[ampere]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

it is good no doubt about it. unfortunately this street map and last mile stuff from MMI doesnt work with my Garmin - else I would have bought it. something to do with the software and I believe they are now working on the interface for last mile navigation for Garmin devices too. Am waiting for that.
Thing is, you need to upgrade at least once a year - given that Indian cities are constantly developing in all directions and in an un-planned, haphazard manner, so the mapping data software wallahs are always going to be hard pressed to keep up with the urban sprawl!
cheers

Good thing is that MMI upgrade prices not far off from Satguide (490 Versus 990). The source price is the big one.
At least I think reason is compelling now to go for MMI.

I was not aware about the S/W compatibility issue. Thanks for pointing that out.

[R_R]

Originally Posted by shankar.balan

unfortunately this street map and last mile stuff from MMI doesnt work with my Garmin - else I would have bought it. something to do with the software and I believe they are now working on the interface for last mile navigation for Garmin devices too. Am waiting for that.

Am not tech-savvy, but the MMI site does say that their maps are compatible with Garmin devices . . . or does it not work with your specific unit? Was thinking of buying a Garmin and using MMI with it.

And, can someone suggest how good the MMI Vx140 is? Seems to be competitively priced at Rs. 9990 with preloaded maps, considering how much the MMI maps cost.
R_R

[ampere]

Originally Posted by R_R

Am not tech-savvy, but the MMI site does say that their maps are compatible with Garmin devices . . . or does it not work with your specific unit? Was thinking of buying a Garmin and using MMI with it.

And, can someone suggest how good the MMI Vx140 is? Seems to be competitively priced at Rs. 9990 with preloaded maps, considering how much the MMI maps cost.
R_R

Regular maps are compatible. But not the one with street view I think. Not sure if they are marketing that product separately. I did not see any separate product in their catalogue.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by R_R

Am not tech-savvy, but the MMI site does say that their maps are compatible with Garmin devices . . .

When I last looked, and I admit that was some months back, it was specific Garmin devices or ranges

Originally Posted by ampere

Regular maps are compatible. But not the one with street view I think.

Street View? MMI?

[ampere]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

When I last looked, and I admit that was some months back, it was specific Garmin devices or ranges

Street View? MMI?

On their main site, their is a flash running which says street view for 1027 cities enable. I remember reading some time back that only Delhi was covered initially. But seeing 1027 cities with street view, immediately grabbed my attention.

This may be worth it. But 7K is still too high price for maps alone. May be 3-4K would have been ideal.

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

... Street View? MMI?

+1. Street view is a Google Maps feature, and I am not sure MMI has the resources to pull that off for India. Are you referring to precise address resolution?

@shankar.balan, what problem did you face in getting MMI map to work on your Garmin device? Which model of Garmin device do you have? Works well on my 260W and on a range of other devices, incl. a Kenwood 2DIN HU with integrated Garmin software.

For Garmin, MMI just converts their vector data and address DB to Garmin format - there is no other difference. MMI address DB, though better than SatGuide one (imagine, there is an "8th Main" and a "12th Main", with nothing in between; obviously this is meant for visual clues and not address search), is still nowhere close to being a half-decent usable one.

Can't flame MMI, though, since India has half-a-million ways of writing addresses (including just "c/o Rames-bhai amlet-laari-wala, Fatehganj, Vadodara"!). Even then, searching for "1st Main, Sadashivnagar" is also a pain still. Coupled with horrendous data transcription (like "1st" can be "1st" or "1 st", and "Vijayanagar" can be "Vijaya Nagar", "Vijay Nagar" or "Vijaynagar" referring to the same place), it is still not in a state of the US or UK or such DBs.

Has anyone noticed how SatGuide PoI DB is a neat replication of Google Earth PoI's? Very easy for one to look for "My house", which statistically must be the most frequently occurring PoI in Google Earth. There are plenty of such howlers in SatGuide. Sometimes I wonder why it is not called SatMisguide.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by ampere

1027 cities with street view...

