you can add. These locations of personal interest could be historical sites, where friends or relatives live, etc. Railway stations and airports are included for some countries as an overlay file.

Never be lost again! Attach your GPS device (provided it has NMEA output) and Route Planner will put you on the map.

Installing Route Planner

Connect your EPOC device to your PC using the docking cable, and set link to "Cable". For more instructions refer to your EPOC device manual.

WINDOWS 95/98/ME/2000/NT

Insert the CD-ROM into your PC’s CD ROM drive and it will automatically start the installation for you; the Installation Wizard will take you through the installation and set-up.

Note: If the installation does not start automatically, you can run setup.exe from the CD-ROM drive.

Quick Start

Most of the menu options are quite obvious if you know that the main purpose of the application is to display maps and to find routes. We have therefore added this "Quick Start" chapter which summarises what can be done WITHOUT using the menu.

Figure 1: Map view showing UK with Toolbar on the right.
Note the Locator window & Scale indicator

Changing the view

Use the TAB button to switch between the map and the route description. You can also use the pen on the first two buttons on the Toolbar:

- the first switches between the full-screen map and the full-screen table.
- the second switches between the "split" view and full-screen table.

Changing the map detail

The indicators in the toolbar show the current level of detail (roads, cities, districts, and scale). You can use the pen on these indicators to change the detail of the map window. You can also use the following keys:

+ and - for more/less roads

> and < for more/less names (of cities and districts)

i and o to zoom in/out

Positioning the cursor

A lot of options make use of the cursor (e.g. "set cursor as destination", "add new location at cursor", "name the road closest to the cursor" etc.

The crosshair cursor is turned on and off using the ENTER key (or the "mode" button on the toolbar). You can move it around using the arrow keys or the pen.

Scrolling the map

If the crosshair cursor is disabled, the arrow keys can be used to scroll the map. You can also click near the edges of the map with your pen.

If you enable the locator from the "View" menu, you can use your pen on its crosshair to scroll to any area in a country.

Naming locations

If the crosshair is disabled, you can find the name of a location or road simply by pointing to it with your pen. Whether locations or roads are found depends on what menu option was used last: "Name closest location" (Ctrl-L) or "name closest road" (Ctrl-W).

Planning a route

If the crosshair is enabled, you can use the "Set..." button on the toolbar to use the cursor location as departure, destination, or stop over. You can also use the "Plan" button directly and type the names of the departure, destination and stopovers (or select them from the alphabetical browsers).

The route indicator

Once you have planned a route, you can use the spacebar to enable or disable a route indicator. The LEFT/RIGHT arrow keys move it along your route. The UP/DOWN arrow keys also move it, but will stick to either locations or roads.

When you are in the "split" view, the indicator will follow the cursor in the table view and vice verse.

Switching views

Route Planner has 3 main views:

- the Map view - showing a road map
- the Table view - showing driving instructions
- the Split view - showing both the road map & driving instructions

You can switch views by using the top two toolbar buttons.

You can switch views by using the "Window" option in the "View" menu.

You can alternate between the map and the table using the TAB key.

The Table view will only display instructions if a route has been planned.

Changing the size of on-screen text

As in most applications you can 'zoom' the text displayed in the different views by pressing CTRL-M and SHIFT-CTRL-M respectively, by using the zoom buttons at the side of the screen, or by using the menu options ‘Zoom font in’ or ‘Zoom font out’.

Zooming a map section

Zooming a section of the map can be done in a number of ways. One way is to select one of the "Zoom..." options from the ‘Map’ menu. You can also use the CTRL-I or CTRL-O, or press ‘I’ or ‘O’ without pressing the CTRL key. Finally, you can click on the "scale" indicator in the toolbar.

Planning a route

This chapter shows you how to plan journeys. It covers the following subjects:

- Quickest, shortest or preferred route
- Adding stopovers
- Avoiding areas
- Setting average road speeds
- Setting road preferences
- Route display preferences

Telling Route Planner where you want to go

Figure 2 The 'Plan route' dialogue.

You can indicate the point of departure, destination and stopovers in two ways. You can either make use of the cursor position or you use the ‘Plan route’ dialogue shown above.

