Letterboxing OS Grid to GPS Software

General letterboxing discussion.

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Dizzy
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Post by Dizzy »

Hi Colin, I've just tried your new Mod but sadly nothing as yet will work. When I install the Letterbox.exe file I first get this message:-
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Then the main program screen appears as normal.

From then on this is the process of the files:-
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Image

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So sadly I cannot install the sbf files from the letterboxing files, this also now applies to the PLACES.SBF

Sorry for causing you problems.
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Colin
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Post by Colin »

Hi Dizzy
I will get to the bottom of this if it kills me!! Well the good news is that it read in the database before it failed so it was a problem with the array on that one, I think the second part the fixcoords had a simular problem I think I forgot to subtact 1 from the row couter which I should of done as the array is zero based. Anyway if you download and install this one

http://www.gpsletterboxing.talktalk.net ... pDebug.exe

which will overwrite the existing one and sort out the Class ID message. It should say version 1.1 in the about box.

Let me know how it goes

Colin
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Post by Dizzy »

Errm, so sorry Colin but still no joy, this is using the STAMPS.SBF file. BTW the PLACES.SBF file works fine, here is what I get:-

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Post by Colin »

Hi dizzy this is a real head scratcher as it should work!!! one last thing to try in the programs installed folder there is a file called Letterbox.ini can you open the file delete the contents and replace it with the below Basically I have made a mistake the setting below should be created when the app is first run howver they are not actually created until the app is closed the first time.

[StampList]
ShowAll=False
[Conversion]
Internal=False
[GPS]
Port=AUTO
[Proximity]
Alert=5
[Elevation]
DBType=gtopo30
[GMAP]
ShowGrid=1
[Deviation]
Latitude=0
Longditude=0
[OSRef]
fourthDigit=0
fifthDigit=0
[MRU List]
1=
2=
3=
4=

and then reopen the program.
the only way I can generate the same error is if the fourthdigit and fithdigit do not have numbers in. Once done try and run the program again and open the stamps.sbf file.


Thanks

Colin
Also if it still does not work
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Post by Sowerby Streaker »

:( Crikey Colin, what have you let yourself in for :roll: :roll:
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Post by Colin »

Just a few minor teething issues, theres always a few snags when developing software ( well there is when I do it anyway) :lol:
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Post by Gemma »

Colin wrote:Hi Gemma
in reply to your question the idea is not to have to retype the clues but to be able to export them to either a GPX file or directly to a GPS from the letterboxing system. For example if you use the letterboxing system software you have to reneter the Grid Refs decriptions either directly into your GPS or in a program such as Mapsource / Memory maps Etc to send data to your GPS. If for example you use map source you would enter the OS grid refs / Decription, map source then does a Helmert transform to convert it to WGS84 format and then sends it to your GPS. If you enter the OS grid directly into your GPS the GPS does the same conversion in memory. No GPS unit can you the OS grid directly as the GPS sats are configured to send WGS84 positioning data. Thw whole idea is to cut out the retyping of clues. I hope this explains everything.

Colin
Thanks for the info.
Keep up the good work.
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Dizzy
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Post by Dizzy »

Hi Colin, well I hate to say this but still no good as yet. The original info in the Letterbox.ini file is:-
[Proximity]
Alert=14

[Elevation]
DBType=srtm3

[Gmap]
ShowGrid=1

[Deviation]
Latitude=0.000000
Longditude=0.000000

[MRU List]
1=C:\Letter Box Parser\Bin\Stamps.ldb
2=C:\Letter Box\STAMPS.SBF
3=
4=

[StampList]
Showall=0

[GPS]
Port=AUTO

[OSRef]
FourthDigit=0
Fifthdigit=0

[Conversion]
Inernal=0


I have now changed it to what you have suggested within the file using one of my GUI (TextPad). Sadly I only know XHTML & CSS with a little javascript thrown in but not Java or C+.

Once again the PLACES.SBF file works find but not the STAMPS.SBF and produces the same violation pop up.

Sorry mate,

Paul
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Dizzy
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Post by Dizzy »

Thank you Colin, your program is working great now, thanks for all your time and effort!

