GPS Software for PC

Question

hi !

I will start on a private project that will require some GPS software on my computer, so far I have been contacting Garmin and Destinator to ask if they have some sort of SDK kit for theire map services. however they could not offer me this in Norway.

I am therefore asking here if anyone here know any kind of map software, capable of GPS and have some decent updates on maps every year, that also can provide me with some ActiveX component which I can embed in my application.

I really only need the most basic functions to setup a destination address and drive.. maybe turn on or off some various switches.

Answer 1

You have the big names like MS Mappoint, ArcGIS from ESRI... I remember using Mappoint from Delphi was very easy. Not free though!

Answer 2

• You should be able to get some stuff done with Google Maps. It's slow, and you'll have to interact with a browser. I'm putting up an open source project to wrap all of it into an easy-to-use component, but until that time, using Google Maps from Delphi is just painful.

• Alternatively, you could embed Google Earth into your application. Read here how to do that.

• Or generate KML files in Delphi and serve it Google Earth either via a webserver via your local machine. You can have the KML refresh itself, and you can have users click links in the KML that's shown in GE. It's basically a stateless approach like normal webbrowsers. I've done that, and it works ok for simple stuff.

• As Francois suggested, MapPoint is quite easy to use from Delphi, but it's not free, and it's slooooooooooow. I remember that adding pins took half a second or so. I'm talking about 5 or 6 years ago, so maybe nowadays things are better. The cool thing about MapPoint is that it renders the map for you in realtime, so it places labels intelligently so that they never clip at the borders of your map.

• I've used MapWindow GIS from Delphi too. That was also slow and not very stable, but it's quite easy to use. If you don't know the application, just check it out, it's free.

For all of the tools that are mentioned here, there are ways to import GPS data, and all of them (except for Google Maps) will let you connect a GPS receiver, either directly (GE), or via a plugin (MapPoint, MapWindow).

Last but not least, you could always roll your own mapping solution, which is the route that I decided to take a long time ago.