Hi Guys,

Im new to all o this.

I haven't yet gotten Mappoint but im wondering if anyone can tell me if itl help with my problem or where i can go to get some help with this.

Basically I need to connect a GPS to my laptop and then read the direction i am facing and extract it to use in a programming application i am writing.
So obviously, if im holding the laptop and GPS say and i turn that it will update accordingly and be able to tell me the new direction i am facing.

Can this be done? Is it possible? Or how would I go about it?

Id really appreciate any help. Iv bin looking for a solution to this for the last two days straight and I haven't gotten very far at all.

Thanks in advance.

The big caveat here is that only a select few GPS have built-in compass ability.
MapPoint won't determine "direction facing", as compass readings are not specified in the NMEA 2.0 standard. It will only determine "bearing" when you are in motion; calculated geometrically from the last reported position.

Receivers which do have a digital compass, such as Garmin etrex summit, vista , and 76S output a special sentence of type HCHDG in which the magnetic heading and magnetic variation are shown in the message. You'd simply need to parse this information yourself.

$HCHDG,101.1,,,7.1,W*3C
where:
HCHDG Magnetic heading, deviation, variation
101.1 heading
,, deviation (no data)
7.1,W variation


HTH
Paul

Hi,

Take the VTG string. it contains the magnetic and true heading. Also first examine the speed, if it is zero the heading is meaningless of course. also at very low speeds (<3km/h) it is not very accurate.