Door to Door Route Planning on a Mac

There is a need among many Mac users to use GPS technology to get from one place to another based on door to door routes. No company that I know of currently sells a mapping/GPS/route planning solution for Mac OS X. There are several GPS packages, but none that address the specific issue of getting from address A to address B. These days, putting together a few pieces, including an online mapping service, something that can speak to a GPS receiver, and a cell phone, you can get up to date information into your GPS at any time.

Disclaimer

This information is provided simply as a single solution to a problem. It works for me as I write this today. Since it depends on other services to work, it could break at any time. Any dependence on this solution, or money spent to purchase the products I mention here is entirely at your own risk. I cannot guarantee that this will work for anyone else, or that it will even work for me tomorrow. Several other products are mentioned here. I am not endorsing any of them. I have no affiliation with any of the companies selling these products. I have no idea if there are better solutions out there or if these companies even want me talking about their products.

The various pieces

These products and services are being used in my setup:

MapsOnUs - A free online mapping service. They provide maps as well as directions. This is where we'll actually get the coordinates for a route that we'll upload to the GPS receiver.

MacGPS Pro - This is one of the software packages available for talking to GPS receivers and managing waypoints and routes. It works only with Garmin products. This is really the key piece of the puzzle for Mac users, and the only software mentioned on this page that you need to buy. It's $39.95. Well worth it for what it does.

Garmin eMap - I believe any current Garmin unit will work with MacGPS Pro.

Right-click to download the turns script that acts as the glue between MacGPS Pro and MapsOnUs.

Mac OS X Developer Tools - Since you have to have an account (free) in order to download the tools, I can't give a direct link (as far as I can tell). If you bought the retail version of OS X, you have developer tools. Otherwise, navigate the site to locate it. My perl script only requires one tiny thing that just happens to be in the developer tools. That's SetFile, to set the file type of a file created for MacGPS Pro. Maybe there's another approach to this?

Keyspan USB Serial Adapter - Garmin still uses their own serial port to transfer data. Any USb serial adapter should work. I just happen to use a Keyspan. There's more information about this on the MacGPS Pro page.

Usage

1. Register with MapsOnUs.com. This is necessary because guests can't set preferenes. Login and click the "general options" link on the left side of the page. Turn on "Show Latitude & Longitude".

2. Now when you use MapsOnUs to generate driving directions, it will give coordinates of each turn. Plan a route and save that page to your computer.

3. From the command line, run turns on the new route you saved from the web. If you saved the file as newroute, you'll type:

./turns -u newroute

This will create a file called newroute.mgps. The -u on the command line is optional. It will cause the script to launch MacGPS Pro. If you leave off the option, you can still launch MacGPS Pro yourself.

4. Run MacGPS Pro and configure it to use your GPS receiver. From the transfer menu, send the route to the GPS receiver.

Limitations

MapsOnUs only offers US maps. This is a problem. I'd like a similar service that offers GPS coordinates and maps throughout the US and Canada.

My script can only be run from the command line. It's not very Mac-like. That's fine with me, but I imagine others would love to have a one-click, Mac-like solution for route planning.

Instructions provided by

Larry Moss
11 May 2003

Suggestions for improving these instructions or my approach to this problem can be sent to moss@fooledya.com.