Hike

Hike is an open-source GPS Maemo application for Nokia N800/N810 internet tablet. Its purpose is to display the picture of a paper map and your GPS position on top of it. It's a useful alternative to more ambitious navigation GPS applications where good digital maps aren't readily available, such as hiking paths or exotic places.

The picture of the map is obtained typically with a digital camera. Choose a large focal length and have the map perpendicular to the view direction, so that parallel lines on the map remain parallel on its picture. Choose a low JPEG quality to have a file not too large (a few hundred kilobytes are fine, more could force you to quit other applications). Rotations and scale discrepancies along x and y axis are taken care of.

The position mapping from GPS (latitude/longitude) to picture is based on at least two "calibration points". If you know the latitude and longitude of points which can be specified on the map picture, you can enter them numerically in decimal degrees or degree/minute/second; otherwise, you can use your GPS position as you walk. Calibration points should define an area as broad as possible.

Screenshot

This snapshot was created in the development scratchbox where GPS isn't available. GPS provides also the altitude.

Click the image to have a larger screenshot.

Features overview

Hike has the following features:

Can load any jpeg or png image
Stores calibration points in a file with a .cal suffix associated with the image file
Remembers the last map image and loads it at startup
Displays the GPS position and altitude, in normal view or full screen mode
Choice between metric and imperial units, and decimal or deg/min/sec angles
Can record tracks where fluctuations are smoothed out and save them in GPX format
Detailed GPS information with estimated position uncertainties

Install

If you read this page on your internet tablet, click this link to install the latest version of Hike. Otherwise, you can download a .deb file below and open it on your tablet.

Releases

2 September 2008

DEB package for N800/N810: hike-080902.deb

Source code: hike-src-080902.tgz

zoom out
settings for recorded path
reload saved path from GPX file

14 August 2008 (first release)

DEB package for N800/N810: hike-080814.deb

Source code: hike-src-080814.tgz