Using the ‘Plan route’ dialogue:

‘Departure’, ‘Destination’ and ‘Via’ can each be set in a similar way. Selecting the point of departure will be taken as an example.

1. Choose the ‘Plan route’ option from the menu or toolbar.

2. Select, which type of route you, wish find: Quickest, Shortest or Preferred.

3. Specify the departure, destination and any stopovers by typing (part of) the name of each locations. At any time you can press TAB (or click the "browse" button) to get a dialogue similar to the one shown in Fig. 3. As you type, locations starting with the characters you type will be highlighted. You can also use the arrow keys or the pen.

4. Press Enter when the location name you want is highlighted.

Figure 3 Setting your point of departure: Route Planner's list of location names

Important:

If you cannot find the name of a location you are looking for it may be useful to try an alternative, especially regarding the names of districts and industrial areas.
Districts and Industrial areas are categorised under their city. Thus typing "Manhattan" will find the CITY Manhattan. To find the New York district with the same name type: "New York Manhattan".

Using the current cursor position:

1. Select the ‘Set cursor as…’ option from the ‘Route’ menu or click the "Set..." button on the toolbar.

2. Choose whether the cursor should be set as Departure, Destination, or as Stopover (1-4).

3. Press Enter

Using the current cursor position allows you to set unnamed nodes as departure, destination or stopover.

Quickest, shortest or preferred route

The shortest route is based on the distance you need to drive to reach your destination. The quickest route is measured in time, based on your ‘Car speed’ settings per road type. The preferred route is planned in such a way that it takes into account which types of road you prefer to drive on. See also next section "Trip planning tips".

Return trip

You can plan your return trip simply by selecting ‘Quickest return trip’, ‘Shortest return trip’ or ‘Preferred return trip’ in the ‘Plan route’ dialogue.

Trip planning tips…

Before planning a route, you can specify area's to be avoided. See next paragraph.

- If you wish to plan a ‘Preferred route’, don't forget to specify your preferences using the "Set Preferences" menu option.

- If you wish to plan a ‘Quickest route’, don't forget to specify your average car speed using the "Set Preferences" menu option. To obtain reliable estimates, make sure these are average speeds. See end of this chapter.

- If you enable the preference ‘Always zoom to planned route’, Route Planner will automatically zoom to the section of the map that displays the entire route that has just been planned.

Avoiding certain areas

Avoid area

If there are certain areas you do not want to travel through, you can indicate these areas on the map. Route Planner will plan the best possible route to your destination avoiding all the areas you have indicated. To do this:

1. Choose the ‘Avoid area’ option from the ‘Route’ menu.

2. A rectangle will appear on the map. Use the arrow keys to position the rectangle, or the arrow keys with Fn to resize it. You can also use the pen to move or resize the rectangle.

3. Press Enter (or click the "Set area" button on the toolbar).

To modify the step size of the rectangle movement:

- Press Shift and an arrow keys to take smaller steps;
- Press Control and an arrow keys to take larger steps.

Note:

Only locations in the greyed-out areas will be avoided. Therefore you may notice that a planned route may still cut across a corner of the greyed area.

Figure 4 Example of an avoided area, placed over London

Clear area(s)

1. To remove a specific area, first position your cursor near this greyed area.

2. Select the ‘Clear area(s)’ option from the ‘Route’ menu.

3. Specify which areas to clear.

4. Press Enter.

Preferences

Figure 5 Set preferences: change display, set average car speeds, GPS refresh rate...

Setting average car speeds

To allow Route Planner to determine the quickest route for you (and to obtain a reliable estimation of the total duration of trips) you should enter the average speed (which is usually not the maximum speed you are allowed to drive) you attain on the different road types.

1. elect the ‘Set preferences’ menu option.

2. Select ‘Car speeds…’
3. Provide the values for your average speed on each road type.
4. Press Enter.

Preferred roads

Figure 6 Indicate how much you like certain road types for planning your "preferred route'.

Here you can indicate how much you like or dislike driving on certain road types. When calculating the ‘Preferred route’ Route Planner will take these settings into account.