I think you may have missed out the word "level" as in pertaining to detail, rather than anything photographic.

(My theory is that, even if Google ever does show an interest in Street-viewing us, the govt would not let them. I can understand why they wouldn't.)

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

When I last looked, and I admit that was some months back, it was specific Garmin devices or ranges

Compatible Garmin models on this page. There's much more to Garmin than "nuvi"* --- it would be a shame to buy some huge, vastly expensive, Garmin navigation device, and find that MMI maps just didn't work on it.

Of course, not being listed as compatible doesn't have to mean that it is incompatible!



*EDIT: No there isn't, not so far as car/bike/truck models are concerned; they all seem to be called "nuvi". I hadn't realised that. Marine, etc, stuff has different range names.

~

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by DerAlte

Has anyone noticed how SatGuide PoI DB is a neat replication of Google Earth PoI's? Very easy for one to look for "My house", which statistically must be the most frequently occurring PoI in Google Earth. There are plenty of such howlers in SatGuide. Sometimes I wonder why it is not called SatMisguide.

Thats strange.. Google buys data from others (In addition to its own data). It goes after anyone copying data.

A search for "my house" on Roads of India MAPs and Directions seems to return reasonable results.

OTOH, now it gives away its data for free (waze.com). Wonder how do they make money off it.

[ampere]

Sorry @Thad. I did mean street level and not street view. Thanks for that correction.

[rk_sans]

Ordered maps for the Garmin unit from Satguide last week. Now the satguide has sent an email that they are unable to send it and it might get delayed. Called them up and they are telling that it might get resolved by 15th Mar. And they tell 50-50 chances of getting the issue resolved. Any alternative apart from MMI. MMI is very expensive.

[bj96]

Just noticed that Garmin has updated its City Navigator India NT map (Navteq) to 625 cities. Previously it was 70 cities. It is still priced at $99.99

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?...217#featureTab

Anyone tried this yet?

EDIT: Also noticed Garmin has now India site .

It is up since Feb 2011 Site report for www.garmin.co.in

-BJ

[DerAlte]

Originally Posted by NetfreakBombay

... Google ... goes after anyone copying data. ... OTOH, now it gives away its data for free (waze.com) ...

SatGuide must have got it from Googlel. Google Earth PoI DB is not so reliable due to the fact that most user-created PoIs are not accurately positioned. And that's apart from the other howlers. Satguide has made no efforts to scrub that data.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by bj96

Just noticed that Garmin has updated its City Navigator India NT map (Navteq) to 625 cities. Previously it was 70 cities. It is still priced at $99.99

Look like they need to hire someone to run spellchecks

Includes detailed coverage and postal code coverage of more than 625 major cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Koklata and Huderabad.

[black12rr]

Suppose I create a driving directions on Google maps in PC and send the link to my gmail id , I open this link on android phone with Google maps (which can cache maps ) , the link can be opened , but there is no way to save this route (say Bangalore - to -Mysore) .If I exit out of google maps in android , I need the link again to open the route .There should have been a way save the route when I open the link ,inside the app itself .So I have tracks listed , 1 ,2, 3 etc .

In Google My Tracks you can save the track , by MY tracks cannot cache the maps ( or is there a way ? ) .

[tsk1979]

black, this is how you do it
1. Open maps.google.co.in and get driving directions. For example Bangalore to Mumbai
2. When the route is plotted, around top right of the map you will see "Link". right click and say "Copy link location". For example
Bengaluru, Karnataka, India to Mumbai, Maharashtra, India - Google Maps
3. Paste this link to browser bar, and add &Output=kml at the end
So your link will become
Mumbai,+Maharashtra,+India&hl=en&geocode=&mra=ls&s ll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=47.972233,78.310547&ie=UTF8&t=h&z=7 &output=kml

This will give you the kml for your route which you can convert to any format as you like using gpsbabel or similar software.