Maemo Mapper: GPS for the Nokia 770
 

Maemo Mapper 0.1 is now released and available from the Maemo Mapper Website.

Maemo Mapper is a mapping application like GPSDrive but built from the ground up for the Hildon UI and optimized for the Nokia 770. It works with any NMEA-compliant GPS Receiver that emits the RMC sentence of the NMEA protocol.

Major features include:
* Designed and optimized for the Nokia 770.
* Various methods of automatic map downloading.
* Support for the GPS Exchange (GPX) file format.
* Driving Directions generation, including on-the-fly re-generation if you stray from the route.
* Announcement of upcoming waypoints (including voice synthesis via flite).
* Freely released under the GPL.

If you use Maemo Mapper and would like to show your appreciation for it, or if you have a feature that you would like added to Maemo Mapper, please consider donating money via PayPal (link is on the website).

I have tested this release mostly under my own use cases, so please report any bugs that you may encounter to me (gnuite) on the Internet Tablet Talk forums.

There is no formal documentation yet, but most of the interface is intuitive. Read the Maemo Mapper website for details about the functionality.

Don't hesitate to make suggestions or comments. Enjoy!

Map Download URI Format examples
 

The Maemo Mapper website mentions that, in order for map downloading to work, you must provide a suitable "Map Download URI Format" that Maemo Mapper can use. Because Maemo Mapper does not have its own map repository (or affiliation with existing map repositories), I cannot include a default URI format in the program itself.

Instead, I can provide a few examples here of URI formats that currently work with Maemo Mapper. You must enter these examples in the "URI Format" text field of the "Maps" tab of the Settings dialog box. (It remembers your setting, so you should only need to do this once.)

For that original Google Maps look:
For an alternate Google Maps look, with added road and building detail, more road names, and wider-looking roads:
Please note that using either of these examples (or any other private commercial map repositories) may consitute a violation of copyright law. Use of Maemo Mapper and/or these examples requires and implies that you agree that you understand that using Maemo Mapper to download maps from a commercial map repository may be considered a violation of copyright law and that I (John Costigan) cannot be held responsible for any of your actions related thereto.

I haven't even downloaded it yet and I'm impressed.
 

I haven't even downloaded it yet and I'm impressed with the explanation you've provided on your web site. You're going to get a reputation if you keep this up!

WOW! Thank you so much! I have 2 questions however:

1. I have fluite installed, yet it doesn't give me any voice commands (just textual commands)

2. I downloaded a 5-detailed type map. But the program is still showing me the satellite topo map, not the detailed one. How do I show the detailed map?


Thanks again!

Hi, I installed maemo-mapper and flite.
(but I don't have a bluetooth gps device (yet...))
After starting it, I inserted the "Map Download URI Format" on the initial dialog box, and, when I press "ok", it just crashes...

Is it posible to test this without a bluetooth gps?
Can I insert a manual GPS coordinate? (so that I can download the maps for this location).
(would it be possible to create a "virtual" gps device, that can get it's coordinates from a text file, or even from a url?)

thanks.
;)

Make sure that flite is in your classpath. If you have XTerm installed, you can test this by just typing the following:
If that works, it should work in Maemo Mapper. If not, then set up your classpath so that the above _does_ work.

The program will automatically display the most detailed map applicable for an area, but it only scales UP (from lesser-detailed maps); it doesn't scale down. That means that if you are zoomed out to the maximum level, you won't see any higher-detailed maps. Just zoom in in order to see the more-detailed maps.

Yeah. It's not a crash; the program actually closes if you do not specify a Receiver MAC address. I should probably change that behavior, now that it does make a little bit of sense to use the program without a GPS receiver. Until then, just specify "00:00:00:00:00:00" as your MAC address. Afterward, you can disable the "Enable GPS" checkbox in the menu to stop the "Searching for GPS Receiver" messages.

Sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks for the feedback!

1. It says flite was not found? How do I set my classpath?

2. Cool, it worked when I zoomed in this time. Strangely, it didn't before. I placed the directory for the maps on the memory card. The maps should be saved there so I can access them every time I open Maemo Mapper, correct? Or do they always have to be re-downloaded?

Thank you for your help.

I have a quick suggestion with map downloading. Is it possible in the next update to have a feature where you can download the maps by Zip/City/County/State/Country? It would be cool if for example I can download the enter maps for the USA with one click. It's kind of confusing on how to do this with the Latitude/Longitude coordinates?

Thanks again for the excellent application!

here is what I did, and works perfect.
1. set the map to auto download
2. zoom in to max on the left upper corner of the region you want to download
3. go in download area and "view center" will show you the coordinates for that point.
4. do the same for the right lower corner.
5. select again "download region" and put the 2 sets of coordinates.
6. select the zoom levels.... and download.

I downloaded a BIG part of Oregon for the zoom levels from 4 to 16 (you can see all the streets and the names for the highways) in about 200 MB.
I have to study the code and maybe with help from gnuite I will make a windows app to download the maps... and then copy them on the card when you need them...

This is a great application, thanks gnuite!!