Re: Third party applications on GPS receivers

I assume you mean "will 3rd party applications running on a PC interface to
all GPS receivers?" My answer is a qualified yes. Here's why

There is one set of PC applications that will not interface to all
receivers - this class of applications are those written by a GPS
manufacturer to support functions like the installation of detail maps on
their own receivers. For example, Garmin has their mapping software,
Magellan their own too (MapSend Topo, for example), and the two will not
interface to the other manufacturer's GPSs.

There is another class of 3rd party software which has interfaces for many
GPS receivers built in. An example of this is "OziExplorer", a popular
mapping program. The user can select from a great many models of GPS so
that waypoint and track files may be easily transferred. Note that this
class of 3rd party application will likely not install detail maps in the
GPS, just move track, waypoint, and route files back and forth.

There is yet another class of 3rd party application that uses, as you
suggest, the NMEA data stream to provide position, heading, and speed
information. This class is often called "moving map" software, and
"OziExplorer" can also operate in this mode if necessary. This is often a
one-way street; the GPS sends position info to the software.

To confuse matters more, over the years manufacturers have developed
proprietary extensions to the NMEA protocols (new "sentences") to add
functionality, but these are only supported by some software that uses the
NMEA data stream. The extensions allowed such operations as file transfers
which are not part of NMEA protocols.

So depending on the degree of functionality required, it is possible to
interface almost any GPS to 3rd party software. A "pure" NMEA data stream
offers limited information about position (but maybe that's all you need)
and is the most likely to be universally understood. In the middle are the
3rd party programs with built in file transfer (and perhaps NMEA) interfaces
which can be used for route planning and track plotting. These will likely
have built in file and NMEA interfaces for most popular GPSs. At the top of
the functionality food chain are the proprietary programs which can change
basemaps or detail maps as well as do the other functions listed above.
These are the least likely to have interfaces to multiple brands.

This is, perhaps, an oversimplification, but I hope it in part answers your
question.


"bharath" <bharath.0523@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1193231314.170365.135390@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Hi,

I would like to know whether all GPS receivers support third party
applications. Since the protocol supported by most of the receivers is
the same(NMEA) will an application developed to read lat/long data
from one GPS receiver work on other GPS receivers too?

Thanks
bharath



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