Mapping System with Directions - Long Post

[emtark]

Hi All,

No doubt you've all seen some sort of map in your life, but today I came across a very good site which would help users to find their way to specified directions.

I have just started as a pizza delivery driver (go on laugh at me ) and something like this would be 110% what I need to find destinations.

The site is called WhereIS, the URL is http://www.whereis.com.au

If you click on the tab called Map and Directions Search, you can put in a street name and suburb (even street number if you know it), then the suburb and will give you directions from A to B.

Now although this one is fully functional, I don't really have great internet access in my car, unless I use GPRS from my mobile.. but that means $$$ and I wouldn't make anything from the deliveries.

I guess what I'm asking is how could I generate something like this, it would only have to be for a small area, maybe 5km from Sunnymeade Drive, Aberfoyle Park, SA, for example.

I've been thinkin a bit, and I guess I'd need map coordinates for each road, road names and traffic lights and stuff all in a database of some sort, then try to connect the shortest path between the 2 points.

If anyone has attempted something like this before, or can offer ANY tips at all, I would be very grateful to hear them.

Alternatively, if someone knows of software that can do this offline, I would love to know about it

Thanks in advance,

[emtark]

Any ideas? would I need a database, spreadsheet, also what is the easiest way to find a path, trace pixels or something?

Thanks in advance,

Tim.

[emtark]

Anyone??

[DaveBo]

I use this on my laptop (for the US)
It works well mapping out routes from A to B.

[JeffMvr]

Originally posted by DaveBo
I use this on my laptop (for the US)
It works well mapping out routes from A to B.

I second this. For $100 you can get the GPS antenna + the software and turn your laptop into a GPS. I have and it's awesome!

[emtark]

Yeah I thought about the GPS idea, but the laptop I get would be just enough to run my mapping program.. probably 266mhz or lower. Theres also the problem of the availablility of maps for my area... there aren't too many maps of adelaide, australia out there that I've seen. Most of the more advanced ones come with a sydney or maybe very basic australian map, but rarely have i seen a map for my area.

However, if you know of a program that is free, and would work with a GPS receiver, and you think that a 266Mhz with probably win98 would take this, I would love to hear about it

Thanks in advance,

Oh, just another thing, is that $100 US for the GPS and is there a good brand to get??

Thanks.