1. Select the ‘Set preferences’ menu option.

2. Select ‘Preferred roads…’

3. Set your relative preference for each road type (respectively more to the left or more to the right).

4. Press Enter.

Technical note:

The scale is meant only as an intuitive one. For example, you dislike city roads, but you do like dual carriage highways. So for city roads you indicate maximum dislike and for double highways you indicate maximum preference. The effect of these settings is that Route Planner will rather do 16 miles on a road you like (the double highways) than 1 mile on a road you dislike (city roads in this example).

Miles or kilometres

To select the distance unit you are used to:

1. Select the ‘Set preferences’ menu option.

2. Arrow down to the line ‘Units of measurement’.

3. Select either kilometres or miles.

4. Press Enter.

How the planned route is displayed

1. Select the ‘Set preferences’ menu option.

2. Select ‘Preferred roads…’

3. Select one of the display options: ‘Hidden’, ‘Dashed in foreground’ or ‘Soft grey in background’.

4. Press Enter.

Always zoom to planned route

This setting determines whether or not Route Planner will automatically zoom to a planned route once it has planned it. You can also do this manually at any time:

1. Select the option ‘Zoom to’ from the ‘View’ menu.

2. Select ‘Route’.

3. Press Enter.

Route indicator follows table

The Split view shows both the driving instructions and the planned route on the map. Change this setting to ‘Yes’ to let the route indicator follow the planned route on the map as you browse through the driving instructions.

Note: To switch to the indicator mode on/off press Space. See indicator mode section.

The Map

This chapter shows you how to use the Map.

- Moving around in the Map view
- Finding locations
- Adding or ‘Memorising’ locations
- Focusing on particular areas
- Detail & display possibilities

The Map view

Figure 7 example of the 'Map' view.

The Map view displays what you would expect to see on a road map. You can display any section of the map at almost any scale and set the level of detail you wish to be shown. A scale window can be activated to show the current scale of the map.

Moving around in the Map view

The locator

The locator (enabled from the "View" menu) serves two purposes. First of all, it shows you where you are in a country (which can be quite useful if you are zoomed in to unfamiliar territory). Furthermore, you can scroll the whole map window by moving the centre of the locator crosshair with your pen. You can also move the locator itself around with your pen.

Cursor mode

A flashing crosshair indicates that you are in "cursor mode". The cursor allows you to point to specific items on your screen. Many options make use of the cursor.

You can move the crosshair cursor around using the pen or the arrow keys

. The step size of the arrow keys can be modified by:

- Pressing Shift and one of the arrow keys to take smaller steps;
- Pressing Control and one of the arrowkeys to take larger steps.

To switch between ‘Cursor mode’ and ‘Scroll mode’ press Enter, or click the "Mode" button on the toolbar.

Scroll mode

No cursor is visible in this mode. The arrow keys can now be used to scroll the whole window. You can also scroll by clicking with your pen near the edges of the map. Clicking anywhere else on the map will find the closest location or road (see "Naming places on the map").

Indicator mode

Once you have planned a route, you can use the spacebar to enable or disable a route indicator. The LEFT/RIGHT arrow keys move it along your route. The UP/DOWN arrow keys also move it, but will stick to either locations or roads.

When you are in the "split" view, the indicator will follow the cursor in the table view and vice verse.

Focusing on a particular area

To zoom out all the way…

1. Select the ‘Zoom to’ option from the ‘View’ menu.

2. Choose ‘Full map’.

3. Press Enter.

The country (or group of countries) will now be displayed so that it fits on the screen in its entirety. See previous figure, showing Europe. A number of detail settings will be automatically changed. See further on as described for the zoom to ‘Maximum precision’ option. For most countries, no detail will be shown, just the outlines, when fully zoomed out.

To zoom in to a specific area on the screen…

Figure 8 'Zoom to' rectangle is shown over the islands just off shore from Lands End (UK).

1. Select the ‘Zoom to’ option from ‘View’ menu.

2. Choose ‘Rectangle’.

3. Use the arrow keys to position the rectangle above the area on which you want to focus. You can adjust the size of the rectangle using the ‘<’ and ‘>’ keys. You can also change the position and size using the pen.

4. Press Enter, or click the bottom toolbar button.

The section of the map contained by the rectangle will be redrawn at full screen size.

