NavSys
The NavSys application is a combined media player / GPS navigation application to be used in a vehicle.
The NavSys system generates GPS tracklogs that are then editable with the MapEditor application.
History of the project
2005-03-11 - project modularized
the navsys source is getting modularized. NavSys itself will be the graphical interface (that yet needs to be written), and will communicate via DBUS to multiple system daemons that each do something.
- the sound server does all the music playing, using gstreamer
- the new gpsd daemon handles communication with the GPS receiver
2004-05-10
It was more than a year since last update. First, my trusty GPS16 died, which didn't help, then I was
busy at my dayjob, planning a major update to the information systems there.
Anyways here are the news...
On the multimedia playing front, several things came up.
First, Gstreamer is now stable, and doesn't leak memory
anymore (thank you very much, Benjamin).
The second thing is that I modified the architecture of the application greatly, with small executables
that do one thing but do it well...
The sound is now played by a sound server, that acts according to commands sent over a socket. Work
is underway to use DBus instead of a socket (but this is still
ridden with memory leaks :-/ ).
On the Gps front, I have decided to stop using gpsd, as it seems to have stopped working when I
switched to kernel 2.6. The functionnality is to be done by ngpsd, which will be a clone with added
functionnality. ngpsd requires glib-2 to compile (as I didn't want to learn how to use select(2) and use
the facilities of the g_io_channels instead.
as for logging the tracks, it will also be the task of ngpsd, which, as a separate process will not be
locked up if and when X is slow to react for some reason as previous NavSys versions would.
As a consequence of the above, the NavSys application UI itself will see much changes.
First, it will use Cairo instead of libart_lgpl as the graphics library. This simple change will greatly
accelerate drawing, as it may use OpenGl acceleration in the future (libart_lgpl was a purely software
solution).
2003-04-15
NavSys 0.0.9 is considered stable and functionnal (even if not all functionnality is available.)
2003-01-22
One month already...
Ok, I have a new version of NavSys available that I've been testing in my car for a while (trying to remove all the memory leaks). It's available here.
I have found a new graphical library that uses Xrender (note, this is not for immediate consumption, and requires cvs Head XFree86 to work). If you want to play with it, you can find a hacked-up version of NavSys here (note 2004-04-01: XFree86 version 4.4 features evil licensing 1.1, you'll be better off with Xorg).
Here are the screenies :
2002-12-21
Silly me... Not using the correct IP address would explain those network issues...
Anyways, here is version 0.0.7.
The vorbis ogg playing is here.. Also, there is a tracking functionnality available and the map
zooms automatically as a function of the vehicle speed.
The tracking in the first versions was using a text format, which started taking ages to load when
the file grew larger. From now on, the tracking data is stored in a binary format that can be loaded
in an instant.
This version temporarily removes the loading of tiger maps, to be re-enabled at a later
time when I have a use for those
As usual, feel free to email me if you have any suggestion/complaints.
Here is the screenshot :
2002-12-16
I have a working ogg playing, but am not satisfied with it. (It involves forking processes and such is poorly integrated.) I am currently playing with gstreamer, but it crashed for some reason.
This is NOT a release. It DOES NOT WORK. It's just a crapping out version that is there for linking from the gstreamer bugzilla. (Guess it's what you get from playing with non-finalized / Beta software ;-) )
I will release the working (albeit not satisfying) playing release as soon as I am able to get it off my car's HDD, network on the EPIA has been acting up recently and I can't ssh into the carpc.
Here is the link.
2002-10-19
I decided to release version 0.0.6
This release is (of course) still alpha quality. the mapping system works somewhat, but don't hold your breath. next stop is the ogg playing...
2002-09-02 -- later
Wow... Two releases in one day, faster than the linux kernel ;-)
This one adds cleanup when killing the application
2002-09-02
They have been crying for it, here it is... Antialiasing is here !
Using libart_lgpl, this version slows down to a crawl (because there's much more to do when drawing with antialiasing on)
First, the code followed by the screenshot :
2002-08-30
Finally, some downloadable code.
This version is able to handle the polygons, such as lakes and wide creeks. See for yourself in this
map of Tarrant County (where Fort Worth, TX is located)
For those who asked, I was in there at the time of this writing, so I chose this county as the test
subject ;-)
Some of those lakes look wierd, I have yet to find the relevant polygon winding bug...
2002-09-28
After a coding hiatus, I finally managed to code some more. The program now can load maps from the tiger database (loading code not finished yet), show then, zoom and move in the map. See for yourself.
These screenshots show part of the map for Denton County, Tx (file 48121 in the Tx database).
2002-08-01
Added the saving of tracks and automatic reload at startup.
Corrected a bunch of segfault conditions in the nmea parsing
Modified the scaling functionnality so that the maps looks like the real thing (tm)
2002-07-31
The tracking functionnality has been added. The is somehow a bug in the determination of map extents.
Code is here
2002-07-30
I am embarking on a very long journey I guess...
The compass and skychart widgets are done...
Here are screenshots of navsys itself, the compass and the skychart by themselves :
