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Magellan VantagePoint Software downloadable!


rmasutani

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I downloaded it. It is free when you are registered on the Magellan site.

 

It recognized my Explorist 500 and I was able to download tracks, routes, waypoints, geocache points, and maps from the the 500 to the program. It took my Topo and Street Maps that I have on my SD card in the unit.

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Installation was fairly straight forward. Initially it only comes with a world basemap. As soon as I connected my eX600 usb and powered it on it was recognized and showed up in the GPS list.

 

You can then add maps from your hard drive (from MapSend Topo or MapSend DirectRoute) or you can transfer them from you gpsr unit. I was able to add my MapSend Topo 3D USA and MapSend DirectRoute maps to VP.

 

You have the usual features for adding waypoints, tracks, routes, and Geocaches. I tried adding a few Geocaches from my hard drive but it seems to only import one at a time. I did not see a way to select many at a time to import. Not good.

 

Overall it seems like a nice interface. But it may not be convenient on some features.

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Installation was simple, start up times are vastly superior to the Topo3D and Directroute software. Instantly recognized my 500LE. Import and export of detailed maps files and waypoints seems to work pretty well, both from Meridian and Explorist based files.

 

It's not incredibly intuitive, but it's workable for now, I haven't tried to calculate street routes or even figured out how at this point. The 3d interface needs "exaggeration" options

 

This should excite some of you

 

import.jpg[/img]

 

Interestingly enough gpsbabel is part of this software package

Edited by Baumer
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OK, I'm at a loss here. I have downloaded the VP without a hitch. I have it up and running. I can transfer maps, tracks, poi's etc, etc. Now the problem... I cannot see the maps. They are on the list. I have the maps check marked that I want to see. I have the GPS hooked up and recognized. I just cannot see the maps. I can hover my mouse over where I should see the map and the hightlightes come up showing the various poi's etc, just no map. Any thoughts on what might be wrong??

I am running Vista.

 

Also... VP will not recognize the Crossover. Just my Explorist. I have not tried the MerriPlat yet. The main reason I was looking foward to the VP was to use with the Crossover.

Edited by Warriorrider
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Interestingly enough gpsbabel is part of this software package

Well that was smart of them! (Any comment, Robert?)

I agree it was smart. :-)

 

I haven't downloaded it to confirm it, but I'm not surprised. I do need to look at their licensing stuff to be sure they included the GPL text, offers of source, etc., but that should pan out.

 

Mapsource doesn't include GPSBabel, but reaches into Google Earth's pocket to use the version it includes.

Google Earth uses GPSBabel.

GSAK, Maccaching, and many other Geocaching programs use it.

 

 

The Babel-heads deserve more groupies!

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OK, I'm at a loss here. I have downloaded the VP without a hitch. I have it up and running. I can transfer maps, tracks, poi's etc, etc. Now the problem... I cannot see the maps. They are on the list. I have the maps check marked that I want to see. I have the GPS hooked up and recognized. I just cannot see the maps. I can hover my mouse over where I should see the map and the hightlightes come up showing the various poi's etc, just no map. Any thoughts on what might be wrong??

I am running Vista.

 

Also... VP will not recognize the Crossover. Just my Explorist. I have not tried the MerriPlat yet. The main reason I was looking forward to the VP was to use with the Crossover.

 

Well, I installed this on my desktop running XP and it works as it should but I cannot get it to work on my laptop running Vista. I'm rarely home so it would be nice to have it on my laptop. Bummer.

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Installation was fairly straight forward. Initially it only comes with a world basemap. As soon as I connected my eX600 usb and powered it on it was recognized and showed up in the GPS list.

 

You can then add maps from your hard drive (from MapSend Topo or MapSend DirectRoute) or you can transfer them from you gpsr unit. I was able to add my MapSend Topo 3D USA and MapSend DirectRoute maps to VP.

 

You have the usual features for adding waypoints, tracks, routes, and Geocaches. I tried adding a few Geocaches from my hard drive but it seems to only import one at a time. I did not see a way to select many at a time to import. Not good.

 

Overall it seems like a nice interface. But it may not be convenient on some features.

I could not add maps from the hard drive. Only from the registered unit.

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...You have the usual features for adding waypoints, tracks, routes, and Geocaches. I tried adding a few Geocaches from my hard drive but it seems to only import one at a time. I did not see a way to select many at a time to import. Not good.

...

 

I played with it a little too. I found that if you have a *.gs file (eXplorist geocache file) it will import all the caches included in that file. I have not tried using GSAK to create a *.gs file with more than 200 caches to see how this software handles it though...

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You can then add maps from your hard drive (from MapSend Topo or MapSend DirectRoute) or you can transfer them from you gpsr unit. I was able to add my MapSend Topo 3D USA and MapSend DirectRoute maps to VP.

I could not add maps from the hard drive. Only from the registered unit.

 

Actually I was refering to cut maps stored on your hard drive.

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Been playing with it for a while. Can't say I am very impressed. Some of the maps I have are older ones (MapSend DR) and it does not import them and Magellan do not produce updated ones. Kinda sux.

Also it would be nice if one could make folders in the journal so that trips could be categorized.

I can see however that should they decide to import older ones it would be great.

Unless I am missing something.

Edited by tttedzeins
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I imported all my DirectRoute (Ver 3.0) maps without any problems at all. These were regions I had originally created with the DirectRoute software and saved as .imi maps on my hard drive. I just went into VantagePoint LIBRARY-ADD MAP and brought them straight in from my hard drive. I have the entire country loaded into VantagePoint right now.

Granted it's broken up into 20 or so individual maps I can only view one at a time, but it works fine.

