Windows Phone Thoughts: Dude! Where Are We??? -- Off-Roadin' With Fugawi Global Navigator 3.3.1

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Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Dude! Where Are We??? -- Off-Roadin' With Fugawi Global Navigator 3.3.1

Posted by Don Tolson in "SOFTWARE" @ 09:00 AM


Fugawi on the PPC
Once you have some maps downloaded to your PPC, you're ready to roll. As mentioned earlier, functionality on the PPC is limited to a subset of the PC-based version.


Figure 5: Main screen of Global Navigator with a local topographic map loaded.

As you can see from the screenshot above, the interface is built on the PPC2002/PC2003 o/s style, with most of the functionality built into the menu options at the bottom of the screen. From the File menu, the Maps/Open function provides a list of maps available for loading.


Figure 6: List of maps available in both program and storage memory. Unfortunately, only one can be loaded at a time, and there is no 'automatic' loading of the adjacent map once you hit the map boundary.

Moving around on the map is accomplished by tapping and dragging in the opposite direction to where you want to see – much like sliding a paper map under a glass viewing window. (I know, it sounds weird, but it's quite intuitive, actually.) Zooming in or out of the map is accomplished using the top or bottom buttons (or up/down if it's a joystick) of the PPC's D-pad.


Figure 7: Depiction of the special functions of the D-pad keys when in Fugawi Global Navigator (from the Help file).

Be careful how much you zoom in, however, since the maps are raster versions and if you get in too close, they will become pixelized beyond usefulness.


Figure 8: Excessive zooming in can render the map useless, since the graphics are not 'scaled' but simply bitmap pictures of the original map.

The top left of the screen provides information on current speed and heading. In the right top is the current map scale, an indicator of whether the GPS unit has a 'fix' yet, and whether the GPS port is open (the P in a circle in the top right). Along the bottom is the menu system, then icons for toggling centering of the map on the current GPS position on and off, accessing the GPS information screens, and turning Tracking on and off.

The PDA version of the application basically provides the ability to track current location, mark waypoints, create a route of waypoints, and follow a route. You can also download routes and waypoints from those created/managed on the PC version None of the fun stuff like 3-D rendering and flythough based on elevation data is available.

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