Navigation Technologies today publicly released its technical specification for SDAL Format, the company's proposed standard for facilitating map media compatibility between navigation system platforms. The company, creators of the world's most widely-used navigation map database for in-vehicle navigation systems, is inviting those interested in receiving a copy of the SDAL Format technical specification to register at its web site at http://www.sdalformat.com.

Navigation Technologies creates the maps used in the majority of navigation-equipped vehicles on the road today in Europe and virtually all those in North America. SDAL Format enables map compatibility among different navigation systems by specifying a common Physical Storage Format (PSF), the way in which data is organised on media such as CD-ROMs. SDAL Format's technical specification is available for review royalty-free with the understanding that any resulting implementation of the format must conform to the specification to ensure compatibility among compliant platforms. SDAL Format is already used in commercial products by Magellan, Pioneer, Panasonic, Clarion, InfoGation with other product launches due in 2000.

Industry Reaction

Car and system manufacturers in North America and Europe are praising the publication of the SDAL Format technical specification as a 'milestone' for the navigation systems industry and for the automobile manufacturers that patronize it. "We have supported SDAL since its inception three years ago," says Philippe Challe, Engineering Project Manager, Navigation & Information Systems for Renault. "Today's high cost of producing navigation systems and map media, where each manufacturer requires its own media compilation, cannot respond to the growing volume and diversity of titles that we expect in the future. SDAL Format is a major step toward alleviating this and will help to more clearly delineate responsibility and accountability between system supplier and map maker."

"The automobile manufacturing industry has long recognised the need for navigation system compatibility," said Michael Sena, former chairman of ERTICO's Committee for Global Standardisation of Digital Map Databases for ITS. "The publication of the SDAL specification is an enormous milestone. There is no doubt in my mind it will help to harmonise available formats and lead to quicker establishment of an approved standard."

Pioneer Electronics, among the first navigation system manufacturers to launch a product using SDAL Format, agrees: "We believe SDAL Format delivers what is needed, and that is compatible, code-free map media," says Russ Johnston, Vice President of Pioneer U.S.A. "We are among the first companies to employ SDAL, but its stature will increase as it continues to prove itself commercially."

The Benefits of SDAL Format Until SDAL Format, each manufacturer has needed to create its own proprietary portfolio of software components to build a navigation system. The result is that each navigation system has needed its own proprietary map media to operate, leading to costly product development cycles, complicated marketing and distribution logistics, and restrictions placed on consumers with regard to the map media they buy. SDAL Format and the compatibility it brings benefits every link in the supplier chain, from system manufacturers to consumers.

Compatible map media benefits consumers by freeing them to purchase map media based on its content, not on whether it works with their system, as they find they must do today. SDAL Format benefits system manufacturers by providing common PSF software, paving the way for compatible map media. SDAL Format also makes it faster, easier, and cheaper to bring new navigation systems to market by eliminating much of the time and resources otherwise spent on compiler development and maintenance.

SDAL Format benefits automobile manufacturers, long interested in resolving the compatibility question, by allowing them to employ two or more navigation system suppliers without the complicated production, inventory, and distribution logistics they face today. Navigation Technologies, creators of the digital map data used in the majority of vehicle navigation systems on the road today in Europe and virtually all navigation systems in North America, created SDAL Format to help its customers overcome today's lack of compatibility issue, considered a key impediment to growing the navigation systems market.