On Fri, May 17, 2013 at 9:18 PM, David Rysdam <da...@rysdam.org> wrote:
> My GPS is dying. I'm looking for a replacement, but I want a > particular..."mindset" is probably a better word than "feature". > > On a recent long-distance car trip, I found the GPS making opaque > decisions. For instance, it has a route. I take an unplanned exit for > gas and when I get back on, and the GPS has "recalculating"'d several > times, the route is different. Why? I'm exactly where I was before and > the destination is the same. No clue and no way to find out. > First thing to realize - GPS is not making opaque decisions, in fact GPS is not making any decisions. The provider of your GPS device is. I say that because GPS system itself does NOT do any of the navigation - it simply provides the navigation beacons used by your device to navigate ( http://www.gps.gov/support/user/mapfix/ for details). What you're looking for is the provider of the navigation services that uses GPS to provide you the desired mapping/route planning. > > Similarly, I often find that "fastest" and "shortest" are not the only > optimization strategies I could wish for. How about "any route using/not > using road X" or "no tolls, except for this one because it saves 4 > hours"? Or "no 'highways' but also don't take me down all these back > country, one-lane roads". > All of which is route planning - which is a category of software application. Google Maps has some of this, in that you can specify "toll roads" or "no toll roads," ask for alternate paths, specify whether you're using car, bus, foot, or bike. It's not perfect (it's either "toll roads" or "no toll roads," but not the option to specify "no toll roads except this one." > > Basically, I find that when I use the GPS, it's the brains and I'm just > the car operator. I want to be the brains and the operator and have the > GPS be navigator. I decide a route (or the backbone of one) and it keeps > me on it. > > Does this exist? I know "waypoints" is a thing, but I'm not talking > about visiting landmarks. I'm talking about entering in (most of) my > route and having the GPS handle the details. > Have you done an open source search for "route planning software?" (to bring it into the Linux/FLOSS theme of the list)?
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