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dcrochet
USA
1044 Posts |
 Posted - 31 janv. 2004 : 02:30:22
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WOW, the POI improvements are fantastic! The speed is on par with my massive geocaching maplet files (blink of an eye!!!). The new POI interface: 'All Places by Type' looks like a teaser for things to come in the UI department, and the visual feedback/functionality is quite impressive! That’s a very nice menu, and a significant departure from the norm. Very nice work! All the options for POI searches are great, but almost overwhelming at the moment. I can just smell a new UI coming because all these options are too well hidden inside stylus menus, just begging for the improved visual presentation of a total UI facelift.
The 'Route To' option for POI is quite nice. Enabling the 'Route Through' for POI would have been even better considering the requests for 'Route Via' lately in this forum. This new 'Route To' option does not seem to be available for user-created maplets, but 'Set Destination' is still available and has gained almost identical functionality except that you are still forced to cycle through the 'Navigation>Find Route' menu in order to calc the route (no 'Starting Point required with a GPS fix). Almost seems like an oversight at this point.
BTW, the Find>Place/Business by 'County,' using the 'Order by Distance' option is VERY interesting to say the least. This has HUGE map management implications and possibilities in future releases! Folks, the precise distance to ‘county icons’ is now known by Mapopolis, so mockup-like map management including route corridors looks to be just around the corner!
I can't test the voice synthesis, because I’m getting an error which states “pSpeak.mlp – Not Found.” I’ll try installing using the Windows install version and report back. Or does this mean that I need WM2003 OS in order to run 4.37 with voice prompts?
Dell Axim X5 400MHz A04, PPC2002 OS, Mapopolis 4.xx, Fortuna PocketXTrack CF GPS |
Edited by - dcrochet on 31 janv. 2004 06:11:21
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Ads
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Max_T
USA
13 Posts |
Posted - 31 janv. 2004 : 05:47:47
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The text-to-speech engine sounds pretty well, but it's funny to listen to that deep robotized male voice. 
Can't wait to try it out on the road in a few days.  |
Edited by - Max_T on 31 janv. 2004 05:50:05 |
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themeecer
16 Posts |
Posted - 31 janv. 2004 : 07:37:30
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| Awesome stuff!!! I love having the street names anounced. Big, huge thumbs up on this. Like the POI screen with the big icons!!!! Even though all my hardware buttons are already in use .. this is a great feature for those that have some free. Only negative was the dang robotic voice .. it is worse than the previous voices. I understand this change is in its infancy, so I will give it time for improvements to this to be made. |
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dcrochet
USA
1044 Posts |
Posted - 31 janv. 2004 : 07:50:54
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Okay, installing with the Windows installer did the trick. pSpeak.mlp (2.7MB with card install option) is now installed and I've listened to the voice synthesis using a playback log. Those without a playback log can listen in by generating a route and stepping through the step-panes (select 'Recite Route Step Text' in 'Settings>Nav Options').
The male voice sounds good enough; rather robotic, but you get used to it rather quickly because the utility is a major improvement over recorded prompts. The spoken street names and the more natural-sounding phraseology makes voice synthesis a winner in GPS street navigation!
The volume control is very precise and gets extremely loud (well beyond my Axim speaker/phone-amp capabilities, and well beyond the loudest recordings). The voice 'speed' control is a nice feature.
There's also some additional options for chimes, which I'll definitely take advantage of with some .wav substitutes. Talk about having your wife ‘chime’ in with a few critical pieces of information (more Crystal-based .wav chime substitutes coming)! Anyone besides me use those by the way?...I kinda like the old Apollo 13 clips for GPS status.
This whole package (4.37) is a welcomed improvement to Mapopolis. The POI improvements fix a major shortcoming. The ability to store the pSpeak.mlp file anywhere on the device is a step in the right direction. Voice synthesis is a nice enhancement to navigation. Map management is much improved…oops, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Nice work Mapopolis.