To zoom in all the way…

Figure 9 An area of the map showing part of central London at 'Maximum precision' .

1. Select the ‘Zoom to’ option from the ‘View’ menu.

2. Choose ‘Maximum precision’.

3. Press ‘Enter’.

The effect of using ‘Maximum precision’ is that a number of settings affecting your view of the map are set simultaneously. ‘Road detail’ will be set to ‘100%’, ‘City detail’ will be set to ‘All’ and ‘Screen height’ will be set to the minimum value. The resulting display will show a "close up" of the map, centred on your cursor, showing as much detail as possible.

To get the whole route on your screen…

1. Select the ‘Zoom to’ option from the ‘View’ menu.

2. Choose ‘Route’.

3. Press Enter.

Tip:

If you want to always automatically zoom to a route as soon as it has been planned, enable the option ‘Always zoom to planned route’ in the preferences.

Naming places on the map

In Cursor mode (i.e. when the crosshair is displayed), use the menu options "Name closest location" or "Name closest road" (Ctrl-L and Ctrl-W). If you aren't in cursor mode, it's even simpler: simply click with your pen. Whether locations or roads are named depends on whether "Name closest location" or "Name closest road" was the last option you chose.

Route Planner will keep displaying names until you clear them, either by clicking on them with your pen, or by using the "Clear names" menu option.

Going to places on the map

Numeric keys (0-9)

With ‘Memorise cursor’ you can assign locations to the numeric keys 0-9. Later you can easily "jump" to that location by pressing the correct numeric key.

To memorise current cursor location:

1. Select the ‘Memorise cursor’ option from the ‘Find’ menu.

2. Choose which key location should be assigned to (0-9).

3. Provide a name for the location.

4. Press Enter.

The name you have provided will be shown as a corner flash message.

Go to location

1. Select the ‘Go to location’ option from the ‘Find’ menu.

2. Type the name of the place you wish to find. A few letters are usually enough, since you can also use the arrow keys to scroll through the list.

1. Press Enter to confirm selected name.

Note

: To delete the last letter you have just typed press Delete, to clear the entire location name and go back to the top of the list press the left arrow key (¬ ).

Important

:
If you cannot find the name of a location you are looking for it may be useful to try an alternative, especially regarding the names of districts and industrial areas.
Districts and Industrial areas are categorised under their city. Thus typing "Manhattan" will find the city Manhattan. To find the New York district with the same name type: "New York Manhattan".

Go to co-ordinates

1. Select the ‘Go to co-ordinates’ option from the ‘Find’ menu.

2. The dialogue will show the co-ordinates of the current cursor location. Simply enter longitude and latitude.

3. Press Enter.

The cursor will jump to that location, (provided that these co-ordinates are within the boundaries of the countries supported by your Route Planner database).

Go to overlay

1. Select the ‘Go to overlay’ option from the ‘Find’ menu.

2. Select the overlay file in which you want to search.

3. Type (part of) the name of the location contained by this file. If there is more than one name matching, Route Planner will offer you a choice list of those names.

4. Select the name and press Enter.

Find closest overlay

1. Select the ‘Find closest overlay’ option from the ‘Find’ menu.

2. Select overlay.

3. Press Enter.

The cursor will jump to the nearest location indicated by the overlay and its name will be shown as a corner flash message.

Adding locations to the Map

Overlays

When you wish to add a collection of locations of for instance monuments, restaurants, offices, friends, family etc., you can define your own overlay file.

In this way you can build your own collection of overlay files by adding or deleting locations to existing overlay files or by creating new overlay files. For each of these files you can design your own symbol to indicate the locations on the map.

Overlays for Airfields and Railways are supplied with Route Planner as examples for most countries.

‘Memorise cursor’

Use ‘Memorise cursor’ to assign a position on the map to one of the numeric keys (0-9). This is typically useful for memorising locations used often as destination or point of departure. See "Going to places on the Map".

Overlays

Figure 10 an example of an overlay file indicating the locations of airports in a part of Scotland.

An overlay file is a collection of locations, such as airports, customers or sites of historical interest.

