Mio 710/510 Speedcams

Sallyann · Lifetime Member Joined: Jun 23, 2006 Posts: 768

I have made available a utility that will give you a list of the speedcams currently on your Mio 710. It should work for the 510 also but I have not tested it. You will need to copy the file miomap\MioMap\miotc\pois\SpeedCams.mtc from your unit into your PC using bluetooth, put the program file into the same folder, and run it. It will create a text file 'speedcams.txt' with a list of the camera locations and types. Note that if you have added or deleted any cameras since your last 'sync' operation, these will not be in the main speedcams file and therefore not listed.

You can download the program file from:
http://www.rcg.demon.co.uk/pub/Speedcams/Mio_SpeedCams_Reader.exe

I have also uploaded a JPG of a map showing the differences between the Mio and PGPSW camera databases around Birmingham. The yellow triangles are PGPSW locations and the red triangles are Mio ones, and you can see how many differences there are:
http://www.rcg.demon.co.uk/pub/Speedcams/image1.jpg

Legal note.
I do not believe that in posting the program I am breaking anyone's copyright, since there is no data in it - you can only use it to look at the data you have already licensed.
For the map, the very large scale means that you cannot extract the coordinates of the cameras, and it does not show their types or speeds. It is purely an illustration of the differences.
However is anyone is offended by what I have uploaded, please let me know and I will promptly remove it.

Many thanks to R for the web space.

Sal

rronaldson · Regular Visitor Joined: Jul 25, 2006 Posts: 102

Thanks Sal. Works fine on the 510.
_________________
Reg

Swordsmaker · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 05, 2006 Posts: 33

Thanks Sal

Appears to work great but raises some questions regarding data.
I am interested in if anyone sees the same phenomena or if I have missed something.

The .mtc file on my recently syncronized C710 is rather small, (15KB)
Being from Sweden, and supposedly syncronising Swedish speedcams, the miosync (homepage) claims in excess of 1900 speedcams. By the way, this number is increasing with about 50-100 per day.

The true number of speedcams out there are less than 700.

Disregarding the discrepancy of 1200 between reality and the mio database, I still only read out 183 from my tiny .mtc file, and some of those have negative speed limit (-80)?

Looking at those coordinates, some of them appears to be outside Sweden.

I have not taken the time to convert the .txt output to .kml or something, if anyone can recommend a quick/simple converter that would be great.

POI edit does not include scandinavian maps, so I am so far using Google Earth to get a graphical overview of the camera locations.

So - the main questions - Where are all the other approx 1700 cameras?
How does the speed limit turn negative?

Anyone got a clue?

Swordsmaker · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 05, 2006 Posts: 33

Regariding my previous post.

The question on weird speed limits is to some extent solved.
The negative speeds shows only on cameras defined as mobile.

As around 90 of the speedcameras in my .mtc file are coming out as mobile, in reality I only got 90 cameras present in my c710. To be compared with the 1900 on the mio web and 700 in real life.
Hmmmm.

Sallyann · Lifetime Member Joined: Jun 23, 2006 Posts: 768

Sallyann · Lifetime Member Joined: Jun 23, 2006 Posts: 768

Well I have done some work on this. I added Sweden to UK, and did a couple of 'sync's an hour ago. There were 159 records for Sweden. I have projected them onto a map and they are all within the borders of Sweden.

The reason for the -80 speed is obvious after a minute's thought. UK roads limits are in mph and the rest of Europe uses kph, and Mio must be using a different coding system for each. Also the speed is coded in with the camera type. So for the moment I am afraid you must ignore the camera type and speed limit that my program shows you. Perhaps when I have more time I might be able to sort out the kph coding.

As to the number of cameras, I have got a different number to you in my download and I am not surprised at this. Mio have tried to be clever and collect their updates from users during the 'sync' process. But there are many possibilities for error with this arrangement, and in any case I believe that the system does not work properly. I could say why, but since Mio are not replying to our calls for help I do not see why I should help them. The best thing they can do now is to allow us to update to iGO 3.2 which I am told will allow camera imports.

I have uploaded a modified version of my program that will save the camera list in exactly the same format as the PGPSW .ASC and .CSV camera files, so if you can find a utility to work with those it will work with the .TXT file as well. Perhaps this will help you.

Sal

Swordsmaker · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 05, 2006 Posts: 33

Thanks for your support Sal,

I have been digging somewhat more in this. I am posting my rather simple findings here in case it can help others in exploring the .mtc file.

Primarily have have been working to import the mio camera positions into google earth and comparing them with the "offical" camera database for Sweden. (It is not really official but it is very accurate.

Perhaps it could give you a few clues if you intend to dissect the .mtc file further.

It turns out that:
1) A lot of the cameras are missing in the mio database (no news)
(I rather prefer to have 150 of the true 500, than 1990 of which 1490 are ghosts.)
2) The cameras in the mio database coming out as "fixed" usually got the correct speed limit associated, in kph (50 or 70) - so there is no conversion issue there. Interesting however that no one has got 30, 90 or 110 kph as speed limit.
3) The cameras coming out as "mobile" are more interesting:
a) most of them are overlaying a true but fixed camera position.
b) the true speed limit at that camera is almost always 90 kph
while the mio exported data states "-80"
c) the few occurencies of "0" Obviously comes from the program, so they are simple to explain.

Initially my idea was that the negative speed somehow was associated with the direction of the camera, but that does not seem to be the case,
but surely there must be some kind of information in the mtc file regarding direction?

Regarding teh mio database (sync version) I'm tempted to think that the 1990 number for sweden are the number of connected mio units and not cameras, (given the 168 i actually download)

For UK it claims in excess of 12000 cameras! thats a huge number - is it realistic??

To Be Continued

Sallyann · Lifetime Member Joined: Jun 23, 2006 Posts: 768

Thanks for the info. The kph decode won't be difficult but I'm a bit occupied with other projects at the moment so I have to drop out for a while.
The current UK download from Mio is about 9660 cameras, but a lot of these are out of date or duplicates and many cameras are missing. Less than 6000 of them agree with the PGPSW database, which I think most people agree is as up to date as you can get.
IMHO the Mio unit is the best GPS on the market, but its camera database is completely useless for the purpose and I would not advise anyone to buy a Mio if they need accurate cameras. How sad is that.

Sal

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