maemo.org - Talk - Maemo Mapper: GPS for the Nokia 770

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- - Maemo Mapper: GPS for the Nokia 770 (https://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=1947)

Quote:

Originally Posted by booiiing

first of all, i want to thank gnuite and the others for maemo-mapper and the effort you are putting into this.

but unfortunately i experience problems with the gpx-webservice. i get the error "Error: An error occurred while attempting to retrieve the driving directions - are the source and destination valid?" with sources/destinations that work in google-maps.

What were the source and destination Addresses (not the "Label"s)?

Quote:

Originally Posted by RussNelson

Nope. Not using any other BT devices. Enabling / disabling the GPS doesn't solve the problem for me. With verbose debugging turned on, I can see that it's calling g_iol_cb_error (or something like that; message already scrolled off) with GIOCondition==24 (8 == ERR + 16 == HUP). Then it tries closing and reopening the bluetooth socket.

I can try duplicating the functionality of hciconfig down/up in the error handler.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ioan

I have the same problem with maemo-mapper and I had same problem with gpsdrive and gpsd.

I don't think the problem is from power saving on nokia. I did this with mine to test:
<maemo.org instructions>
1. Using xterm, scan for remote BT devices:
# hcitool scan
2. Copy the adress of the newly found BT GPS receiver. (looks like xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx)
3. Start the serial protocol over BT :
# rfcomm bind /dev/rfcomm0 xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
4. After that, your BT GPS should get connected to everytime /dev/rfcomm0 is opened. You can check this by doing:
# cat /dev/rfcomm0
This should give NMEA GPS output.
</maemo.org instructions>

and I left it like that, running, overnight (about 10 hours) and I got the nmea gps output all this time with no intreruption.

-ioan

ioan, would it be possible for you to repeat that test with gpsd (instead of cat)? That is, start gpsd and use wget to get continual output from the GPS?

Quote:

Originally Posted by gnuite

ioan, would it be possible for you to repeat that test with gpsd (instead of cat)? That is, start gpsd and use wget to get continual output from the GPS?

can you give me the option flags for making wget to loop getting same url? or do I have to make a script for this?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ioan

can you give me the option flags for making wget to loop getting same url? or do I have to make a script for this?

I thought, since GPSD gives no length for the HTTP response, that wget would simply continue reading data as it comes in (similar to cat), but if I'm wrong, then yeah, I guess a script will have to do.

Thanks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gnuite

Right; in my instructions, I recommended running Maemo Mapper for the first time in the presence of only one bluetooth device: your GPS device

Oops, missed that, sorry. I think that sometimes this isn't practical though maybe I'm an odd case - I was setting this up in my office and the neighbors are a startup with tons of local wifi and bluetooth traffic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gnuite

In v0.2, I will move the entire "Initial GPS Setup" code into a separate binary that will get run the first time Maemo Mapper is started. This will allow me to make the wizard as arbitrarily large as needed to ease initial setup.

I wonder if it would be better to let the bluetooth plug-in handle that? (I'm hoping that becomes a standard part of the OS)

Also, have you considered a library version of this application, ala roadnav?

Finally, I'd love to see you create an API so additional functionality could easily be added. BTW, great work!

Brad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gnuite

Are either of you doing anything special (like also being connected to a cell phone or to a WAP) when this happens?

Actually, I've been using maemo mapper with a cell phone and bluetooth gps and my experience has been about the same: It seems to lock up after running fine for 10-20 minutes... I've managed to give it a "kick-start" by pressing the on-off button (is this the same as closing the lid?)

A few other comments:

- Downloading via cell is a problem, at least when speeds are slower than EDGE. The user interface seems to freeze while the map is loading, and at 30 miles per hour (or more) I don't think maemo mapper will ever keep up (since more and more maps need to be loaded).

This could be a problem because I'm in-between cell towers or maybe the 770 just doesn't have enough oompf to run multiple threads efficiently.

And a EDGE speeds, the display can get a little jerky when downloading (though I have no idea of the network conditions when the problem occurs) but it's still usable.

So in my limited testing, I don't think it's practical to download maps are you travel - yet. But when it works it's very cool.

- Twice I've lost my gps fix for about 40 seconds (the west hills tunnels). As I was driving, my girlfriend was watching the 770. She told me that the track suddenly jumped "way off" but after we exited the tunnel, tracking resumed as expected. Certainly a minor glitch, but I wonder if sanity checking of the gps positions returned (vs. the current speed/position) isn't warranted?

- flite works great, but the volume is so low I don't think this is really useful without earphones. And by great I mean it has a terrible voice but is a real cool hack :-)

- I think the latest firmware 5.2006.13-7 has improved system stability when more than one bluetooth device is connected at the same time (or so it seems). And it seems that using wifi and bluetooth at the same time is also improved. But maemo mapper seems to kill any active connections when it starts, so I've gotten used to making sure I don't connect to T-Mobile until _after_ the application is started.

I'll report more as I keep testing.

And good news about gpsd integration for the next version - I'm getting ready to put a soekris box in my trunk (ala stompbox) and I was hoping to use the 770 as the front-end.

Brad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gnuite

What were the source and destination Addresses (not the "Label"s)?

I've had this problem when my address had a "#" in it. Format was something like:

4433 SW Amway #2, MyTown, MyState, 99999

I replaced the "#" with "Apt" and it worked just fine. So I'd assume that certain characters may not be valid?

Brad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bradb

The GPX Driving Directions web service (and hence Maemo Mapper itself, which uses the web service) utilizes Google Maps and thus should work with any address that works with Google Maps. To be more specific, the web service uses maps.google.com - it may not work with maps.google.de or any other locale-specific version of Google Maps.

When the driving directions parsing code is moved from the web service into Maemo Mapper itself, you will be able to provide your own URL, meaning that you can use the .de version (or any other version) if you wish (at the risk of violating Google's copyright?).

Error parsing GPX file

Attached is an .xml route file created using gnuite's GPX Driving Directions page running on the Nokia 770 (ie. the issue of file format discussed earlier does not apply). When loading the route in Maemo-mapper it gives an "Error parsing GPX file" message.

Is it the German special characters, or the length of the file causing the error?

I am loving this program more and more, thinking of buying the Nokia LD-3W receiver :D