+lohroffc Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 I bought Mapopolis last night. I am using it on my Dell Axim with a Magellan Map 330. Incredible program! I am very impressed with it's routing capabilities... much better than XMap, which I also have. Now, I messed around with the maplet feature, which basically lets you create your own POI's on one of their maps. You add them by clicking on the screen, which isn't accurate enough for caching. So I emailed them. A few hours later and I've imported a gpx file into Mapopolis! Very cool!!! They emailed me the map conversion utility. Essentially you create a text file that includes your waypoints (name, lat, long, detail level to display at, and a category (which can be created on the fly... i used cache.)), run it through their conversion program, and it spits out a mapopolis map. The extension is PDB (palm database). If you need it for a Pocket PC, you simply change the extension to mlx and upload it to your PPC. You then select your road map and your cache landmark map so they are displayed together. It overlays the caches on top of the road map. Now, I don't recommend actually using Mapopolis for finding the cache, but this will route you to it and get you very close. If anyone is interested in more details, let me know. If there is a lot of interest, I'll put together a web page. dyslexics of the world, untie. Quote Link to comment
+Searching_ut Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 I've been looking at Mapopolis, so far all the reviews I've seen give it the edge overall. Looks to me like it would be great for caching. As accurate of maps as you can find right now, auto routing etc. Then just grab your handheld receiver for the footwork once you get to the parking area. As a new Axim owner, I'd like to hear more about how you're interfacing to the GPS receiver. So far, using a null modem I've had a little bit of trouble. Seems I have to first have the axis program looking for the gps, then connect the cable. If I don't, I get lockups etc. This happens if I just hook the gps up via the serial cable, but don't try to do anything else. Glad to see someone making this setup work good, and I'd be greatfull for any pointers Jeff Quote Link to comment
+lohroffc Posted March 6, 2003 Author Share Posted March 6, 2003 I have the same issue. I just work around it. I make sure I have a GPS program running (I use NMEA Monitor) when I connect the cable to the GPS. Then I shut down NMEA Monitor and fire up Mapopolis and it works. I believe the problem has something to do with ActiveSync. It was described in one of the newsgroups as a dog in search of a leg... and that seems about right to me. Hopefully there will be a better solution. In the meantime, at least we have a viable workaround. Another word about Mapopolis... their support is incredible. I send several emails today with questions. They were all answered correctly and promptly. I'm very impressed. dyslexics of the world, untie. Quote Link to comment
+Searching_ut Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 Thanks for the info, especially about having the same sort of difficulty. I don't feel to bad now. I've also seen on Axim forums that others are having the same problem as well, so I at least don't feel so foolish now for not being able to make it all perfect. By the way, did you go with one of the download versions of mapopolis or did you buy the CD? Quote Link to comment
+YeOleImposter Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 I have been creating maps using their conversion program too. The maps it creates only work with the Enhanced version but can be tweaked to work with the Platinum maps. These have worked great for trips out of the area and I now have maps to all the caches I might want to visit. Gary Quote Link to comment
+YeOleImposter Posted March 6, 2003 Share Posted March 6, 2003 I forgot to mention that I use GPSBabel to convert the gpx pocket quieries directly into the file that the mapopolis converter requires. GPSBabel also converts the file into a couple of other formats I need including waypoints for my Magellan GPS companion I use on my Visor. Gary Quote Link to comment
+lohroffc Posted March 7, 2003 Author Share Posted March 7, 2003 I am using the subscription plan (downloadable maps). Regarding GPSBabel, my initial conversion was done using Excel. I then found a reference to someone using GPSBabel and I got that working last night. Very cool! dyslexics of the world, untie. Quote Link to comment
TomBombadil79 Posted March 7, 2003 Share Posted March 7, 2003 I was just starting playing with making maps with the converter utility (Hopefully to work with my Platinum Maps) Any comments, help, instruction, examples, ... that keeps me from reinventing a poor version of the wheel would be majorly appreciated. TomBombadil79 Quote Link to comment
