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Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 8:48 am Post subject: Imporved calc in TTN3?
Hi All
I'm using TTN2 on an iPAQ 2210. I drove back to Brussels from Northern Italy yesterday and on arrival in France (through Mont Blanc tunnel), it took AN HOUR AND A HALF before I got a route calculated (from Pelerins/Chamonix-Mont-Blanc N205 to Reims A26/E17).
When I plotted the route with no GPS connection (using map view and A-B), it took over 11 minutes to calculate the route (in normal mode - not strict). When I exited the tunnel, I got a new signal and it started calculating the route. However, by the time it had finaished, my location had changed significantly (driving at 130km/h), so it started all over again. This went on until I got past Geneva. Now, if I had changed roads loads of times, I could somewhat understand it, but when I'm 20km further up the same highway from where it started it's calculation, it's a bit of a joke.
On the way there it happened too. I pulled off the highway (about 500 metres) and it recalculated (taking 10 mins), for me to get back on. My garming has an option where if you go off-oute, it asks if you want to re-calc (about 40% of the time I don't). I really wish they'd but this in TTN (along with other missing features - altitude, a scale in navigator view--which is pretty basic info for a map, ability to track back over a recorded route, not play it back like a video--which is pretty useless)
Anyone had similar experiences or aware of any improvements in TTN3?
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40 Posts: 23848 Location: Hampshire, UK
Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 8:54 am Post subject:
I'll bet you have maps on SD card, I'll also bet that the extended route calculation times are the result of having an SD card which is either Sandisk or one of the Chinese manufactured onws known to have these issues (and others you may not have come across yet).
If you were to replace the card with another brand, NOT Sandisk and not manufactured in China then you'd not have tis issue, a normal calc of a 300 mile route takes less than 30-40 secs for me. _________________ Darren Griffin
Joined: Nov 24, 2003 Posts: 1441 Location: Swansea
Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 9:54 am Post subject:
There is enormous variation in the time taken to cover rutes of similar distances in different directions. It takes 60 secs for my TTN3 to calculate Swansea to Preston, whilst Swansea to Peterborough takes 15 secs. Both routes are largely on motorways.
Robin
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40 Posts: 23848 Location: Hampshire, UK
Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 10:05 am Post subject:
Robin2 wrote:
There is enormous variation in the time taken to cover rutes of similar distances in different directions. It takes 60 secs for my TTN3 to calculate Swansea to Preston, whilst Swansea to Peterborough takes 15 secs. Both routes are largely on motorways.
Robin
Agreed, but calculation times of 10-30 minutes are indicative of a problem SD card in the vast majority of cases. _________________ Darren Griffin
Joined: 17/05/2003 02:26:21 Posts: 3747 Location: Bedfordshire, UK
Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 4:41 pm Post subject:
I'd agree with Darren. If the original poster posts the markings on the back of his SD card (assuming he is using an SD card for his maps), I may well be able to identify the manufacturer.
Meanwhile, many of the features the original poster claims to be missing (track back, altitude, and a scale in the Navigator view) are features more suited to a topographic program than a street navigation program like Navigator.
Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 5:20 pm Post subject: details
Quote:
I'd agree with Darren. If the original poster posts the markings on the back of his SD card (assuming he is using an SD card for his maps), I may well be able to identify the manufacturer.
I'm using SANDisk Ultra II Compact Flash. This has a read speed of 10MB/sec - I KNOW it is very fast as I use with my digi cameras. There seems to be an awful lot of "it's SANDisk, so it must be junk" in this forum. People need to qualify these remarks (as many have): like most manufacturers SANDisk make low-end, OEM, and high-end products.
Quote:
Meanwhile, many of the features the original poster claims to be missing (track back, altitude, and a scale in the Navigator view) are features more suited to a topographic program than a street navigation program like Navigator.
I disagree entirely on this (having used a Garmin for several years). There is no such thing as "street navigation" unless you're a cabby who never leaves the city. It is road (i.e. all types of roads sutiable for motor vehicles), and that's why I bought it. I travel a lot around Europe and this includes vacations, visiting tourist and nature attractions whilst on business trips, etc. Here some very REAL examples of why I want these features.
i) Track back. I have a friend who lives in a village 15 miles from M1 in Leicestershire. If I follow TTN, it takes about 25 miles on fastest and ridiculous routes on shortest. Unfortunaltely, I only visit every few months and have a lousy memory and sense of direction (hence my need for a GPS ). Notwithstanding that, I hold that you can rarely (if ever) beat local knowledge. So my friend shows me a route to the M1 (different routes if I'm heading N or S). I'll be if I can remeber it. On my Garmin I record it, save it and use track back. Works perfectly. (If TTN3 ever gets fixed so that it works, and they ever deliver my upgrade, hopefully I can use an itinerary to plot all the via points, but it's still not a satisfactory solution given the joke of a feature called "memorize position", which gives you no opportunity to name it, and doesn't even tell you what it's named it--just the same stupi message "has been added to recent locations", which I managed to remeber that's where it would put them after the first time I used it. I tried to save several point last week in the middle of the moutains in Italy and had no idea which was which when I looked at them)
ii) Altitude. I was in the italian alps last week (near Mont Blanc) and I was following a route to a village near the summit of a mountain (by car), and I wanted to know what the altitude was. Some people 9who are not climbers or pilots) do find this interesting and useful.
