GPS Tuner

GPS Tuner is an 'off-road' navigation application for PocketPC devices. While 'on-road' car navigation software gives you the possibility of planning your route based on a road network, GPS Tuner gives you the ability of navigation where the roads end. GPS Tuner is tool used by people who have a GPS receiver and PocketPC, and is used to determine location while hiking, geocaching, boating, flying, driving, and many other sporting activities.

Infobox Software
name = GPS Tuner



caption = Landscape mode: Navigating a Map.
latest_release_version = 5.4 (Revision C)
latest_release_date = 5 June 2008
developer = Megalith Systems
operating_system = PocketPC
genre = GPS
license = COMMERCIAL
website = http://www.gpstuner.com/

Functionality

* Multilingual: English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, Portuguese, Danish, Czech, Swedish, Norwegian, Slovakian, Russian, Hungarian, Finnish, Afrikaans, Romanian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean.

* Units and National Grids: Selectable Metric, Imperial or Nautical units, 24 National Grids are supported (like WGS-84, British (OSGB36), NAD27, NAD83).

* Mapping: GPS Tuner supports JPG files as maps, Easy Calibration on Pocket PC or using Desktop Map Calibrator (free) program, Auto map loading feature, Zoom and Pan by pen or joystick, Flexible layer and track/route display, Distance measuring and route defining by drawing on map Blank map support.

* Navigation, Digital Compass: Real time rotating compass with big target arrow, Custom target from entered coordinate, Any waypoint, trackpoint or point of map can be selected as target, 6 different types of Compass views, 38 selectable Compass tools, Voice navigation and next turn indication for routes, Trip Computer Monitors your whole trip, Save, Load and Reset is possible, 31 selectable Trip Computer tools, Graph for Altitude and Speed, Selectable tool window size, Push track data into Trip Computer to get a full track analysis.

* Waypoints, POIs, Track, Routes: Waypoint, POI: GPX, LOC, KML files supported, Track, Route: GPX, TRK, KML files supported, Track recording by configurable Auto, Time or Distance interval, View your waypoints and tracks in Google Earth directly (KML export/import), Flexible waypoint management, You can easily convert track to route and reverse the direction of route, Area Calculation feature is also available in our Geo version.

* NMEA: NMEA recording, NMEA playback (with selectable speed), You can jump to any position of NMEA file (skipping unnecessary data).

* GPS Share: Share your position in real time with other users, See your friends position displayed in GPS Tuner, Monitor your (and your friends’) position on your web browser, Ideal for personal and vehicle tracking purposes.

Use of raster graphics

Most 'on-road' navigation applications utilize vector-based maps called vector graphics. This map-type contains objects such as Points Of Interest, City names, and street names, which are stored in data tables inside the map itself. The addition of this table-data means that the map-file sizes are generally quite large. These vector-based maps are also expensive to maintain and keep up-to-date: in an attempt to lower these costs, these maps are generally only updated by their producers once or twice per year. And because the format of the vector-based maps can also change a great deal, an update to the accompanying mapping software itself is usually required as well. To sum up, Vector based maps are hard to maintain, generally require a mapping software upgrade in order to utilize updated maps, and are generally require large capacity storage space to store.

In an attempt to avoid all of these issues, GPS Tuner utilizes raster-based (raster graphics) maps instead, which are essentially picture-maps (or a picture of a map). These maps can be created and calibrated by the user themselves, or downloaded from many free sites already calibrated. As pictures, the maps do not need to be updated until the actual elements of the picture map change (street locations changed, new roads added, etc). POIs are not built in to the picture, and are instead maintained in a separate file database, so the map sizes are incredibly small by comparison. Accordingly, when an updated picture map is available which shows a newly built street, the separate POI file would still be accurate in relation to that map. Therefore, the user need only download updated picture maps (or create and calibrate their own) whenever they want to, and no program updates are required.

ee also

* Geocaching
* GPS

External links

* [http://www.gpstuner.com http://www.gpstuner.com] The GPS Tuner website, for all GPS Tuner related info. Also includes up-to-date product downloads, and Forums for posting questions.