Virtual GPS is a GPS simulator software.
You can use it to simulate a GPS receiver
unit connected to your computer. It's
ideal when you need GPS input, but you
have no signal or you can use it to test
your GPS applications. It supports
various NMEA sentences, so it can be used
with any GPS mapping software. It
operates in two modes: simulator mode and
file mode. In simulator mode the latitude
and longitude coordinates are
periodically incremented with a defined
step. In file mode the GPS data is loaded
from a text file which contains NMEA
sentences.
The GPS data is transmitted periodically
to a serial port (UDP ports are also
supported). To get the output of the
simulator, you can use a null-modem cable
which interconnects two physical serial
ports or you can use one of the virtual
serial port software from the market,
which simulate two interconnected serial
ports like: Virtual Null Modem, Virtual
Serial Port Driver, Virtual Serial Port
Kit, Advanced Virtual Com Port and
others. Another possible application of
the software is to broadcast the output
of the simulator through bluetooth.