edschminke Posted October 26, 2005 Share Posted October 26, 2005 I'm looking to develop Windows PC based applications that will communicate with GPS units. Specifically the Garmin units, which is what I own. I spent a good couple hours google searching a number of keywords, but wasn't able to come up with a good "start point". I'm familiar with the concepts of a number of different programming languages. I was looking to begin development for this application in C++ however. Does anybody know of a good resource that I might be able to use? Something that would start off as simple as producing the equiviliant of the "Hello world" application? Any help would be appreciated! Quote Link to comment
robertlipe Posted October 26, 2005 Share Posted October 26, 2005 If you're looking for a fun project, I'd rank implementing Garmin protocol to actually work on a variety of real-world hardware on the fun-o-meter slightly below jamming a fork into ones own eyeball. Garmin does publish a spec that almost matches their hardware. It's gotten better in recent years, but it's still not great. Ask yourself if you can use GPSBabel to do the actual receiver xters for you. Applications like GSAK and Google Earth have had some success doing so. Quote Link to comment
+ClydeE Posted October 26, 2005 Share Posted October 26, 2005 Applications like GSAK and Google Earth have had some success doing so As usual, Robert is being rather humble here . I nearly went down this path when first writing GSAK. Robert enlightened me about the many problems involved in trying to "play nice" with the Garmin spec. If you are a masochist then go for it. Otherwise, take a good look at GPSBabel - I am sure it will suit your needs admirably. Quote Link to comment
edschminke Posted October 27, 2005 Author Share Posted October 27, 2005 If a desire to learn how stuff works makes me a masochist, then i guess I'm a masochist. LOL Everyone always looks at me cross-eyed when i say I wanna build something from scratch. Just helps my understanding of it all I guess Again... some sort of start point or somebody's source code to even just look at would be great. Quote Link to comment
+embra Posted October 27, 2005 Share Posted October 27, 2005 GPSBabel is open-source; I expect you should be able to view the code. Quote Link to comment
PodunkPaul Posted October 28, 2005 Share Posted October 28, 2005 If a desire to learn how stuff works makes me a masochist, then i guess I'm a masochist. LOL If that is true, abandon C++ as your language choice and go with Assembler (I think MASM32 is free)... Quote Link to comment
edschminke Posted October 28, 2005 Author Share Posted October 28, 2005 *HACK* *COUGH* Assembly?!! oooo... that stuff is of the devil! Quote Link to comment
+RumJungle Posted October 28, 2005 Share Posted October 28, 2005 *HACK* *COUGH* Assembly?!! oooo... that stuff is of the devil! Then maybe *bit-slice* is better Quote Link to comment
JDMC Posted October 29, 2005 Share Posted October 29, 2005 You can get the C source code to USAPhotoMaps at jdmcox.com It does just about everything you could want to do with a Garmin GPS. Quote Link to comment
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