+alexm Posted March 7, 2003 Share Posted March 7, 2003 quote:Any comments, help, instruction, examples, ... that keeps me from reinventing a poor version of the wheel would be majorly appreciated. Here's a link to the GPSBabel mailing list discussion that covered Mapopolis Map Converter. It may help, or perhaps just confuse things a bit more. Is that Mapconverer application part of the pay package? I tried out the demo, and one of things that led me away was the lack of being able to mass-dump waypoints into Mapopolis. I later dropped $20 or so on Delorme XMap HH Street Atlas. It's got quirks of it's own, though. ... alex Quote Link to comment
+lohroffc Posted March 7, 2003 Author Share Posted March 7, 2003 When I emailed the support team about importing waypoints they emailed me the convertor. Email me and I'll forward it to you. It creates .PDB files (Palm Database), but you just need to rename them to MLP (I think that's the right extension) for pocket pc. dyslexics of the world, untie. Quote Link to comment
+YeOleImposter Posted March 8, 2003 Share Posted March 8, 2003 Here also is a link to the message I wrote about creating the mapopolis Style sheet. mapopolis style sheet layout Gary Quote Link to comment
+lohroffc Posted March 8, 2003 Author Share Posted March 8, 2003 I used this and when I finally got it to work, it was the key. The problem I had was when I pasted it into my editor, it didn't like the space (or whatever character it was) that ended up in front of each line. After about an hour of messing with it, I figured that out and then it worked like a charm. The other struggle I had related to the version of GPS Babel I had. I wasted about another hour before I realized the version I had didn't support -xcsv. So, a couple of tips, make sure you have the latest version of GPS Babel and be careful of pasting the style sheet. dyslexics of the world, untie. Quote Link to comment
+YeOleImposter Posted March 9, 2003 Share Posted March 9, 2003 If you have only lost 2 hours - you are much farther ahead then I am!! Quote Link to comment
robertlipe Posted March 9, 2003 Share Posted March 9, 2003 I saw the original post with the mapopolis style sheet. Since it relied on an external program and didn't come with a test case, doc, etc, I didn't apply it as I assumed it was just an informational thing. If this external program really is what mapopolis requires and someone would be willing to give me a test caes and a paragraph for the doc, I'll gladly include it in the next version of GPSBabel. Quote Link to comment
+YeOleImposter Posted March 9, 2003 Share Posted March 9, 2003 It would be cool to bypass the program altogether. I am sure it can be done, and Mapopolis may even be willing to share the file format. All the documentation I have for it is in the mapconverter.zip file that is manually downloadable since it is in their root web directory. Until then, point me to a sample 'Paragraph' and I will write one up. Quote Link to comment
robertlipe Posted March 9, 2003 Share Posted March 9, 2003 quote:Originally posted by yragnosluap:It would be cool to bypass the program altogether. I am sure it can be done, and Mapopolis may even be willing to share the file format. I'll leave it to a Mapopolis user to research that and share that on the gpsbabel-misc mailing list. quote:All the documentation I have for it is in the mapconverter.zip file that is manually downloadable since it is in their root web directory. I didn't see anything in their 45 page pdf doc that was suitable, but I didn't see the converter thingy at all. (OTOH, I may also be delerious from a fever right now...) quote:Until then, point me to a sample 'Paragraph' and I will write one up. The http://gpsbabel.sourceforge.net/README should describe how to get this converter, how to use it, and so on. I'll also need a sample file known to work with it and I'll work that into a test case. (It simplifies my life somewhat if they're inspired by the 9 geocaches that comprise the test suite in the 'reference' directory of GPSBabel, but I'll get past it if you use a different data set.) Further discussion and contribution should probably best be held on the mailing list of gpsbabel-misc at lists.sourceforge.net Thanx Quote Link to comment
+Ramblin' Wreck Posted March 10, 2003 Share Posted March 10, 2003 This is exactly what I've been looking for. It took a couple hours spread out over a few days, but I got it to work. 1) Use GeoBuddy to convery .loc file into a .csv file 2) Use Excel to format the .csv file into the corrrect format for Mapconverter using the sample.txt file included with the zip file from Mapopolis 3) Run Mapconverter, change the file name extension to .mlp and copy over to my iPAQ. This allows me to route to a cache using Mapopolis and then using either OziExplorer or my Garmin to find the cache. Thanks again and I look forward to Mapopolis including this in the next release. Their tech support was great, answering several questions over the weekend. Quote Link to comment
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