Creating my own POI file.

Lunker · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 12, 2006 Posts: 36

I’m looking at making a POI file for my employer’s customers.

What is going to be the best way of doing this so myself with an i3 and the rest of the employees with Tom Tom can use the POI’s.

Can I create .csv POI file and then convert it to an .ov2 file?

What is going to be the quickest way of converting 100’s/1000’s of addresses to long/lat? I’ve done a few with Street Map but this would take for ever with the amount of addresses I’ve got to do.

newtosatnav · Regular Visitor Joined: Nov 24, 2005 Posts: 66

I have done this with a dozen or two.

Save the address as a favourite - upload this to your PC using easygps - this will give you details of the Lat/long for all of the favourites.

I then simply overwrote an existing file and then "save as" a new name.

If you use the details column you can even put in the address/phone number so that it shows on the screen when you look at the POI.

You can convert it it TomTom files using the "POI edit" software.

It does work but the Lat/long can be 20/50m out - not a huge problem though!!

Much more straightforward than looking up the address online.

Almahadeus · Frequent Visitor Joined: Aug 06, 2005 Posts: 346

newtosatnav · Regular Visitor Joined: Nov 24, 2005 Posts: 66

Cool

I should have posted rather than muddled through myself!!

Lunker · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 12, 2006 Posts: 36

Cheers Dudes!
:D
I've checked out http://ukpostcodes.boldlygoingnowhere.org/ and it looks exactly what I need.

I'm going to have a look at "POI edit" tonight and test out the few I've made so far.

Lunker · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 12, 2006 Posts: 36

POI edit is fantastic it converted my Garmin i3 csv file in to a ov2 file which is exactly what I needed.

I can't get the http://ukpostcodes.boldlygoingnowhere.org/ website to do what I want.

I put the name and post code in and fair enough I get an email back pretty much straight away but I cant get that to convert to a Garmin csv file.

The format is

-3:11:57 , 55:56:49 , "edinburgh castle"

How can I convert that into

Long , Lat , edinburgh castle

Nickwolf · Regular Visitor Joined: Apr 01, 2005 Posts: 219

The way I have been doing it is to use the MakeOV2 program to make it a Tom Tom file and then using POIedit to convert it.

Nick.

Lunker · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 12, 2006 Posts: 36

I've tried that but I'm getting invalid input file.

I open up a text document paste the data in and save as a "file.asc" file as requested.

What am I doing wrong???

ride4smilesjonny · Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 12:17 am Post subject:

Hi all,

assuming you have and know how to use the POI uploader software, and also have current .csv files on your desktop pc (the garmin i3 files) that you can view, prob ones youve uploaded already (this will help further on...)

you can create your own poi by visiting....... http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/oswebsite/getamap/ which will let you lock onto anywhere in the UK, in the lower left it will give you a grid ref e.g. NZ515165 write this down then goto... www.streetmap.co.uk in here enter your grid ref and you can then translate it into lat/long, (it gives you the option part way down in very small text, blue if i remember correctly) again write these down e.g. -1.204721 and 54.541597 then create a new CSV file in excell, (you can always copy and paste an exisitng one into excell then delete the info so it sets up in the correct format) enter your lat/long co-ords in colums 1 and 2 (make sure you record in the right column if you get them backside first it wont wok!) in column 3 enter a name, and column 4 any other details you want then simply save your new file (give it a file name e.g. my own poi's) always accepting..blah blah!
then upload as normal, hey presto your new files will be on i3, this is a brill way to add new pois

hope this helps folks!
works great for me, ive been planning my trip to the isle of Arran for this summer on the m/bike and the little ol' i3 is sat loaded with loads of my own poi's ive created for it

cheers
j

Hi ho -hi ho - its off to Arran i go.....

Lunker · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 12, 2006 Posts: 36

Thanks for your post ride4smilesjonny. I can get my own poi on to my i3 in much the same way as you described.

I'm looking at running a batch of 100+!! 8O

So I'm trying to find an automated system.

I can get them in a .asc format from http://ukpostcodes.boldlygoingnowhere.org/ but I can't convert them to the .csv format needed by the i3

Nickwolf · Regular Visitor Joined: Apr 01, 2005 Posts: 219

Lunker,

Have you got MakeOV2 installed? If not have a read of ukpostcodes FAQ and it will link you to it.

Once you have your Email(s) back from ukpostcodes cut and paste the info into a word document, then save as text only. Make sure you delete any failed entries.

Drag and drop your "text only" file onto the MakeOV2 icon and it will create an .OV2 file of the data (and a basic .BMP file) and store them into the same folder as your text only file.

Open up the .OV2 file with POIedit use this to "save as" a Garmin .CSV file.

It's a bit long winded and someone may well have a much better way to do it but it works.

Nick.

mugwump · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 11, 2005 Posts: 54

Can someone point me to a description of the required Garmin format please.

If we know what the requied output is it could be added to the ukpostcodes site as an output option.
_________________
Apologies to all my supporting users, the http://ukpostcodes.boldlygoingnowhere.org/ postcode converter has now been retired.
The ubiquity of full postcode lookups has made it somewhat redundant. I still have the code if anyone needs it.

Lunker · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 12, 2006 Posts: 36

Hi mugwump,

The description of the required Garmin format would be a .csv file with Longitude,Latitude,Name,

An example would be

-5.5335,50.12043,Argos Penzance,

I can send you a garmin.csv file if you like.

An option to export directly to the file would be more than fantastic!! :D

Great site by the way.

mugwump · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 11, 2005 Posts: 54

If you could send me a file that would be great, or even just paste a few lines from a confirmed working file into your reply post.

Please confirm a few details for me too, the format for the lat and long must be a decimal value rather than deg:min:seconds correct?

The description field should be text only and not contain quotes correct?

in your previous post you terminated the line with a comma, is this required?

does the next record start immediately or is the record terminated with a newline?

so is it like this

lat,long,name,lat,long,name,lat,long,name

or is it like this

lat,long,name
lat,long,name
lat,long,name

or something else, as I said, just post a few lines from a working file and Im sure it will be obvious.
_________________
Apologies to all my supporting users, the http://ukpostcodes.boldlygoingnowhere.org/ postcode converter has now been retired.
The ubiquity of full postcode lookups has made it somewhat redundant. I still have the code if anyone needs it.

mugwump · Occasional Visitor Joined: Sep 11, 2005 Posts: 54

..... and thanks for the feedback :D
_________________
Apologies to all my supporting users, the http://ukpostcodes.boldlygoingnowhere.org/ postcode converter has now been retired.
The ubiquity of full postcode lookups has made it somewhat redundant. I still have the code if anyone needs it.

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