Laptop for route planning

[hydeaway]

I'd like to use my laptop to map out my route and get me close to the cache while I am driving. I'll take it from there with my Garmin Venture HC. Curious what combination of mapping software and laptop GPS receiver you guys are using. Recommendations and lessons learned. Thanks in advance.

[shivia]

I use Garmin's NRoute to synchronize my laptop with gps.

[+GeekBoy.from.Illinois]

I'd like to use my laptop to map out my route and get me close to the cache while I am driving. I'll take it from there with my Garmin Venture HC. Curious what combination of mapping software and laptop GPS receiver you guys are using. Recommendations and lessons learned. Thanks in advance.

 

When I do auto routing to the cache area, I tend to use my laptop (ThinkPad X60) or my PDA (HP iPaq 2490) with a Garmin GPS 10x bluetooth GPSr. For the laptop I use the free nRoute with my purchased maps City Navigator 2009 NT. When I use the PDA I use the included software MobileXT and the same purchased maps as are used with the laptop.

 

The benefit of using the PDA is that it is also the same PDA I use for CacheMate, so there is one less device to worry about, and with the bluetooth GPSr, it is also portable, and can be used as a backup GPSr in the field, and for running Wherigo modules.

[Mag Magician]

It depends! If you have a Garmin, then Garmin's Mapsource, which you already have installed will receive a signal from your GPSr. Plug in the GPSr, have the drivers installed in Windows, and start Mapsource. Click on the "view" plus "GPS Map details" and your position shows up automatically.

 

Well, that's the way it works on my laptop at least.

 

Edit: I had nRoute installed, and then uninstalled that dinosaur.

Edited November 7, 2008 by Mag Magician

[Ken in Regina]

It depends! If you have a Garmin, then Garmin's Mapsource, which you already have installed will receive a signal from your GPSr. Plug in the GPSr, have the drivers installed in Windows, and start Mapsource. Click on the "view" plus "GPS Map details" and your position shows up automatically.

 

Well, that's the way it works on my laptop at least.

 

Edit: I had nRoute installed, and then uninstalled that dinosaur.

Just to clarify for those who aren't familiar with the Garmin programs Mag Magician is mumbling about here, only really really ancient versions of Mapsource were able to navigate. Any version released in, say, the last century does not have any navigation ability.

 

nRoute has the same interface as Mapsource and does a lot of the same stuff, and it has all the usual navigation features you would expect from Garmin. If you already have Mapsource and some Garmin maps installed on your laptop you can download nRoute and it will navigate using any maps that are already installed in Mapsource. You need Mapsource and its maps or nRoute does nothing useful for you. And a GPS receiver, of course.

 

So, to add to what Mag Magician said, if you have Mapsource and some Garmin maps installed for downloading to your Venture, all you need to do is go to Garmin's site, use their search feature to find "nroute", download and install it, connect the Venture to your laptop to use as a GPS receiver and you should be in business. (Depending on how the Venture connects to the laptop, eg. USB or serial, it might be just that easy, or it might be a bit more complicated.)

 

...ken...

[shivia]

...You need Mapsource and its maps or nRoute does nothing useful for you...ken...

- we can use NRoute alone without MapSource&CN? It's new for me. I presume we should have these programs BEFORE to be able to use NRoute.

[Ken in Regina]

- we can use NRoute alone without MapSource&CN?

No, you can not use nroute without Mapsource.

Non, vous ne pouvez pas utiliser nroute sans Mapsource.

 

It's new for me. I presume we should have these programs BEFORE to be able to use NRoute.

Yes. You must have Mapsource and a Garmin map installed to allow nroute to work.

Oui. Vous devez avoir Mapsource et une carte de Garmin a installé pour permettre à nroute pour travailler.

 

Salut.

 

...ken...

[hydeaway]

Is there a good "off the shelf" solution? I was considering purchasing Garmin Mobile PC with 20X. Does anyone have this? Thoughts?

Edited November 10, 2008 by hydeaway

[Mag Magician]

 

Just to clarify for those who aren't familiar with the Garmin programs Mag Magician is mumbling about here, only really really ancient versions of Mapsource were able to navigate. Any version released in, say, the last century does not have any navigation ability.

