I replaced the sun visor in my Honda Element with
an i-opener running Linux.
The mapping software
I use is "roadmap" which uses census department
maps. The i-opener has been supplemented with
a rayming TN-200 USB GPS receiver, a metal box,
a hard drive, rs-232 serial adapter (for future
APRS use), and an infrared wireless keyboard with built in pointing device attached to the steering wheel with velcro.
The iopener is lower in the picture than it would be while driving. It is larger than the original visor so it does obscure traffic lights but only when you are already stopped at an intersection or too close to stop so it will not cause you to inadvertantly run a red light though you do need to move your head to see the light turn green.
The roadmap server uses vector based maps based on the US census department tiger maps. I have the maps for the entire US installed on the navigation computer's hard drive.
The roadmap software does have an annoying tendancy to crash too often. The crashes seem to be location and view dependent but I haven't added an automatic core dump logger, yet to trace the problems. Running stack traces is a pain at 60mph. Probably a division by zero or something. [Note: I am running an old version of the software. At least one location dependent crash has been fixed].
The software does not have automatic routing capabilities. Census maps are "not routable" in the sense that they do not have one way street info, info on streets that are permanently closed to vehicles (i.e. pedestrian malls), speed limit information, clearance information (for trucks), etc. The software lets you enter addresses instead of coordinates but it is very stupid about matching (i.e. if the census department used the subdivision name instead of the city name used by the post office, it won't find it. That said, one could write autorouting extensions. They would occasionally ask you to turn down a street you can't turn on but when you have a real time GPS display, that isn't really that bad because it is pretty easy to manually route around when you have GPS; so easy that the need to have a route in the first place is questionable (particularly considering the peculiariar routes often chosen by even good autorouting systems) unless you are driving in an area with really bad traffic.
Realistically, not having autorouting isn't much of a problem. You can enter the destination address and put in some strategic waypoints if you want to via a particular route and the software shows what direction your destination is.
In terms of hardware, the biggest problem with this configuration is the lack of a touch screen. The greatest danger of driver distraction is trying to see a moving mouse pointer on a double scan LCD screen. If you use a GPS system, don't take your eyes off the road for more than a fraction of a second and pull over if you need to do any serious interactions. Driving doesn't have to be your only priority, it just has to be your first priority. The sun visor mounting was chosen to make it difficult. The navigation systems location actually helps with safety since you can see the screen in your peripheral vision while your eyes are on the road and vice versa.
Power is provided by a cheap cigarette lighter to adjustable voltage adapter set for 12V. Although the I-opener claims to require 18V, it seems to work ok on 12V. The screen isn't as bright as I would like in the daytime and it is possible that this is affected by the reduced voltage.
Cost of parts was around $400, not counting the optional dual RS-232 board.
Note that during installation, I used a special cable made from badflash parts that allowed me to connect an IDE CD-ROM and the laptop hardrive to the i-opener simultaneously. The cost of those parts is not included.
If you want to build you own system without the complications associated with i-opener hacking,, you might consider the liliput touch screen monitor with a Mini-ITX motherboard..
Note that the Yamaha YMF715 audio should work with the opl3sa2.o driver but redhat included broken versions of the lspnp and setpnp tools.
This file is maintained by Mark Whitis (whitis@freelabs.com).
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