To make such a collection visible:

1. Choose ‘Open overlay file’ option from the ‘Overlay’ menu options.

2. Select the overlay file you want.

3. Press Enter.

Note that there is a "Legend" menu option to display a legend for each overlay file currently open.

Creating a new overlay file

To start a new collection of locations:

1. Choose the ‘New overlay file’ option from ‘Overlay’ menu.

2. Provide a name for your overlay file and indicate on which disk you want it to be saved.

3. Press Enter.

You have now created a new empty overlay file, to which you can add locations. See "Editing existing overlays".

Creating a new overlay symbol

To create a new symbol for your overlay file(s), import a

filename.mbm (from routeovl/countryname) with the Sketch application on your Psion. Edit picture here and then export as EPOC (mbm) picture for use in Route Planner.

Editing existing overlays

You may wish to edit an existing overlay file by adding new locations or deleting locations that are no longer of interest. This can be done in the following way.

Make sure the overlay is open. If necessary, choose ‘Open overlay file’ from the ‘Overlay’ menu options.

To add new locations:

1. Move your cursor to the desired location on the map.

2. Choose ‘Add location’ from the ‘Overlay’ menu.

3. Provide a name for the location to be added to the overlay. If you have opened more than one overlay file you also have to indicate to which overlay file the new location should be added.

To delete locations:

1. Move your cursor to the desired location on the map.

2. Choose ‘Delete location’ option from the ‘Overlay’ menu.

Changing the level of detail displayed

Figure 11 Specify detail dialogue.

You can manipulate all of the most important aspects of the Map view using the option ‘Detail…’ from the ‘View’ menu, or by using your pen on the indicators in the toolbar.

Road detail

Detail can be set between 0-100%; the lowest level showing no roads at all, while the highest level will display every road available in Route Planner’s database.

Note: The level of detail you select will also influence the number of cities and districts displayed. Cities and districts will only be displayed if a road to that city/district is shown.

Note: You can increase or decrease the level of road detail displayed by using the ‘+’ and ‘-‘ keys.

City detail

You can determine which city names should be displayed. For instance you can specify that you only want capital cities to be displayed or you can choose to include smaller cities (down to tiny villages) as well.

Note: You can increase or decrease the level of city detail displayed using the’ >’ and ‘<’ keys. Pressing ‘>’ repeatedly will increase city detail until it has reached maximum detail and then continue by adding more and more district detail.

Large cities > 500.000 inhabitants

Medium cities > 100.000 inhabitants

Small cities > 50.000 inhabitants

Town > 20.000 inhabitants

Village > 5.000 inhabitants

Small village > 1.000 inhabitants

Tiny village < 1.000 inhabitants

District detail

Similar to the way you can include cities, you can also indicate which district names should be displayed.

Note: The hot keys ‘>’ and ‘<’ will increase/decrease city detail. Once city detail is displayed at maximum detail, pressing ‘>’ again will increase district detail.

Note: Districts are not available for all countries.

Screen height

‘Screen height’ is used to manipulate very precisely how large an area of the country is displayed, i.e. to exactly specify the scale at which the map is viewed.

Use ‘I’ and ‘O’ instead of using the menu options as hot keys to zoom in or out.

Emphasise cities

Figure 12 Urban areas are clearly emphasised in this display mode.

This switches the display to mode emphasising city roads.

Other display preferences

Legends

Figure 13 Road legend example

You can enable several types of legends from the "View" menu. Legends can be moved around using the pen.

The scale window

Figure 14 the scale window

The scale window (enabled from the "View" menu) displays the scale at which the map is currently being viewed, either in kilometres or miles depending on your preference settings. You can move the scale around using the pen.

Driving Instructions

Route instructions

Table & Split views

Once you have planned a route you can read the driving instructions by using the Toolbar options "Map/Table", or "Split" to switch between the views

You can change the font size, number of columns and choose various forms of driving instructions.

Figure 15 Split View, showing driving instructions and route.

Use Tab to alternate between left and right screen when in Split view.

Instruction types & display forms

Instructions are presented as a table. Each column contains specific information concerning when/where (after so long, measured in time or distance units), to do what (turn off, left or right, or continue, for how long), the bearing (North, South, East or West) and towards which city you should be heading.