 

My mistake, I suppose! I have Mapsource ver. 6.13.7 running on XP Pro. I suppose I must be from the last century. Perhaps my mistake was installing nRoute and then uninstalling to save hard drive space on the lappy.

[Ken in Regina]

Is there a good "off the shelf" solution? I was considering purchasing Garmin Mobile PC with 20X. Does anyone have this? Thoughts?

Mobile PC with 10x would be a much better choice. The GPS10x is an excellent Bluetooth with modern GPS receiver technology. I have one that I use with my laptop (Mobile PC and others) and my Palm TX (Mobile XT). It comes with a belt clip. I was using it on the golf course with Intelligolf on the Palm TX and I was quite surprised at how well it held a good lock and how many satellites it managed to see while hanging on my belt with my body always blocking some portion of the sky.

 

With a laptop, Bluetooth is generally preferable, simply because you don't have to deal with a cable and you can place the receiver in the very best position for GPS reception without any concern for where you want to place the laptop.

 

But you already have most of what you need for an "off the shelf" solution". Your Venture HC will work as an external USB receiver and nroute is a good nav program. nroute will use any maps that you have installed in Mapsource. It does all of the things you would expect from a full-featured nav program, including routing with voice guidance.

 

There are three significant differences between nroute and Mobile PC. Mobile PC has a much prettier map display. Mobile PC has the same visual interface as the Nuvi handhelds and is touchscreen-capable if you have a touchscreen. Mobile PC can pronounce street names when doing voice guidance.

 

But nroute has one big advantage: for you, it's free. You just have to download it and start using it with the Venture and the maps that are already installed in Mapsource (assuming you have road maps with routing data in them).

 

One final thought... If you don't have road maps and have to buy one - like City Navigator North America - then Mobile PC will probably be the better deal. It comes with City Navigator North America NT2009 preinstalled and the whole package, including the GPS10x isn't much more than buying the maps by themselves.

 

If you are interested in loads of discussion about Garmin Mobile PC and a bunch of other laptop navigation programs you should check out the Laptop GPS World forum. There is discussion about the GPS20x with Mobile PC and so far the suggestion is to go with the newly-released bundle with the GPS10x instead, or get the software-only version of Mobile PC and a third-party Bluetooth receiver.

 

...ken...

Edited November 11, 2008 by Ken in Regina

[+DanOCan]

Just to clarify for those who aren't familiar with the Garmin programs Mag Magician is mumbling about here, only really really ancient versions of Mapsource were able to navigate. Any version released in, say, the last century does not have any navigation ability.

 

Hehehe. For those interested in such useless trivia, Garmin dropped real-time tracking from Mapsource when they released version 6.7. Version 6.5 appears to be the newest version of the product that still had support for tracking in it. Current release is 6.14.1.

 

Another gotcha for those using nRoute: nRoute can only read GDB v2 files, so if you save a GDB v3 file in Mapsource and try to load it in nRoute it won't be able to read it. Any GDB file you want to use in nRoute needs to be saved in the older v2 format. Since Garmin hasn't released an update to nRoute since April of 2007, it appears Garmin wants everyone to use a Nuvi for real-time tracking.

[Ken in Regina]

Those are excellent points, Dan.

 

As far as updates for nroute, it has all the functionality of any modern nav program, and more features than some (eg. Streets&Trips, Street Atlas). It just isn't as pretty as some have become.

 

Garmin would probably say Mobile PC is the latest "update" for nroute.

 

As for saving in GDB2 format, I quite doing that and just cut/paste from Mapsource to nroute. It's quicker. You just select a tab (say, Waypoints), use Ctrl-A (or Edit > Select All) to select everything in that tab, Ctrl-C (or Edit > Copy) to copy to the clipboard, switch to nroute and paste from the clipboard into the appropriate tab. It's an intelligent cut/paste so it copies everything over, even complex routes and tracks.

 

nroute isn't for everyone and I sure wouldn't discourage someone from buying Mobile PC (it has a really gorgeous display). But for someone who already has Mapsource with some road maps installed and who wants a really cheap way to see how useful their laptop is for navigation, nroute is a great way to try it out. Especially if the person already has a Garmin unit that can also act as a GPS receiver. It just doesn't get any better than Free, for low-risk startup.

 

...ken...