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I've been playing with it for a few days now and downloaded a few PQs uzipped them and drag and dropped them right into VP and they kept the hints, but like others have said its kind of basic. For loading PQs to my gps I'll stay with GSAK.

I do like the way the maps look on it, except I think they could have state lines.

Anyway I think its a step in the right direction.

 

edit to add

It does seem to take a long time to load maps from the gps to VP

Edited by vagabond
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My opinion, which may or may not count for anything: Nice effort but has a way to go in terms of usability. I didn't find the program to be intuitive. It took me 20 minutes of fumbling around and frustration to figure out the functions. There isn't any documentation installed with the program, and there is no help function. The Help button just displays the version number. The function for adding a pocket query GPX file is correctly placed in the Library ribbon but I never thought to look at the Exchange buttons. If the tool tips were working correctly, I would have known one of the buttons was for import and one for export. The tool tips come up but they are translucent and contain no text. Real big help :D I didn't figure out these Exchange buttons were for import/export until after I had already used the drag-and-drop method used by Vagabond. I think some of my frustration with the software stems from its use of ribbons like MS Office 2007. I'm a menus and toolbars kind of guy.

 

The Pan tool should be made to act like the pointer tool, which displays info about the cache when you hold the cursor over it on the map. Holding the Pan cursor over the cache doesn't do anything, requiring the user to go back to the pointer tool. Another nice touch would be assigning a key to allow you to switch back and forth between the pointer and panning. For example, holding the spacebar down while in pointer mode to trigger panning temporarily. The inset map on the map page is way too big and I don't see a way to get rid of it. Planner looks like it's just for making routes but has 6 options for calculating routes; wish those options were available on the eXplorist. The Library > Geocache tab lists the caches, but does not mention container size. They left that out of the specification for the .gs file format for the eXplorist too - container size is important, more important than whether or not a container has TBs in it, which is some of the info listed in the Library. Going back to the map tab, when you mouse over the cache, it unnecessarily lists the cache type. The question mark symbol should be enough for you to know it is a puzzle/mystery/unknown cache; it doesn't need to be listed in the cache info. It's nice how VP shows past logs from within the program, unlike GSAK, which opens the web browser separately. However, I should mention that it looks like VP is using your default web browser to display the log text within VP. To wrap up my musings, I'd like to see Magellan add the ability to export only the caches returned by VP's search function. For example, I queried the loaded PQ for multi-caches with a difficulty of 1-2 and got 41 caches that meet the criteria. I don't see a way to export only those 41 caches to a .gs file.

 

I exported my 500-point PQ to a .gs geocaching POI file. The .gs file has 500 caches in it. I don't know how the eXplorist will handle that - will it read all 500 or ignore 300 of the caches? I don't have my GPSr with me to try.

 

VantagePoint is a good start but could use some polishing.

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Ok I have a Magellan eXplorist 210, Laptop with GSAK, I am a Premium Member, and I just downloaded VantagePoint. I am not a big fan of it but the one thing it does is show me a map of where all of the geocaches are in my area (after I upload them to it). My Questions is does GSAK have the same offline mapping capabilitys? Meaning Can I somehow use my mapes from Magellan which I have on CD from when I bought my GPSr on GSAK... Or what not very expensive mapping softwear can I find that I can do it with. I only ask this question here because I do like VantagePoint for that reason. Otherwise I am a VERY DISSATISFIED coustomer of Magellan and for that reason alone I don't want to use any of there stuff anymore if and when I don't have to. I hope this ramble of words makes some kind of sense...

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OK, I'm at a loss here. I have downloaded the VP without a hitch. I have it up and running. I can transfer maps, tracks, poi's etc, etc. Now the problem... I cannot see the maps. They are on the list. I have the maps check marked that I want to see. I have the GPS hooked up and recognized. I just cannot see the maps. I can hover my mouse over where I should see the map and the hightlightes come up showing the various poi's etc, just no map. Any thoughts on what might be wrong??

I am running Vista.

 

Also... VP will not recognize the Crossover. Just my Explorist. I have not tried the MerriPlat yet. The main reason I was looking foward to the VP was to use with the Crossover.

 

I was wondering if you ever found a solution to this problem. I have VantagePoint loaded on a laptop running Windows XP and the maps will not display on my machine either.

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OK, I'm at a loss here. I have downloaded the VP without a hitch. I have it up and running. I can transfer maps, tracks, poi's etc, etc. Now the problem... I cannot see the maps. They are on the list. I have the maps check marked that I want to see. I have the GPS hooked up and recognized. I just cannot see the maps. I can hover my mouse over where I should see the map and the hightlightes come up showing the various poi's etc, just no map. Any thoughts on what might be wrong??

I am running Vista.

 

Also... VP will not recognize the Crossover. Just my Explorist. I have not tried the MerriPlat yet. The main reason I was looking foward to the VP was to use with the Crossover.

 

I was wondering if you ever found a solution to this problem. I have VantagePoint loaded on a laptop running Windows XP and the maps will not display on my machine either.

 

Nope, never did get it to show the maps on that laptop. It did work on another Vist machine of mine and also my XP desktop.

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Ok, thanks.

 

I accidentally found out that if the window isn't maximized and I resize it down that the map begins to display at some point. Once the controls appear and I begin to scroll around a bit the program freezes up. I'll leave it alone for awhile on the laptop. I loaded it on a desktop running Vista and VantagePoint works fine on that machine.

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I have exactly the same problem. I an running on a desktop Vista, VantagePoint was intalled all right. I also have "Mapsend Topo USA" and "Mapsend routes and destination Canada". I cannot see any maps on the right part of the screen. They do not appear on the list of the left part of the screen either, just the base map.

 

I am now trying to use an Explorist400 , but still have a beat-up Sport Track Pro.

 

I still hope for a solution.

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