NET file added

It is exciting to announce that version 617 of mkgmap now has support for the NET section. This support was entirely written by Elrond.

So what does this give you?

First I've got to say that I've not been able to verify the following things, but then I've not got them to work with other maps either. So keep that in mind and let me know what you find and I'll update this article if things become clearer.

• It allows you to use the lock to road option. If you enable that option, then after a while the location pointer will lock onto the nearest road. Even if you then leave a road, the location pointer will stay on the last place you were on a road, until you get back to a road at which time it will jump onto that road.

  I've not really tried this option before, because of course when out mapping it is essential to turn off this lock to road option, otherwise you will not be recording your actual track of where you went.

• The second thing is that the status bar at the top shows the road that you are on and sometimes sometimes roads that are ahead that you can turn into. The exact facilities available may depend on the particular GPS device that you are using it on.

• Finally it is a stepping stone towards routable map support.

To include it you have to give the option --net. Some day it may become the default, but as it takes longer and produces a larger file we are leaving it optional.

Download from the mkgmap download page. Get version 617 or later, don't forget to enable the NET support with the --net flag.