Wayviewer offers navigation in Europe and North America without fees, subsriptions, and on-line costs. The route must be computed before departure on a PC or a Notebook. For it a MAP&GUIDE derivate, e.g. ADAC TourPlaner®, or Microsoft® MapPoint® version 2002 and above is used.
Since MapPoint® provides the route plans without the GPS coordinates of the turn points, it was necessary to develope a special MapPoint® Add-in that determines the GPS coordinates and writes them together with the driving instructions into a file. This file is copied afterwards to the mobile phone.
When using MAP&GUIDE programs no Plug-in is required. The generated Palm DB files can be used directly without any modifications.
The Wayviewer application itself is used on the mobile phone. It was developed in Java™ based on the Micro Edition of the Java 2 Platform (J2ME™). At present the English, the German, and the French versions of MapPoint® are supported.
Wayviewer imports the route plans into an internal data base (RecordStore). There several route plans can be stored at the same time. At a time one route plan can be selected and step by step be displayed. The driving instructions are compressed by using Icons that a meaningful representation on the display of the mobile phone is possible.
The software steps the driving instructions automatically forward during approximation to the next turn point. Alternatively they can be stepped manually. In this case no GPS receiver is required. In the automatic case an appropriate voice output takes place, in order not to distract the driver. For a reasonable use of the voice output, a hands-free speaking system or a headset are recommended.
