[aprssig] Re: APRSPOINT

[Stephen H. Smith]

victorf at windreader.com wrote:
> This was posted on the NG sci.geo.satellite-nav this week. It is from 
> the author of APRSPoint. I suggest that you check his web site:
>
>> If you have Microsoft Streets or AutoRoute, you have all you need for
>> live APRS tracking. Now you can take advantage of the superior maps
>> that comes with it and use it with APRSPoint. We have update the
>> installation process of APRSPoint so that it now supports Streets or
>> AutoRoute. You can visit http://www.aprspoint.com for a free download
>> and trial.
>
> I have used APRSPoint to track manned gas balloons flying in 
> competition from ABQ, NM for the past several years (in October) and 
> found it gets the job done. With S&T it is a usable and inexpensive 
> solution for my tracking needs. Note that I have used it with MapPoint 
> as I am a registered user. I am also a registered user of APRSPoint. I 
> will be switching to S&T for this year's event however.
>


The information on his website is a paraphrasing (with attribution) of 
my original post on this list about two years ago. 

Note that you CAN NOT use Streets & Trips by itself.  You can only use S 
& T's DATA files to update the data in a MapPoint installation.   You 
MUST have MapPoint first.   APRSpoint and UIview (via the UI-Point 
plugin) can only talk to MapPoint, not Streets.    

His "NAsetup" and "EUsetup" are actually the program part of MapPoint 
minus the data files, even down to the included Internet Explorer 6.0 
installer that updates any earlier version of IE when MapPoint is 
installed.  Not sure how he is getting away with redistributing  parts 
of MapPoint for free.

MapPoint and Streets/Autoroute differ from each other by only one .exe 
file.  The user interface and features are 95% identical. The major 
difference is that MapPoint is a semi-professional GIS tool that has 
analytical tools for importing, plotting and color-coding multiple 
layers of data directly from external programs.  MapPoint also has an 
extensive programming interface for attaching 3rd party programs.    I 
have routinely installed both MapPoint 2006 and  Streets 2006 into the 
same folder which I usually name "StreetsPoint" for North America and   
"RoutePoint for Europe.  Both applications will happily use the same 
database, even at the same time.  

The main reason for this is  that maddeningly, Streets and MapPoint save 
the same map annotations, pushpin overlays and tracked paths into files 
with different formats and extensions.   Streets uses a file with the 
extension .est while MapPoint uses a different format with the extension 
.ptm.   

Anything tracked with APRSpoint or UIview/UI-Point will be saved into 
the MapPoint .ptm format.  On the other hand, most other people are far 
more likely to have the $30 Streets rather than the $300 MapPoint.  You 
can open both programs at the same time, select and copy markers and 
tracks from MapPoint, then paste them into Streets where they will go to 
the exact same location. You can then save the map layout in Street's 
.est format for distribution or emailing to others.