Can you tell me how you can select individual boxes to download onto your GPS? I certainly don't want to try and download all 10,000 onto my Garmin. :)
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Post by Colin »

Hi Dizzy

Yippee, finally got to the bottom of it, there are always these sorts of issues when developing software. Basically what I have done is to check the easting 2 fig 3rd fig and 4th Fig refs when reading them and pad them with '?'


So if you have say a 3 fig grid ref 754 and then a blank in the 4th digit it replaces it adds ? As a 4th digit so you end up with 754? I have had to do it this was so it will also read in the Stamps.SBF that Mike Holiday distributes.

The next step in the conversion is to replace the 4th digit with the 4/8th digit set in the options, to convert to a valid WGS lat / lon ref you need a 10 fig ref (not including the letters) so the 5th / 10th digits also have to be padded if they do not exist. With a 8 fig grid ref you will only get an accuracy of within 10 meters, if the 4/5 9/10 digits are set to 0 this will put you in the bottom left hand corner of the 10 meter square, I would suggest changing the options to 5 for the last 2 digits as this will then put you in the centre of the 10 Meter square.

Also if you have 10 fig refs what you can do is enter the 8 digit ref as you would normally and then put the 10 digit ref as the first 2 sets of digits in the description field as easting space northing no letters the description field would look like 12345 54321 rest of description if a 8 fig ref exists the app then checks the description field for a 10 fig ref if this exists it will replace the 8 fig grid with it for better accuracy in the conversion. In theory a 10 fig ref will give you an accuracy of 1meter!! This does not take into account the 5 meter accuracy of the average GPS so realistically it would be about 6Meter accuracy, which from my testing is about right.


Basically the column called selected controls which letterboxes are exported to GPX or downloaded to your GPS, This column is used everywhere in the app apart from the density grid report. So selecting some boxes in this column and then going to the map view will only view the boxes selected on the map, same goes for the printing option, it will only print boxes selected in this column.

Another tip is not to select masses of boxes to view in the map view unless you have a super duppa PC, with load and loads of memory. It will render them all but will slow your Pc down as the map is an embedded version of IE. The thing to do is just to try it and see how many you can get away with. I have loaded around 1500 just to test it and it will load them fine.

Another tip is once you have loaded the stamps.sbf file save it in the app as the lbf (letter box format) not very creative I know. But when you what to look at it again the load time will be a second or rather than 30 seconds to load the stamps.sbf file.

If you can have a play around with it and if you find any issues let me know. I am not if you have a Garmin GPS if so it’s probably worth trying to either send a few letterboxes or read a few from the device. There are some setting for comm. Ports in the options.

Also what I will do is to create a different flag colour for 4 fig refs, at the moment there I think is Red for 10 digit refs and blue for 3-4 fig refs, I find the colours handy when I look at it on my GPS as I can tell straight away if it is a 6/8 or 10 fig ref.

I will recompile a new version of the app removing the message boxes when loading the SBF File

Colin
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Post by Colin »

HI Dizzy
I have now rebuilt the app you can download it from here - http://www.gpsletterboxing.talktalk.net/Download.htm A couple of other things probably worth mentioning is if you click on the column heading you have an option to filter the columns so clicking the grid east / Grid north columns will allow you to filter by grid ref
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then by clicking the select button
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will allow to export / send to GPS or view in the map tab.

Image

I have also now changed the flag colours these are now

Red Flag 10 digit Ref 1M Accuracy
Blue Flag 8 digit Ref 10M Accuray
Green Flag 6 Digit Ref 100M Accuray
Yellow Flag No Valid Grid Reg

The Red , Blue, Green are push pins when viewed in the map viewer, Obviously no Yellow as there would be little or no grid ref for this colour

There are a couple of minor issues / things to note I am still working on
these -
File import
when a file is imported I currently have to strip out the following symbols " ' & ø ° ½ I have replaced the & with 'and' and the degree ones with 'Deg' however the ' and " are a bit harder to sort out sop for now I have had to remove them so 4' 6" will come out as 4 6 its to do with the GPX file format and the HTML used in the map view not being overly compatable with these symbols, it can be fixed but I have not had time.