Dell Axim X5 400MHz A04, PPC2002 OS, Mapopolis 4.xx, Fortuna PocketXTrack CF GPS |
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themeecer
16 Posts |
Posted - 31 janv. 2004 : 11:56:36
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I may have spoken too soon about the robot voice being worse. After I played around with the voice speed I got a tolarable voice. The 3rd tic from the right on the speed slider bar has proven to be the best for me. Earlier I had the voice too slow and it seemed that mapopolis was too chatty. Once I sped it up it spits it out quickly and clearly. Even though I dislike the monotone voice it actually flows much much better than the Crystal voice I had been using.
Also I may have missed this before ... but had we always had exit numbers? I haven't been out on the open road with it much and may have missed this. Anyway, anouncment of the exit numbers is an awesome feature. I always tended to miss exits because of zoning out. This will prevent that.
I'm going to do some geocaches tomorrow. We'll see how this bad puppy holds up. |
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themax
Sweden
74 Posts |
Posted - 31 janv. 2004 : 14:57:34
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Hi!
Promising looks of the UI interface. After testing it here, where no streets are to be pronounced the english way, I have really had a great time laughing!
Can't pronounce any non-english letters (obviously). Since it can't pronounce them, it skips that letter. For example "Vägen" (street), is pronounced 'V GENERAL', the ending -gen is wrongly interpreted as short for general. I don't think I have had so much fun in many weeks. The wish for anyone outside US and UK, would be a localized voice engine. http://www.scansoft.com/realspeak/demo/ can provide it, but I doubt this is what Mapopolis should do, even if it is so much fun  I have put an example on the start for me should sound using American English at http://familjenguldbrand.com/jennifer.wav. Replacing Å Ä Ö with A and O, and tweaking it a little. Something for the future, maybe?
Another thing that I assume is a bug, is that the voice pronounces km for 'kilometers' as just 'K M'. "point one k m" is actually "one hundred meters". Thats much better for metric users.
One drawback that I found though, I have to overclock my iPaq (3630. normal speed 206 MHz) now for the first time to make it run as expected. Just 15 %, but yet a big difference, especially when routing. Havent tried it in my car yet, but will during the evening.
.mats guldbrand
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Palm Tungsten T (and an old iPaq 3630)
Socket BT GPS
Digi-Map, Mapopolis and TripPilot user (and MyNavigator on the iPaq)
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Edited by - themax on 31 janv. 2004 16:07:33 |
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JakeRich
USA
583 Posts |
Posted - 31 janv. 2004 : 19:43:38
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| One more thing I have found is that the "Continue on the Right" at divided highways seems to be fixed. Anybody else notice that? |
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suemc
USA
140 Posts |
Posted - 01 févr. 2004 : 00:34:47
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| I love the new version, but the default voice is completely unintelligible over the axim x5's built in speaker, I don't hear bass frequencies well anyway, gonna try crystal and see if she's better but other than the voice issue, wowsers! I seems to run a bunch faster too in addition to new added ability to announce the street names, mucccchhhhh better now, no more risking rear-ending the guy ahead when I take my eyes off the road to read the screen!!!!! |
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JakeRich
USA
583 Posts |
Posted - 01 févr. 2004 : 06:18:48
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| I use it with an Axim and the voice can be made pretty reasonable with some tweaking on volume and speed. Based on the new technology to provide the sounds, you probably won't be able to get crystal to work with this version. |
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CMeys
28 Posts |
Posted - 01 févr. 2004 : 16:12:19
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| With the new version I can't find the place to adjust the volume for the voice -- its not where it used to be. How can this be done? Thanks. |
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paulkbiba
USA
5014 Posts |
Posted - 01 févr. 2004 : 16:33:51
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Tools/Settings/Sounds
Moderator
Don't forget the GPSPassion Club! |
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gadi
22 Posts |
Posted - 01 févr. 2004 : 20:05:31
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I love the new version. One thing though - seems the GPS location on the maps lags a little behind the actual position on the road, a thing that did not happen previously. I have not changed my hardware (e750, holux CF) so i guess this has to do with the latest changes,
Gadi |
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kutyafal
61 Posts |
Posted - 01 févr. 2004 : 20:39:02
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I've noticed that now there is a separate color for street names/labels. This is a great addition and helps a lot in creating a more usable color configuration. However, there is one last item that need to be separated out: the text color wich currently effects both the nav pane text as well as the street border at and beyond the zoom level where the street fill color is visible. Particularly for night color configuration the text would need to be a bright color on the nav pane but this will make streets show up very bright washing out the route highlight color. I know it's nitpicking but the coding effort should be minimal.