You can choose from various display possibilities that differ from one another in the amount of information provided or emphasis being placed on either locations or roads.

Additionally you can define which columns should be displayed or hidden.

Pressing Enter will pop up a dialogue displaying the full instructions in a large font.

Instruction types

Figure 16 An example of 'Normal' instructions.

To change the instruction:

1. Select the option ‘Instruction type’ from ‘Table’ the menu.

2. Choose the type of instructions you need and press Enter.

Use ¬ or ® for horizontal scrolling.

Use Tab to switch between different instruction types. (Only in Table view, NOT in Split view.)

The major differences between the various instruction types are:

Normal

This will generally be the most useful since it supplies sufficiently detailed instructions.

Complete

This will provide you with complete instructions, detailing every step of the way.

Instructions by location

Emphasis is placed on the locations to guide you towards your destination.

Instructions by road

Emphasis is placed on the roads you should take to reach your destination.

Formal Instructions

Will display all instructions in a formally structured table, each type of information is in a separate column.

Configure columns

Figure 17 An example showing 'Complete' instructions in the background and a checkbox to indicate which columns should be displayed.

To change which columns are being shown:

1. Select from ‘Table’ the menu option ‘Configure columns’.

2. Enable or disable columns listed in the dialogue.

3. Press Enter.

Using a GPS device

How to use a GPS device:

- Connecting a GPS device to your EPOC device
- The Route indicator and the compass window
- Supported GPS devices

Attaching a GPS device to your EPOC device

To attach a GPS device to your EPOC device a cable might be provided. If not, you can use the cable that comes with your EPOC device and the PC adapter cable for your GPS device. Additionally, you will need a null modem cable/male-male gender adapter, which is readily available in shops selling electronic equipment.

For instructions on making your own null modem adapter, see Appendix A.

Getting started

Next, you need to set up the GPS device on your EPOC device. Display the Preferences dialogue and select the ‘GPS’ tab.

Figure 18 The GPS tab of the Preferences dialogue in Route Planner

Here is how to set up your GPS device:

1. First, check the box next to ‘Use Global Positioning System’ to enable the other options.
2. Tap ‘Change device…’. A list of supported GPS devices will be shown.
3. Select the device that matches your hardware and tap OK. Note that most GPS devices are capable of producing NMEA-0183 v1.5 (WGS 84) output.
4. Tap ‘Settings…’.
5. Select the correct settings for your device and tap OK. See the last section for more information on different GPS devices.
6. You can tap the ‘Information’ button to see if the device is properly installed.

After you completed these steps, the name of your GPS device should display on the line of the GPS tab marked ‘Positioning device’.

Now you can fine-tune the other settings for the Global Positioning system.

Seconds between GPS updates:

How often should data be retrieved from the GPS device. The lower this value, the more frequent updates of your position will occur.

Keep GPS position on screen:

If you tick this option, the GPS indicator in the map window will stay on the screen, redrawing the map if necessary.

Route indicator follows GPS position:

If you tick this option, the route indicator will always be placed on the part of your route nearest to the current GPS position.

Compass window:

This setting determines whether a compass window is shown in the map window. You can tap on the compass to switch between two compass types.

The Route indicator and the Compass window

If your GPS device supports true course information, the GPS indicator in the map window will show differently as you can see in Figure 19.

Figure 19 The Route indicator when true course information is used

If you checked the option ‘Compass window’ in the Preferences, a compass will be shown in the map window.

Figure 20 The two possible compass windows.

You can choose between two different compass types. One shows a compass with a needle pointing into the direction you are heading. In the other one, you are always heading upwards and the compass turns around. Both show your current speed and the direction you are heading.

You can switch between the two compass types by clicking on the compass window.

Supported GPS devices

Several types of GPS devices are supported. The possible settings and the information window for the different devices are explained below.

The SiRF device

SiRF devices are all devices that produce output in SiRF binary protocol, e.g. the SiRFstarI/LX GPS.

Settings for the SiRF device

The settings dialogue of the SiRF device has the following options:

Port:

Either Comm::0 of Comm::1, the first or second communication port on your EPOC device.

