'Off-road' internal gps mapping solution? — Nokia N81 and Nokia N82

dougalzene 14 Nov 2008, 14:47

I used to use SmartComGPS with a Bluetooth GPS on my N80. For the most part it worked well enough but now I have an N82 and am looking for a program that:
1) can use the internal GPS
2) allows own maps (or provides terrain/topo maps)
3) ideally integrates waypoints with Landmarks (but I really don't care if not)

SmartComGPS seems to have stopped updating its offering, although there seems to be an unofficial v1.55 out there which claims to use the internal GPS. For one that seems not to be an official release and secondly it is unsigned.

I came across Viewranger which meets requirements 1&2 however the maps are limited to some areas of Europe and even so they're quite expensive. I tend to visit a variety of places both inside and outside of Europe so this is kind of the best solution so far but I can't justify the real costs to me for my intended use, particularly as I would still need an alternative for some trips. Are these maps in a proprietary format? (i.e. any way to convert one's own?)

Any thoughts/experiences?

bartmanekul 14 Nov 2008, 14:54

VR is very good, the high cost is due to the OS map licences they use.

Unfortunatly I have not found any other offroad solution.

dougalzene 14 Nov 2008, 15:21

Thanks. I am suspecting this is it but I'm left wondering two things:

1) What of SmartComGPS?
2) Viewranger - I understand OS and other territory licensing drives the costs up. Any ways of getting one's own maps on board for territories that aren't covered? I have some topo maps for Morocco which I scanned and calibrated for SmartComGPS - breaking the copyright if one is strict but I don't feel bad because I bought the maps and there is no alternative!