The other issue is with how the street names are rendered. The characters in labels are only drawn in 90 degree angles. This makes street labels on sharply curving streets illegible. The way the label follows the contour of the street is great but if the street has sharp curves the characters shift too much vertically from one another to be legible. This could be helped by drawing the characters always perpendicular to the street border. This means either adding additional angles to the character drawing routine or change the drawing reference for each character to be perpendicular to the street line.
Finally the bold font helps a lot but it makes some smaller street names not display at the same zoom where regular font does. Could the "Large Font" option be brought back also and be combinable with the bold font? I was wondering why it was dropped?
Finally finally, the "Route To" option should be added to all of the different find result screen items' pop-up box. So when you tap an hold on an item in the result list of a find you can select "Route To" (instead of just "Set as Destination") and it would generate the route with the Start being the current GPS position without further interaction.
Finally finally finally the text to speach is pretty good but more customization options as to what and when is announced would be nice. |
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lbendlin
USA
482 Posts |
Posted - 01 févr. 2004 : 22:20:41
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quote:
Originally posted by suemc
gonna try crystal and see if she's better but other than the voice issue, wowsers!
You cannot try Crystal - looks like they removed the old speech engine completely (the file got considerably smaller). Not sure that's the optimum solution though. I would have liked to have both options, WAV and TTS.
One big bonus of 4.37 hasn't been mentioned here - finally you can "Navigate to" without having to specify the start location! If Mapopolis has a GPS fix then it uses that as the start. That's what I call an improvement...
Lutz
iPAQ 3970, GSM/GPRS jacket, various GPS programs and receivers |
Edited by - lbendlin on 01 févr. 2004 22:23:08 |
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guysullivan
107 Posts |
Posted - 01 févr. 2004 : 22:21:29
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The new version is unbelievable. The only thing that is kind of amateurish low-tech is the "point 8 kilometres" voice prompt. People know the beauty and accuracy of the metric system is to eliminate fractions and decimals. To have a super hi-tech, space age, satellite using “Global Positioning System” device that calls “800 metes" a “point eight of a kilometre” takes away from its genius and its overwhelmingly awesome audio and visual appearance and pin-point accuracy perception. All pre .37 versions used meter when describing a distance shorter then 1 kilometre. I even think .37 switches to meters after .4KM.
This will bring my rating down to 9.999 out of a possible 10
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Also, Mapopolis, thanks for supporting your present customers with these fabulous upgrades at no cost.
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Toshiba e740 1.0623.0409 >EUU4 >Holux GM-210 sync-port GPS >Mapopolis Navigator >Vaja case >512MB CF card >Linksys WAP router >Belkin USB/sync cable car charger >PDA-Panache chrome stylus >ClearTouch screen protection >ARKON car vent mount
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Edited by - guysullivan on 01 févr. 2004 22:22:45 |
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scottdw
29 Posts |
Posted - 02 févr. 2004 : 01:28:20
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This is awesome!!!
Route to option
POI interface
Street names and exit numbers
WOW to many new awesome options to rave over!!!
quote:
Finally finally, the "Route To" option should be added to all of the different find result screen items' pop-up box. So when you tap an hold on an item in the result list of a find you can select "Route To" (instead of just "Set as Destination") and it would generate the route with the Start being the current GPS position without further interaction
I agree that would be nice.
Also in the Hardware buttons section what does the Set Global.... checkbox do???
Give Mapopolis there props they are listening.
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