SMS NMEA String plotted on TomTom map?

[Anonymous]

I have a tracking unit in my car. I can send it an SMS message from my XDA and it will return a full GPS NMEA string with a header. Can anyone tell me the feasability of writing an application that could post this incoming data directly to the TomTom maps program and display the vehicles exact position at street level.
The GPS application supplied with TomTom maps can obviously do this with streaming NMEA strings through the serial port.

If this application is possible I think there is a lot of potential. I am in the telematics business and I know that the majority of tracking devices work the same way.

John Bateman
bateman@globalnet.co.uk

[Peter Poelman]

[...] Can anyone tell me the feasability of writing an application that could post this incoming data directly to the TomTom maps program and display the vehicles exact position at street level. [...]

Very feasable. The only possibly tricky thing would be to write a fake serial driver to present a "serial port" to TomTom. Then you'd probably want a little bit of GUI to help you send these SMSs, and turn the result over to TomTom.

In this software, you would also want some easy kind of controls for playing back historic data from multiple vehicles. And maybe you would also want to incorporate a list of GPS positions for cities and towns in the target area, so you wouldn't need to resort to TomTom to get a general idea.

Three or four days of work for a good coder, the serial port stuff being the only unknown.

[t_lex]

I've been working on a similar problem for the last 3 weeks... First you need to purchase the tomtom SDK (which is about 200 $). This SDK contains a DLL and a library/header file that provides your software access to tomtom navigator. After including these files in your project you are able to send direct commands out of your software directly to tomtom. The SDK can be used with c++ and VB. You can get the manual from the tomtom homepage. This PDF is for free and gives you a picture of the possibilities and limits of this solution.

Receiving an SMS is the second task. A good example for sending an SMS can be found on this board, but unfortunately receiving an SMS seems to be a little more tricky (I'm at this point at the moment...).


t_lex

[Peter Poelman]

I hadn't even seen TomTom has an SDK. The SDK aproach is, most certainly, preffered over a silly serial port hack...

[McLEI]

Very feasable. The only possibly tricky thing would be to write a fake serial driver to present a "serial port" to TomTom. Then you'd probably want a little bit of GUI to help you send these SMSs, and turn the result over to TomTom.

I found this one, but is very expensive: http://www.mks.zp.ua/vspdce.php