Homebrew PC GPS Navigation Software for Flying/Sailing

Does anyone here program? Someone 'out there' might find this interesting. Here's a screen shot of NAV page of my current GPS navigation hobby project. It's kinda like a 'glass cockpit'.

Sometimes you don't need a sophisticated map based navigation system; i.e. when flying/sailing directly to waypoints.

I took my LenovonThinkpad with this out on the sailboat a few weeks ago for 'Sea Trials'. The gauges and displays work as intended but I did find a few issues with operational logic. The waypoint management system still needs considerable work.

Cold weather is coming to the Chesapeake Bay so it's going to be winter project. I hope to make it a 'NMEA Talker' to control my RayMarine wheel pilot.

The compass shows course over ground (not heading). The red arrow is the bearing to the waypoint. The horizontal scale is the crosstrack distance from the origional track. The numerical displays mimic typical GPS GoTo parameters.

It computes the spherical the earth model using equations from the famous Ed Williams Aviation site. I found the compass and crosstrack gauges on Howie's Avionics Components website.

Attached Thumbnails

 

Nice work, Mr. Umbra.

...ken...

Thanks for sharing this one, and also the other application you shared in Set system time from GPS

I have a sailing catamaran with 4 steering stations and one fixed gps. I want a portable gps setup that I can move around the boat. I have a hand held Garmin Gpsmap 60csx but the screen is too small so I want to display the full gps navigation function from the Garmin unit on a mini laptop. Garmin do not supply software that does this. I have a usb connection from the Garmin unit to the laptop.

Alternatively, there are Globalsat and other brands of blue tooth Gps receivers available that would supply the navigational data to the laptop, without the need for the Garmin unit, but I do not know which mapping software this information would display on. I am sure someone else has sorted this, any help would be appreciated, regards Ferguson12

Ferguson, have you considered something like the Viliv ultra-micro PC with built-in GPS, for instance the X70, see myviliv.com?

It runs on Windows XP and has a mounting socket in the back. I could see a fixed male mount in each of your steering stations and you could just move the X70 from mount to mount as you move around the boat without the concern of it sliding off somewhere. It has reasonable battery life, too.

I use a smaller Viliv S5 in the car and it works fine. But I think it would be too small in a nautical application.

Ferguson12,

You need to start with maps first, not the choice of GPS receiver or nav software. That will narrow down what the possible solutions are quite dramatically.

So, let's start with what maps are you running on your 60CSx and are those the maps you want to continue to use?

If not, can you specify exactly which maps you would prefer to use?

...ken...