Computer-assisted navigation is achieved with component-oriented programming and instructions that provide a distributed component programming navigation system. The computer-assisted navigation is achieved with a computing device including a logical data model configured to provide abstract interfaces in a process to convert a format and data model of a provider to an appropriate format and data model suitable for the computing device, wherein the process occurs on demand, only when needed, or the conversion occurs in accordance with the format and data model of the provider, and at download time or at an initial processing time. As a result, such a computing device can be advantageously used many environments including a distributed navigation system.