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The other great thing that G7toWin enables you to do is create dummy routes (see Figure 8-37). To create a dummy route, click Routes Create Dummy Route.
FIGURE 8-37: Creating a dummy route
After you have created the dummy route, you can then populate it with data. Double-click on the newly created route to bring up the Route Editing dialog box. This now allows you to
add the waypoints you have downloaded to the route before uploading it to the GPS. This can be really handy because it allows you to experiment with the GPS by creating routes that use fake data. You can then experiment with your GPS interface and gain experience on how it functions.
Creative Uses of GPS Data
Data is data is data, as they say, so let’s now move away from looking at the raw data and take a look at some creative uses of GPS data, such as how to add it to digital images, how to plot WiFi signals, and how to write your own code to use GPS data.
Sharing Waypoints
After you have collected waypoints, you might feel that you want to share them. There are a variety of ways that you can do this:
Store them on a floppy disk or CD and pass them around
Distribute them on paper
Make them available on the Internet
If you choose the Internet route, then you can either make the waypoints available on your own personal homepage (the TopoGrafix format is a good format to choose for this) or you can upload them to a website dedicated to waypoints. One such website is www.waypoint. org. This is a waypoint registry where you can find waypoints for many countries around the world. To make navigation easier, these waypoints are categorized. Other such sites include the following:
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www.waypoints.de
www.swopnet.com/waypoints
www.travelbygps.com
www.pickatrail.com
Adding GPS Information to Digital Photos
Hooking your digital camera to your GPS is going to cost you a lot of money and it can only be done with certain combinations of cameras and GPS units. For example, you can find kits to connect Kodak digital cameras, such as the DC 260, to a GPS receiver, but the adapter alone, excluding the camera and GPS receiver, costs over $300. A cheaper way to do this is to add GPS information to your digital photos on your PC.
The process is simple — after you have taken a picture at a location, use your GPS to create a waypoint at that spot. This will store the coordinates along with data and time information, and then you can add the waypoint information to the image file afterwards.
In order to do this, you need special software — called RoboGEO (see Figure 8-38).
RoboGEO is shareware software; it currently costs $22.95, but you can download an evaluation (trial) version from www.robogeo.com.
RoboGEO takes the information from waypoints you specify on your GPS and enables you to add the waypoint information to the EXIF information on the digital photo.
EXIF stands for Exchangeable Image File Format. This data storage format allows for the storage of non-image data (such as date, time, camera settings, and, in this case, latitude and longitude) within the actual image file. Virtually all modern digital cameras produce images that can store EXIF information within the file (usually only for JPG/JPEG format). This means that you don’t have to add text overlays to your image that show the data. Instead, the data is stored in such as way that it can be viewed using Windows XP or another digital photograph application that uses the EXIF standard. An excellent application for viewing EXIF information is Exifer for Windows (www.friedemann-schmidt.com/software/exifer). This is a postcardware application (the only payment that the author asks for is a postcard) that enables you to view and edit this information.
FIGURE 8-38: RoboGEO
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RoboGEO is really clever because it can use the time-stamp information on your digital photos (applied by the camera) to sort out which waypoints belong to which image. This means that you should ensure that the time on your camera is correct (set it to the time shown on the GPS — unfortunately, you’ll have to do this manually).
Now, information about where you took your image, along with when and how, will be stored along with the image so that you can view the information or even use it as search criteria for photographs.
Lightning Detector and Plotter
If you are at sea or in the air, then having information about lightning storms is invaluable. By combining your GPS with a lightning detector, you can do just that. There aren’t many low-cost lightning detection systems (about $700) on the market, but one of the best has to be the LD-250 Lightning Detector setup. Okay, $700 seems like a lot to spend for a device that detects lightning, but if you sail or fly, then accurate, up-to-date storm information can mean the difference between life and death. On a less dramatic front, businesses find accurate weather information critical to many key decisions they make, so for up-to-the-second information, $700 is cheap.
This hardware plugs into your desktop or laptop via a serial port and it has a port for input from a GPS receiver. On the PC, you need to load software that communicates with the detector and plots the lightning storms on a map that is displayed. An antenna also forms part of the setup. This is placed outside, of course, and detects the lightning and feeds the information to the device, which processes it before sending that to the PC.
Once set up, it is ready to detect lightning storms. As soon as the external antenna picks up the electromagnetic pulse from a lightning bolt (within milliseconds after it occurs), its position is displayed onscreen.
Background maps are available of the United States and other locations worldwide. With a setup like this connected to a laptop (currently, there is no version for mobile devices such as the Pocket PC but they are planned), you have a mobile system that can warn you of bad weather as soon as it happens. By plotting the movement of the storm, you are in a position to take action to avoid it, whether on land, sea, or in the air.
For more information, visit www.geneq.com/catalog/en/ld_ld250.html.
Wardriving
Another activity that GPS plays a key role in nowadays is wardriving. Wardriving is the name given to the activity in which individuals drive around with a PC or Pocket PC set up to detect WiFi networks that are broadcasting signals.
There are many variations on wardriving — warwalking, warriding (bike or motorbike), and even warflying, which uses light aircraft or helicopters. The idea is to find wireless network spots, log the location, and then find another. As the popularity of WiFi grew, so did the popularity of wardriving. If you go wardriving to pick up active hotspots, the addition of a GPS to the system will enable you to store pinpoint location information about the hotspots that you discover; so rather than manually storing information such as street names and building numbers, all of which is prone to change or susceptible to input errors, the software picks up the location from the GPS automatically, eliminating errors and simplifying the process.
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The most popular software used for wardriving is called NetStumbler (and its PocketPC counterpart MiniStumbler). Both are equipped to pick up and log hotspot coordinates (see Figure 8-39).
FIGURE 8-39: NetStumbler in action
Logging the access points that you discover enables you to plot them on a map or store the data or upload it to the web for exchange with others.
For more information on wardriving, visit the following websites:
www.netstumbler.com
www.wardriving.com
GPS in Programming
If you are a programmer, then you will no doubt want to put your programming skills to use on GPS. If this is something that interests you, then in order to interface with your GPS, you can either write code completely from scratch (tedious work, I can tell you) or you can use a dropin GPS module that does all the hard work for you.
One such component is the GPS Toolkit.NET by Scientific Components (www.scientific component.com/gps_toolkit_net.htm).
GPS Toolkit.NET enables you to quickly and easily add GPS support to any Visual Basic
.NET, C#, or C++ project. With one simple component, you gain the capability to drop into your application a whole host of GPS features easily.
This software isn’t cheap ($179), but if you are serious about developing an application using GPS, this is money well spent.