[aprssig] Canadian maps and ops

[Curt, WE7U]

On Thu, 19 Aug 2004, Stephen H. Smith wrote:

> The only apps that can provide fully zoomable, interactive street-level
> display in Canada are APRSpoint  (or UI-View32 combined with the
> UI-Point add-in).

And Xastir.  We have a link to Canadian vector map data on our "Map
Pointers" link off our home page:  http://www.xastir.org

Xastir and all the maps we list for it are still free and always
will be.


> Both programs depend on also having Microsoft MapPoint 2002 or 2004.
> This application provides street-level detail for all of the US and
> Canada and major roads (but not local streets) in Mexico.  It is a
> massive, sluggish, resource-hogging typical Microsoft application, but
> the detail, accuracy of the road database, and user interface are very
> good.  I wouldn't suggest trying to use it on anything less than a 500
> or 600 MHz P2 or P3 with at least 128MB RAM (Win98) or 256 MB RAM (Win
> 2K or XP).

I wouldn't try Xastir/Linux on anything less than a 64MB P133, but
if you're running Xastir/Windows you'll need more horsepower and
memory.  Not like the requiements listed above though!

My Jeep PC is a P133/64MB and it can follow me with USGS topo's
while I'm driving.  I've also run Xastir on P200/32MB laptops.  It
works.


> APRSpoint is actually an add-in for MapPoint, while UI-View runs
> MapPoint as an external separate application and passes data to it via
> the UI-Point add-in.

Xastir is an all-in one package, performing all of the APRS and
mapping stuff.  For the U.S. we can now look up street addresses.
We can also look up Canadian and U.S. callsign information.


> When UI-View is enabled to work with PMap 7.0 it will be by far the
> least expensive appoach to full Canadian mapping since MapPoint costs
> several hundred dollars while PMap is only about $50 or $60.

Huh?  Xastir is $0.00, maps are $0.00.  Beat that.

It _does_ run on Windows, although it's really a Unix application so
it runs more efficiently on Linux/Solaris/FreeBSE/MacOSX.

We're currently #4 in the most-used-APRS-application rankings, we're
slowly moving up in the listings.

--
Curt, WE7U			         http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
"Lotto:    A tax on people who are bad at math." -- unknown
"Windows:  Microsoft's tax on computer illiterates." -- WE7U
"The world DOES revolve around me:  I picked the coordinate system!"