iii) Scale. This is fundamental. I'm looking at a map in navigator mode and I can see roads and features, but I HAVEN'T A CLUE how far they are from my present position. First grade geography: NEVER draw a map without a North arrow and a scale. Otherwise it's nothing but wiggly lines. Personally I'd prefer to use map mode (which has a scale), if it would announce turnings and auto-zoom, but it doesn't so I'm stuck with Navigator view. The guys at TT should buy an old Garmin GPS V and learn a few things.
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40 Posts: 23848 Location: Hampshire, UK
Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 5:52 pm Post subject:
Mark, people are trying to help, if you don't like the answers then I'm sorry but you appear to be responding defensively to posters taking time to assist you. I'm happy to qualify the responses regards SD card issues but the answer is still that your SD card is the problem, we've seen it many times and Sandisk is invariably the common link between users having problems.
Street Navigation has never been intended to encompass all roads suitable for motor vehicles as you suggest because the geodata simply doesn't exist, Navteq and TeleAtlas in common with other geodata providers supply data for roads in common use not tracks and other routes leading off the beaten path to vistas and other points of interest. For those purposes you need a topographical package such as Memory-Map or MapTech navigator, this covers such locations but lacks turn by turn navigation facilities as the data does not exist within the map to allow it.
Garmin have track back because they come from a non-street navigation upbringing where this is a standard feature expected of outdoor and marine type use. Aside from Garmin (do they have this on dedicated in-car devices such as the 2610?) I don't know of any other Street/Road or whatever you choose to call it auto or in-car navigation app that has such a feature either on PDA's or £2000+ factory fit installs.
Likewise with altitude and scale, yes these are the norm on handhelds and other GPS units intended for outdoor type use, altitude readout is arguably pointless when it is derived from GPS data as it can be highly innacurate unless coupled with a barometric altitude calculation. Some providers do feature altitude, some don't.
I would agree that scale can be useful but again it is not the primary purpose of a navigation product, the essential information is distance to next turn, speed and distance/ETA at destination. Given the amount of detail already on the display some things wil always lose out. _________________ Darren Griffin
Joined: 17/05/2003 02:26:21 Posts: 3747 Location: Bedfordshire, UK
Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 6:07 pm Post subject:
The situation with SD cards is relatively simple - no matter what range it's from, if it's made by Sandisk, it's likely to have compatibility and performance problems in a wide range of Pocket PCs. There are performance differences across other manufacturers - for example, Panasonic made SD cards tend to be the best performing, but also the most expensive. However, the compatibility, data corruption and extreme poor performance issues are pretty much limited to Sandisk made SD cards.
The new N technology code Sandisk SD cards are much better - but are still not perfect.
I did work with Jon, the webmaster of http://sdprob.aximsite.com on this - he and I spoke at some length on the phone about this, but as Jon's site says, we don't have permission to talk publicly about what Jon learnt through his investigations.
The issues with Sandisk SD cards do not extend, to my knowledge, to other Sandisk memory products. I've got an old Sandisk MMC that works fine, though as it's 16MB it's really not much use now.
I understand your other comments. I would argue that your GPS V is a more general purpose device, whereas TomTom Navigator is a pure street navigation product, hence my original comment.
Track back - your argument is, in part, that computer routing can never contain all the subtleties of human routing and local knowledge, which is, of course, true. Bearing in mind that Navigator operates in an environment where your position is snapped to the nearest road (assuming the road is in the map) and is only interested in moving along roads, I'm not sure that a pure track back feature would help (though I'm pretty sure you can get Pocket PC software that will provide that functionality, and, indeed, altitude display). Maybe the right answer - and this is just a suggestion - would be some kind of itinerary builder.
I agree wholeheartedly that the built in 'memorise position' is very weak - If I use it, I tend to record a voice memo (on most machines you press and hold the record button) that gives details of the position and why I recorded it - but it's a poor feature.
One of the good features of TomTom Navigator on the Pocket PC is that it exposes various interfaces via its SDK, so people can write add-on programs. I wonder if you could put your requirement in a form to suggest to Jo (devulderj on the forums), who's the author of GPSAssist 2. Jo may be able to add some kind of functionality that would allow you to build such an itinerary more easily (Jo's already talking about implementing point to point navigation as was in GPSAssist 1, so you won't necessarily need Navigator 3's itinerary feature).
