EUREKA - re-order Favourites by nearest to location - DONE

[glynny]

Hello All,

been playing with favourites lately and have got a partial solution to the RE-ORDERING Favourites by Distance problem like POI's

Heres what I did :

1. Created my favourites list. (Used my own Free Wifi list posted elsewhere on this forum) in Excel.

2. Created 2 input cells for current location Lat/Longs

3.Did a bit of formula manipulation to create a column of Sum of Squares for the Latitude & Longitude columns versus Current location.
(It doesn't matter that these are non-units)

4. Sorted my Excel sheet by this sum of squares column - expanded to cover description columns and leaving original Lat/Longs as is.

4. Hey Presto - my favourites are re-ordered by nearest to me !!!!!!!

I've checked the description AND IT WORKED.
I live in Solihull, so expected to see entries in Warwick , Bham , Stratford earlier than Bristol London & Edinburgh and it did.......

Filed my excel sheet as a .csv and uploaded to PDA into a Favourites slot.

Then I thought can I do this on the fly ?

Sadly No - Pocket Excel doesn't allow filing as a .csv file so you have to do this before your journey - but that ain't too hard and it is certainly better than as is .........

any comments ????

If anyone wants to try this out on their own drop me a mail and I will send files and instructions.

very happy GLYNNY
_________________
Acer N35
Destinator 3

I can never think of anything clever to put here.....

[lbendlin]

Be aware that longitudes are not equidistant (latitudes are). You need to multiply the longitude with the cosinus value of the latitude to come to a correct ratio.
_________________
Lutz

Report Map Errors here:
TomTom/TeleAtlas NAVTEQ

[timanfiya]

Nice try. I suppose it will have some use but as soon as you move a fair distance away from your home location I would say it makes it more redundant than the alphabetical. You would have no idea which was then closest as you are no where near your initial location. If you store your favs by town name then it would be much easier to locate a favorite in alphabetical order whilst out and about. Although time consuming this would work much better (as you said) if you could work it whilst your out and about).

Personally I want to look at a fix to this problem within the Destinator software itself so it will automatically arrange them from the location you are at exactly as the poi list (I run a PNA so other methods wouldn't work for me).

Not to sure if it would be of any help but I saw a thread a few days ago that mentioned a software program that was used for PN version. I am not sure how it works as the program and the link is german. If you can't find the thread pm me and I will send you the software (see if you can figure out how it works). Again I don't think it would be much use to me as I think it is for use on a pocket pc.

Pete
_________________
Goodmans GNAV10
WinCE 4.20(0)
OEM: Centrality Communication Inc
Destinator OP v 5.1.174

[glynny]

Hello all and thanks for replies....

lbendlin - you are correct of course, the actual formula is called the Haversine Formula and uses lots of Sin, Atan etc etc as well as the mean radius of Earth, ignoring ellipsoidal effects.
To be honest I was more trying to prove the idea of resorting by distance based on a recurring calc against each entry in a spreadsheet, then uploading to Destinator.
I know I can do that now, so I'll replace my very simple pythagoras theorem calc with Haversine.
This will give me the added benefit of also now calculating real distances and not my pythagorean approximation, which I can use effectively (I hope.)

Thanks for the pointer.

timanfiya - you also are correct - although what I intend to do is sort by nearest to tomorrows destination, then redo for the next day & the next etc etc. and upload to my PDA each night. I did it against my home address purely because I could then verify the approximate reorder - being as I know London is closer than Glasgow etc etc.
The alphabetical City idea is good although my list has 28 sites within greater London - which would be a problem - I'd have no way of selecting the 3 mile away site as opposed to the 20 mile away site.

If only I could file a spreadsheet as a CSV file out of Pocket Excel on the PDA I could do my reorder on the fly.

If anyone has any ideas on this point it would be very useful. Maybe theres an open source Office like application out there that could ?

Anyhow, helpful suggestions, critiques and advise always welcome.

Glynny
_________________
Acer N35
Destinator 3

I can never think of anything clever to put here.....

[glynny]

Hello All,

well I've done the calcs in excel to work out the actual distances. So my spreadsheet has the form :

miles : Address : Lat : Long.

I can sort this by mileage from current location and save as a CSV file.
The CSV files retains the sorting as per the mileage.

Now when I upload to Destinator I get another sorting:

If I had entries in my Pc csv file I would get:

1 mile Address Lat Long
20 mile Address Lat Long
75 mile Address Lat Long
115 mile Address Lat Long
125 mile Address Lat Long

however in destinator I get :

1 mile Address Lat Long
115 mile Address Lat Long
125 mile Address Lat Long
20 mile Address Lat Long
75 mile Address Lat Long

its put them in order - sort of like numerically but only 1 digit at a time, really really infuriating.

Any ideas anyone?
_________________
Acer N35
Destinator 3

I can never think of anything clever to put here.....

[lbendlin]

they are sorting alphanumerical, not by value.

If you want to fool them, use leading zeros

0001 mile
0011 miles
0025 miles

etc
_________________
Lutz

Report Map Errors here:
TomTom/TeleAtlas NAVTEQ

[glynny]

Of course - good idea.

Only gotta figure out how to actually do that !
Doesnt Excel and similar spreadsheets drop leading zeros?
..... and my mileages are as a result of a fiendish calculation.

anyway i'll give it a try.


The other little snag I've run is to is that you don't seem to be able to move a CSV file from say "My Docs" on the PDA into the "Favourites" folder.

That's not quite true - you can move it to the correct Favourites Folder in the right format - but it doesn't show up in Destinator !
When you click on the file it says "file not associated..."

What I need is a Destinator console on the PDA.

Sigh, 1 step forward, 2 steps back..........

Glynny
_________________
Acer N35
Destinator 3

I can never think of anything clever to put here.....

[Jonisinimo]

Hello glynny,

in the german forum exists a program that sorts the favourites by distance. This program was written for PDA's running Destinator PN.
Perhaps it works also with Destinator 3 (provided that the favourites have the same data format)

Here is the link:
http://www.pocketnavigation.de/board/tid77264-sid.htm

Jonisinimo

[glynny]

Hello Jonisinimo

thanks for this - I will have a look - pity it's in German.

Glynny
_________________
Acer N35
Destinator 3

I can never think of anything clever to put here.....

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