On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 15:58:09 GMT, "Tuno"
wrote:

While working recently on a Java program to combine and geographically
filter turnpoints from multiple .CUP files, I noted that when I use SeeYou
to convert from .CUP to .DA4 (for Filser/LX Nav products) format, the
turnpoint names get truncated to 8 characters and all uppercase. This
presents name collisions for pairs of turnpoints with verbose names like
"Black Canyon North" and "Black Canyon South" -- both get saved with the
name "BLACK CA", which causes LXe to complain when the file is loaded
therein.

Is there a "standard" somewhere for what data are contained in turnpoints
and how they are named? I know .DA4 files are used for LX Nav products; what
are .CUP files used for (besides SeeYou)?


Take a look at the standard BGA text file format and the excellent
TPSelect program. The BGA TP file is in a human readable format that's
independent of any particular hardware. TPSelect reads and displays
this file to allow you to optionally select turn points from it and
write them to another file in a format that suits your TP upload
program.

For example, use TPSelect to pick out the nearest 500 TPs to my home
base (my GPS won't hold more than that) and then save them to a file
that's acceptable to flexGPS. I use the latter to load the file into
my GPS.

IMO this approach has a lot of advantages:
- there's only one human-readable master file
- each program does a specific job and does it well
- using two programs is no big deal: its only done once a year
- there are a LOT of device-specific uploaders around
- the uploaders are easy to find via the Soaring Exchange

The only down side is that most of these programs are for MSDOS and/or
Windows, which is hard lines on Mac or Linux users.

--
martin@ : Martin Gregorie
gregorie : Harlow, UK
demon :
co : Zappa fan & glider pilot
uk :