Data entry
There is a minor issue that when selecting clues manually using the selected col with the last clue in the column you need to select the save (green tick) or it will not save the clue as selected.

Promping to Save
When either switching beteen differnet datasets or closing the app, if any changes have been made to the open database it should prompt you to save, but doesn't.

I have a Garmin Venture HC which is colour so when I send the data to my GPS the red / Blue flags appear on screen as they should. I am not sure how this will work on a monochrome GPS, weather the flags appear as just black flags or even if a monchrome GPS supports fags at all, if not I suspect they will appear as either dots or the standard garmin waypoint symbol? I cannot test this. What I can probably do if this is an issue is to change the symbols so for a 10 fig ref I can put one symbol an 8 fig ref another one and a 6 fig ref another one again. Other things to note is the amount of waypoints a GPS will hold, mine holds 500, some hold more some less. Also depending on what type of GPS you have depends on weather the name / description is trucated or not. I tend to also print the clues out as well as send them to my GPS.

Anyway I am sure there are other undocumented features (as Micorsoft would say) that need fixing / adding / changing. If you find any let me know

Hope it still works!!!

Colin
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Post by Dizzy »

It's looking better every time Colin, just downloading your software again so I will let you know what happens with my basic Garmin (Yellow) Etrex with it;s monochrome screen! :lol:
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Post by Sowerby Streaker »

:cry: Oops, I seem to have a problem. Downloaded the program O.K. then clicked on 'Open a letterbox DB file' and it loaded lots of clues from Mike's program, but not all :? i.e. I have loads of Wish You Were Here's listed (WOM) but the list is now only showing 4. Plus am I right in saying the default date for boxes found is 11/1/2001 :? As all the clues didn't load up, I then clicked on 'Update with Extract SBF' - this started to run then up came the Access violation message. I was able to click on O.K. and it returned me to the program. Is there a reason why its not loading all the boxes please :cry: Oh and where might I see these coloured flags???? I don't seem to have any showing:cry: :cry: Would love to get this program going...

Aha - just found the flags under 'rounded' Great
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Post by Colin »

HI Dizzy
I am quite intrigued to see what happs with a monochrome GPS, also I beleive that GPS has a serial interface? I haven't tested it on a serial interface as I do not own one! The auto dectect option should scan the serial ports as well as the usb ports to find it? let me know how it goes.

hi sowerby streaker
the program by default load boxes with a min of 6 + fig grid ref ie 743 533 as you would need a min of 6 fig to get any sort of grid ref. if you wish to viewboxes without valid grid refs goto the tools / options and select list all clues and then reimport.


Can you try another extract.sbf file just to check it as could be just the file? Also try to create a new empty file in the app and then run the update from extract. it still does not work send me the extract file and i will try it. I had an extract DB with the incorrect amount of records / blocks marked in the file header which I had a simular issue with. I did put some extra code in to counter this but may need to refine it a bit. If the number of blocks in the header is less than than actually in the file it will thow an exception as I use this figure to create a dynamic array to load the data into sized according to this figure. So the end or the array will be overwritten if this is the case.
Also if you run the update in the Letterbox system first before importing the data there is no need to rerun it.

Regarding the flags scroll to the right in the grid
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Mike Holidays program datestamps the box when you mark it as founds twith the current date, if not marked as found there is no default date, if you scroll to the right on the grid there is a column called date this should have a conversion of this date in it. Supderbase seems to use a very odd date format (IMHO) basically it stores that amount of days passed since 10 Jan 0001. I suspect if you have your PC date / time setting set to another country when marking as found it may not store correcly. The default for windows is American.

Let me know how you get on

Colin
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Post by Colin »

Hi Sowerby streaker
I have rewritten the file import routine which should now fix your extract import issue you will have to redownload the program here http://www.gpsletterboxing.talktalk.net/Download.htm

As mentioned previously unless you select the option to import all clues you will only see ones with vailid grid refs, I have also changed it so the same now goes for the extract update files. you will still only be able to send ones with valid Grid refs to your GPS.


Colin
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