Laptop GPS software for helicopters

Hello,

I am a helicopter pilot and I need some GPS software to use with my laptop that will allow me to download a track into it so I can fly that track. An aviation GPS will not allow me to easily enter a lot of points. It is very tedious. Some of these tracks consist of thousands of individual points and are in a spreadsheet for, or .CSV file. I also want the ability to store a GPS position by pressing one button on the laptop and then download these positions into a .CSV file. I have tried different programs but all of them reguire a lot of pointing and clicking and typing to save one position. That's a lot to do in a shaking helicopter.

I have made my own program in VB that displays the GPS position and allows me to save them at a touch of a button and it works very well but I have not been able to figure out how to make a moving map display so I can follow a preloaded track.

If anyone knows of a program that will do all of this I would scap my little program and use it. Or any info on how to integrate maps into my program would be helpful too. In the mean time I will continue to read this site and probably learn a great deal about GPS.

Any help would be much appreciated.

I don't think a routing program can fully replace an aviation program.

However:
Garmin Mobile PC can import CSV files via MapSource and a third party program such as GPXtoPOI.
You can create a waypoint at your current location by clicking on the location arrow and choosing Save.
You can route from one waypoint to another as the crow (helicopter) flies by choosing off-road as the routing type.

Terry

Thanks for the info. I will see if I can get a demo version and try it.

This program is not going to replace the aviation GPS in the aircraft. That one is used for navigation. The program I am looking for is mainly for powerline and pipeline patrols. Pipelines are underground and are hard to follow so if I could download the known GPS position from a .CSV file, I could follow that track on the laptop. That can't be done on an aviation GPS because it would take days or more to enter them all in.

On a powerline patrol we are flying at about 60MPH, following a line, and when we pass a structure (large metal power pole) we have to store its GPS position then download them later to the power company. We pass one structure about every 10 seconds and we're also looking for damage. There is not much time to right click, select save, type in a label, and look closely for damage.

That brings up another question: Laptop GPS receiver for use in helicopter

Thanks for your help.

I'm currently writing some helicopter GPS 3D software - Some older stuff is available at http://www.i-zone-3.com/buy.htm . The software is free for this forum. Let me know what functional features you want and I'll do my best to include...

Contributers will receive all software free.

lazer - can you make your software do updating w/ only what the gps unit gives it instead of a predictive algorithm? also, how does it perform w/ integrated gpus on laptop (for me, a lenovo t400 w/ the integrated i think intel mobile 4500) and also a older single core ibm t42 w/ a ati 7500 (if memory serves me correctly). resolution would be 1280x800 and 1024x768 respectively.

Hi Bob,

Predictive positioning is not being incorporated in the new helicopter version - although there is interpolation regardless of GPS data frequency. That is, even if you have a 1 Hz GPS system, the software motion camera will smoothly 'follow' the position around with about .3 sec lag while still plotting your live position i every second (if that makes any sense..).

As far as graphics chipsets - I'm using a minimum spec requirement. Graphics are typically very smooth on laptops and graphics GPUs from as far back as 2001. The code is split up into separate windows processes with the graphics sub system using only core Direct X 7 calls - so far, blistering speeds with plenty of computational horsepower left over for database manipulations in the background...

I hope I've answered ur questions. I'll put a link up once a beta test version is ready within a month...

thx for the info, will be looking forward to the beta

Hi, am new to this forum but glad I found it. I am also working in the pipeline industry and am looking for a solution that sounds like it might be solved with the 3d-heli app. In my case, I would like to click on a location and be presented with its information, such as gps coordinates and time and have a number of drop down boxes for other information that I would like to be saved about this point. This information would then need to be exported from this app or saved in a format specific to the spread sheet used to submit the report. I do not know if there are plug-ins available for garmin pc or other commercial software the apps you are producing would work if other companies maps could be used. I think that as a pilot, the cross compatibility of the garmin data is help full because a lot of us are using the garmin products for flight. In any case, I am interested in and would like to help with beta testing if needed. Thanks, Dave