Jo's currently working on adding POI recording to GPSAssist 2, though it's not in any of the public versions - as I said - I wonder if Jo can develop your idea and possibly implement it in GPS Assist 2.
You can load and save itineraries in Navigator 3, by the way.
Altitude - I can't remember whether the raw TeleAtlas map data does contain altitudes, but if it does, it's discarded by TomTom. The TomTom maps don't contain all the information in the data they get from TeleAtlas, not least to save space.
Even displaying the altitude reported by the GPS isn't trouble free. SiRF based GPSes (as the TomTom 'own brand' devices are) seem to have a quirk with the way they return altitude in NMEA mode - for some detailed commentary read this thread. Without sight of the NMEA 0183 standard, it's impossible to say if the SiRF firmware is wrong or not - but if it's wrong, the chances are that SiRF would take such a bug report from an end user seriously and act on it is probably low - they tend to ignore contact from end users.
Scale - when I do have a map on screen in Navigator mode (which isn't that often, as my safety screen speed is set to 30mph - I don't want the visual distraction of a map above that speed), it's in 3D mode with auto-zooming. What I want is something to help me drive, not a map to pore over and distract me when I'm driving.
I'd have no use for a scaled 2D and probably non auto-zooming map in Navigator mode - the only application I can think of for this would be if you had a passenger who was wanting to watch the map. Obviously your requirements are different to mine.
You can set a 2D map and disable auto-zooming in the Navigator screen. You can also have a compass on screen (so you know which way is north on the map), but not a scale. As Darren says, these things are not expected nor much in demand in street navigation products.
Thanks for the replies. I accept there are problems with SD cards, and that's specifically why I bought the 2200--because it has CF and SD.
If you read what I wrote (and forget the whole SANDisk thing) I said I'm NOT using SD. I'm using a top-of-the-range, VERY FAST compact flash (the fastest one ever tested by many reviewers, when I bought it). Read performance is over 10mb/sec, and it is very fast on every card reader, and digital camera I use it in. So I'm still trying to figure out why it is so slow. I've also tried IBM miocrodrives too (which are slower), and the results are way below what other users report (who are also reporting very slow times with identical configurations to other--there was a post from a guy whose father had the same everything and his was way slower).
I still don't agree that "street navigation" products shouldn't know about all roads. I was in Italy last week, in a village with a population of 5 people and it was in TTN. But that wasn't my point. Track back is incredibly useful. If TTN can record a log, why is there no function to plot it as a route for a reverse journey? It's a trivial thing to do, esp. when you have itineraries (as TTN3 does).
I know here are 3rd party products around, but I don't expect to have to buy 6 prodcuts to get basic functions working and live with all the additioanl resource usage, compatibility, upgrade costs and synchronization and the inevitable finger pointing that goes on when 2 supposedly compatible products don't work together.
I don't know if they have it on the new 2610, but they have it on the GPS V, which has street navigation built in. If Garmin wouldn't have been so silly to force you to buy the PDA with the software when they first launched the iQue 3600, and I may switch back if I can't get better results from TTN and they don't hurry up and fix the problems in TTN3)
Regarding the issue of in-car vs. software-only products. I expect more from software-only. When I bought my first Garmin several years ago, I bought it for a few reasons: one I used to fly a lot an a $2000 GPS in my car at Boston airport was no use to me when I was in LA. And secondly I rented a lot of Hertz cars with the Magellan system, and the feature set was rubbish: couldn't save waypoints, no way to transfer to PC, no choice on SW or map data vendor. Sure, it had a lovely display and there weren't loads of wires everywhere, and the new ones can use TMC with a GPRS connection, etc. but it's not a general purpose computer so you can't use advanced features like you get in PC or PC-connected GPSes.
I don't see why there is such a problem with altitude. Once you have a 3d fix, you have reasonably accurate altitude (it's got nothing to do with the map data). When I went off the map in my garmin, I still got altitude. I wasn't aware of any bug in the Sirf chip-set, but that isn't the issue: altitude isn't even there (even if you don't use Sirf).
Regarding the scale issue. I accept all the things you say, but the BIG problem with trying to use the navigator display (if it had a scale) is that the maximum you can zoom out is somewhat limited. When I'm driving the entire length of France, I'd like to see more than the next few kilometers, if my nect exit is over 100km away.
