ViewRanger
From GWiki
Something that I like to do in my spare time is go walking. Having got hold of a nice Nokia N95 phone which is overflowing with gadgets, I bought ViewRanger software for it.
First of all, I would like to say that the customer service from ViewRanger is excellent, and it would be nice if other companies followed their example.
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What does ViewRanger do?
This program is intended for use by walkers. You can use it for navigation, but there are no routing facilities and you should use a different program for this.
In its basic use, you get a display of an Ordnance Survey map with your position, heading and speed marked on it. Heading and speed are shown by an arrow telling you where you'll be in a preset number of minutes.
Before you leave on your walk, you can enter your desired route. ViewRanger will can then give information about the route, such as distance and provide a height graph. When you are on the walk, it will tell you when you are approaching a waypoint. You can also associate photographs with positions. You can, of course, record your route as you walk and store it for later.
Routes can be exported as .gpx files which can then be viewed with other applications. There are google maps plugins to display these on websites.
One nice feature is a panorama display from your current position, with points of interests highlighted and named.
There is also a "buddy beacon" facility where your position is automatically sent to a ViewRanger server at specified intervals. This position can be accessed by friends running ViewRanger on their phones so that you can meet up. It can also be accessed via the Internet on the ViewRanger website. I've also used this facility when driving so that the usual call to "just pop into the supermarket" on my way home actually comes before I get there, rather than when I've passed it!
Maps
ViewRanger comes with a large scale 1:1,000,000 UK map. You can then buy additional maps at either 1:25,000 or 1:50,000 scale. These are available as pre-packaged areas or you can use the ViewRanger Map Chooser program on your PC to select areas of interest. The program displays a map of the UK which you can zoom in and out of. It is divided into a large number of squares, and you just click on the squares that you want. The price of the map is displayed as you go along, so there are no surprises at the end. If you choose the latter option (which I did), once you submit a data file and payment to ViewRanger, they produce a customised map for you which you can then download and put on your phone.
How does it perform?
Entering routes
This is very easy. You select the map and find the start of your route. Create a new route, then use the cursor pad to move the cursor and click at each waypoint. When you've finished, you can get a summary of the route (distance, height change, etc), display a height graph, export it to a .gpx file, etc.
On a walk
Not done this yet!