Reset device:

To restart the GPS device. It will perform a warm start, using the time and home set in your EPOC device.

The information window

Figure 21 The information window for the SiRF device.

The information window for the SiRF device is shown in Figure 22.

Satellite information.

On the left of the window the satellite information is shown. The circles form a graphical representation of the position of the satellites relative to your position. The outside circle represents the horizon, the inside circle is what you see if you look 45 degrees upward. The centre of the circle is the zenith. The numbers represent the GPS satellites. In the picture, satellite number 22 is near the horizon in the north east while 18 is almost straight overhead.

When a number is printed in black it means that that satellite is being used in the position calculation. Grey satellites are not used.

The bars underneath show how well the transmissions from the satellites are received. Again a black bar means that that satellite is locked on and used in the calculation.

Status information.

On the right, the status of the device is shown. Initially, your EPOC device tries to connect to the GPS device (e.g. Trying to connect at 4800 bps.) If there is no physical connection between the devices the status is Not connected. After a connection is established, the EPOC device starts receiving data. If the status remains Trying to connect, it may mean the two devices are not properly connected.

After the data is received, the status shows how many satellites were used in calculating the position. When no new data is received, the device falls back on Dead reckoning, which means it is assumed you stay on the same course at the same speed, and your position is updated accordingly.

Original data.

The next lines in the display are the exact data read from the GPS device. Time is Universal time (UTC) as returned by the device. Precision is the DOP value the device returns. X, Y, Z and dX, dY and dZ are your XYZ position and speed in ECEF (Earth Centred Earth Fixed) co-ordinates.

Compass.

The small compass on the right shows your true course, speed, your position in WGS84 co-ordinates and your height above sea level, calculated from the data received.

The NMEA device

NMEA devices include all GPS devices that produce output in NMEA-0183 v1.5 (WGS 84) format. Most GPS devices can produce output in this format.

Settings for the NMEA device

For the NMEA device, the only option in the settings dialogue is:

Port:

Either Comm::0 of Comm::1, the first or second communication port on your EPOC device.

The information window

In the information window for the NMEA device the following information is shown.

Figure 22 The information window of the NMEA device

Satellite information.

On the left of the window the satellite information is shown. The circles form a graphical representation of the position of the satellites relative to your position. The outside circle represents the horizon, the inside circle is what you see if you look 45 degrees upward. The centre of the circle is the zenith. The numbers represent the GPS satellites. In the picture, satellite number 08 is near the horizon in the north east while 15 is almost straight overhead.

When a number is printed in black it means that that satellite is being used in the position calculation. Grey satellites are not used.

The bars underneath show how well the transmissions from the satellites are received. Again a black bar means that that satellite is locked on and used in the calculation.

Status information.

On the right, the status of the device is shown. Initially, your EPOC device tries to connect to the GPS device (e.g. Trying to connect at 4800 bps.) If there is no physical connection between the devices the status is Not connected. After a connection is established, the EPOC device starts receiving data. If the status remains Trying to connect, it may mean the two devices are not properly connected.

After the data is received, the status shows how many satellites were used in calculating the position. The next lines then display the data read from the GPS device. Time is the time as returned by the device. HDOP, VDOP and PDOP are the Horizontal, Vertical and Positional Dilution Of Precision.

Message types.

The Messages/Minute section shows what messages were ever received from the GPS device, and how often. A message type shown in grey is not yet received from the device. The information that is not available from a particular device will also be printed in grey.

Compass.

The small compass on the right shows your true course, speed, your position in WGS84 co-ordinates and your height above sea level, as received from the GPS device. Making a null modem adapter

If you wish to make your own null modem adapter, connect to male 9-pins D connectors using the following wiring scheme:

ã Copyright Palmtop BV 1996-2001

All rights reserved. This manual and the programs referred to herein are copyrighted works of Palmtop BV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Reproduction in whole or in part, including utilisation in machines capable of reproduction or retrieval, without the express written permission of the copyright holders is prohibited. Reverse engineering is also prohibited.

The information in this document is subject to change without notice.

Geographical data copyright ã 1997 AND Mapping B.V.

Palmtop BV acknowledges that some of the names referred to are registered trademarks.