Improving WinTOTAL integration with GPS devices
In today's highly integrated world, geodata is becoming more and more important. Being able to ensure absolute accuracy for placement of subject, comp, rental or listing properties helps to ensure your reports are bullet-proof and adds credibility to your work. Soon, you'll be able to automatically retrieve latitude and longitude information from your GPS device and import it into WinTOTAL, assigning addresses to it and guaranteeing spot-on placement. In more ruralized areas or new construction developments where no reliable street data is available, this is a critical function.
Jeff Jones, one of our research fellows, has written several articles on this topic. As background, you can read those articles here:
"Geocoding and GPS 101: How to do it now, and how it ought to be done"
Can't I do that now?
Sort of. In WinTOTAL now, you can choose to manually input latitude and longitude information into the map wizard, but you have to input it manually, and it's not very clear within the user interface that the property will be absolutely placed via those coordinates instead of the address. Our plan is to give you a method to plug your supported GPS device directly into your PC and pull the waypoint (the numbered reference point tied to a set of lat/long coordinates) data directly into WinTOTAL and quickly assign a report address to it.
Here's how it will work.
When you select to input property information via GPS data, you'll get a new screen that will allow you to select your GPS device from a list of supported units. Once you've done that, we'll automatically retrieve the waypoint information directly off of the device and display them with their latitude and longitude information in a simple screen that lets you associate an address from your report to each waypoint.
What's the difference between navigation oriented solutions vs. location oriented solutions?
When we initially startled looking at this and asking around as to what devices people are using, our confusion about this concept was reflected in the answers we got from customers; Microsoft Streets & Trips, Copilot, Garmin, etc. And what we've come to realize is that GPS solutions really fall into one of two categories:
Navigational Solutions
These types of solutions include software and hardware packages that include things like Microsoft Streets & Trips and CoPilot. These solutions are targeted towards in-car navigation needs, with turn-by-turn aids and voice assistance. These types of solutions rely on a partnership between the software and an integrated hardware receiver that feeds constant real time location updates to it. They're not designed to retrieve specific locational waypoints and store them for use later. As a result, these types of solutions aren't going to work for WinTOTAL integration.
Locational Solutions
On the other hand, solutions like this hand-held Garmin etrex unit that are specifically designed with the intent of storing and re-locating specific points on the globe later will work beautifully, and we will support a full array of these types of devices. These types of units are typically hand-held units in which you just click a button and the device records a waypoint with associated latitude and longitude coordinates.
Check back here later for a list of devices we intend to support with our initial release of this feature.
Will this integration be available in Aurora as well as Armstrong?
Yes! We'll make this solution available in Aurora's new Virtual Earth mapping system sometime in October. Come back to this page then to enable the feature for your copy of WinTOTAL and begin using it!
Paul E. Stansberry, III
WinTOTAL Product Manager
a la mode, inc.