What I want (and I'm sure I'm not the only one) is a good combination between map and navigator. The other shortcoming I find in map mode is that there's no speed displayed. Obviously, you can't put everything on the screen, so again TT should take a leaf from Garmin's book, you have x-number of fields and you choose what is more important and display it. You also had a nice trip computer: Resettable odometer, timers, average and maximum speeds
Bottom line: A year ago I made a change from dedicated GPS units (Garmin III+ and GPS V) to something that would run on my PDA. I quickly found many limitations with TT, but it had bigger display, colour, (virtually) unlimited map storage, reasonable pricing, and I'd have all my PDA data at hand when I'm in the car. However, with the perfomance problems I'm having plus the limitations and all the problems I hear about TTN3, I'm very close to switching back to Garmin's new software-only product or another product (if I can find one).
I don't think I'm the only one. TT has done remarkably well in gaining market share, but there are many more competitors now, so if they don't provide a better product and better service (I won't even get into that), they will lose it all. If they want to safeguard their revenue, they'd better fix their copy protection too: nearly everyone I know who has TTN has never paid a penny for it. They're using cracked versions. I admit, I did the same for a month to see what it was like, but then I bought TTN and all of Europe.
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40 Posts: 23848 Location: Hampshire, UK
Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 8:23 pm Post subject:
Sorry I missed the reference to CF, blinded by the mere mention of Sandisk you see Do you have any other CF card with which you can test for the route calculation speed?
Whilst all your suggestions regarding the implementation of Track-back , scale etc are valid and I don't disagree that they may be of some use to users what I was trying to explain albeit badly is that none of those features are common on current road navigation products and you are the first poster on these forums who has expected them to be. Only a small percentage of users come from handheld GPS backgrounds and as such their expectations are vastly different and possibly limited as a result. Maybe once they have resolved geodata issues and other reliability problems they can investigate the possibility of including these.
As for altitude, I realise that in Street Nav products this data is rarely contained within the map (in contrast it is in Topographical maps), consequently any altitude reading you are given is calculated from a theoretical ellipsoidal earth model referenced against the SV's centre of orbit, coupled with errors as a result of high DOP this can result in large variations from true barometric altitude and height above sea level measurements and results in a measurement that has little practical relevance. _________________ Darren Griffin
Thanks for reply. I tested on Microdrive, but have no others to compare. When I first bought the unit I installed TTN and Maps on Sd and it 3.5 mins to calc route from Leicester to Putney. On CF it took 30 secs. Now it takes betweenone and two minutes (however, I don't remeber the exact points I chose so it's hard to know if it's the same). The only "bechmark" I have is the thread about Land's End to John O'Groats, but these poster don't give exact locations (street/road name). (maybe this forum could host offical user benchmarks: h/w config, s/w config, GPS & drivers (where applicable), route points, calc mode, time taken, etc.)
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40 Posts: 23848 Location: Hampshire, UK
Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 9:12 pm Post subject:
It might be worth considering possible fragmentation on the card as a cause? Give Softwinter's excellent Storage Tools utility a whirl and see if a scan and defrag helps, download it for free here. _________________ Darren Griffin
Joined: 06/03/2003 23:49:40 Posts: 52 Location: London
Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2004 6:14 pm Post subject:
Darren wrote:
Only a small percentage of users come from handheld GPS backgrounds and as such their expectations are vastly different and possibly limited as a result.
I am another user that comes from a Garmin background. I would also like the features that Mark suggests - in particular I'm surprised that TT doesn't have a trip computer. That would be a very easy build to the program (compared to comprehensive post code navigation for example).
Your point about the inaccuracies of altitude calculation is well taken - but as a casual "wow - look how high this mountain pass is" I miss it as well. My Garmin's altitude read-out was never that far off from what road markers, etc. would say. Again - the coding would be incredibly simple, and as Mark suggests - if you don't need the readout - you should be able to turn it off. (as you can with the speed display in nav view)
My suggestion to TomTom would be to buy a few Garmin units, play with their functionality and see what features they could add. Having some (very basic) hiking functionality might help broaden their market appeal and switch over some Garmin users.
Now - even more importantly - WHEN IS MY VERSION 3 UPGRADE GOING TO ARRIVE
did you install both ttn software and maps on the CF card? or just maps on CF card? _________________ tomtom 940 live/tt active dock holder/tt rds-tmc traffic receiver usb
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). Notwithstanding that, I hold that you can rarely (if ever) beat local knowledge. So my friend shows me a route to the M1 (different routes if I'm heading N or S). I'll be 
if I can remeber it. On my Garmin I record it, save it and use track back. Works perfectly. (If TTN3 ever gets fixed so that it works, and they ever deliver my upgrade, hopefully I can use an itinerary to plot all the via points, but it's still not a satisfactory solution given the joke of a feature called "memorize position", which gives you no opportunity to name it, and doesn't even tell you what it's named it--just the same stupi message "has been added to recent locations", which I managed to remeber that's where it would put them after the first time I used it. I tried to save several point last week in the middle of the moutains in Italy and had no idea which was which when I looked at them)
Do you have any other CF card with which you can test for the route calculation speed?
