Enter the world of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and plot your newly discovered war driving data on top of a professionally researched GIS mapping software. (See Figure 7-2.)

The essence of mapping a war drive is simple: generate a map of your area of interest and mark up the map using location coordinates. But before we get into the step-by-step details, let’s cover some basic information about mapping software, GPS technology, and data converters.

Dozens of mapping programs are available for the casual user. Programs can be purchased for as little as $40 for a simple travel package with GPS support, on up to several hundred dollars for a business-grade program with sophisticated population and demographic tools. There are also free applications, but these tend to rely on Web-based mapping sources like MapQuest for map generation, which reduces effectiveness while on the road.

Table 7-1 shows some common mapping applications and some features. The applications reflect the most common products used by the war driving community. If you have a preferred package, by all means, give that a try first.

And yet, the excellent navigation and turn-by-turn route planning features in most popular mapping programs can make those old gas-station maps obsolete.

This business-grade mapping program provides extensive “pushpin” features and Microsoft’s COM programming plug-in capabilities. At a retail price of about $300, it’s the most costly of the programs listed here. See Figure 7-3 for a screenshot of the MapPoint interface.

The pushpin feature is fairly common across digital mapping programs, although different names may apply. The MapPoint pushpin lets you place a marker anywhere on the map (manually or automatically) with notes and other data assigned to the object.

The COM add-in ability is especially nifty, because it allows third-party developers to run programs using the MapPoint mapping engine and data set. The most notable of these for war drive mapping is the StumbVerter program. StumbVerter is a free download, but donations are encouraged. StumbVerter takes exported NetStumbler “Summary” text files and automatically plots them on a map using the MapPoint engine and data.

MapPoint is also a powerful business tool including demographics, census data, and several geographic trend tools. Of particular note is the drive time calculator. Mark a location, select the drive time zone tool, enter the drive time, and the software will determine how far you can drive in, say, 10 minutes.

The WiMap Utility is a downloadable Windows program that reads NetStumbler Summary text files and creates a “latlon” file recognized by most DeLorme products, including Street Atlas USA. Figure 7-4 shows the main interface for WiMap. The buttons on the left allow for useful selection and formatting capabilities.