Creating your own POI files

[Bigtallfatbloke]

Can anybody here do this?

I am looking to create a POI file of French bike shops and add it into my Garmin GPS. Why? Well firstly i want to and secondly i cant find one already made .

http://www.velo101.com/velocistes/default.asp
This is the list of bike shop addresses

http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/convert
This is the POI converter programme I am trying to use.

So far I understand I need to copy the list and paste it into the GPSvisualiser which i have done, however I keep getting an error relating to a lack of something called a HEADER?????

Also does anybody know how to seperate this info from the campsite poi listings I already have in the GPS under custom poi's? I mean so that I can call up campsite POI or LBS POI say, intead of just custom POI where everything is mixed up under the same listing??

Can anybody help me out??

 

[Smeggers]

Its been ages since Ive messed about with my GPS, but I remember a handy bit of s/w called "EasyGPS".

I'm not sure if it will solve your immediate problem, but it was very good!

 

[psmiffy]

export some point of interestd from the gps in the format you want to input at the top there will be a header row - the POI is like a little database programme it needs to know whereto put the data

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

export some point of interestd from the gps in the format you want to input at the top there will be a header row - the POI is like a little database programme it needs to know whereto put the data

thanks for trying to help...only that went right over my head...(GPS nob here see).

All i want to do is convert the list of addresses into a POI file which I can then upload into the GPS so that when I break a soke and need awheel true I just hit the tit and up comes the nearest french LBS.

 

[psmiffy]

Ive just looked at the data you are trying to use - not geo referenced ie no coodinates - not comma seperated - needs to be a horizontal list-it would require a lot of work to create this as POI for the garmin that i use

 

[psmiffy]

as i understand it the poi woul have to be imported as marks therefore each would need some unique reference CS001 or BS001 sothat the GPS sorts them seperately

 

[andrew_s]

Garmin POIs need the latitude and longitude positions - they won't work from lists of addresses. I think that TomTom are the same.
Matching up addresses to better than about an 80% hit rate is very difficult unless the addresses were previously selected from a similar list rather than typed in (eg one originating from the Royal Mail PAF file in the UK).

To create a POI file from the list of addresses, you are going to have to find each address in Mapsource, put a waypoint on it (or mark in MemoryMap), and then export all the waypoints as a GPX. You can then put this into POIConverter (download) and convert to a Garmin POI file which you load to the GPS with Garmin's POILoader.

The names don't have to be unique, but if they aren't you can't tell them apart on the list. You just end up with "mark, 3.7km NE", "mark, 4.5km W" etc.

 

[andrew_s]

Looking at the gpsvisualizer site, I reckon that the tool you want is this:
http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/geocoder/

I picked a couple of addresses from your bike shop site and pasted them into the Input box:

6 boulevard Champ de Mars 68000 COLMAR
18 place Concorde 68100 MULHOUSE

I then pressed the "Start Geocoding" button, and got this back in the Results box:

latitude,longitude,name,desc,color
48.077829,7.354284,6 boulevard Champ de Mars 68000 COLMAR,-,
47.746776,7.335561,18 place Concorde 68100 MULHOUSE,-,

The "draw a map" button showed one marker in Colmar, and one on Mulhouse, and "create a GPX file" created data that displayed OK when I put it into mapsource:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<gpx creator="GPS Visualizer http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/" version="1.0" xmlns="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/0 http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/0/gpx.xsd">
<wpt lat="48.077829" lon="7.354284">
<name>6 boulevard Champ de Mars 68000 COLMAR</name>
</wpt>
<wpt lat="47.746776" lon="7.335561">
<name>18 place Concorde 68100 MULHOUSE</name>
</wpt>
</gpx>

This can then be loaded using POIConverter & POILoader as in my last post.

Looks like it's a goer.
Stage one is cutting and pasting all the addresses out of the bikeshops website into notepad or whatever.

Make the POI file available when you are done, and let us know where

 

[andrew_s]

Another reply...

POILoader will create a file Garmin/poi/poi.gpi on your SD card.
You can then connect the GPS to your PC in USB mass storage mode, and rename the file to bikeshop.gpi in Windows Explorer. You can then load another set of POIs to a new poi.gpi and give that a name too.

If you then go into Find --> Custom POI, all your Custom POIs are still jumbled up in one list. However Menu -> Select Database will then allow you limit the list to just one of your custom POI sets.
The selected database gets unselected as soon as you drop out of the Custom POI category.

Renaming the poi.gpi files also means that you can load a new set of bikeshops without also having to reload your campsites.

I've learned a lot tonight

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

Blimey!...

...I'll need a few moments alone with this....erm....ok...deep breath....it's just another learning curve....so....first I'll read your post again a few times...then ...a cuppa T and ...then...hmmmm....ok....tomorrow, after I have learn't to set up my derallieur....

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

I got as far as typing in a n address, converting it to a lat/long then converting it to a gpx file which gave be lot's of codeing like in your post above. ...Now I just use poi uploader to take it into the gps??

Will that software convert the entire lis tin one go?

...I'll keep trying.

 

[andrew_s]

Looking at the POILoader help, it will load GPX files directly, so POIConverter isn't needed (I was previously loading some other format - TomTom or AutoRoute, and converted that to CSV for load)

Download POILoader from Garmin's website and install it.

1) Put your GPX file in its own folder. POILoader will load ALL gpx or csv files in whatever folder it is pointed at.
2) Set your GPS in USB mass storage mode and connect it to the PC
3) Start POILoader, and...
Select the drive letter that the GPS is using
Next
Install new custom POIs
Next
Browse to and select your GPX folder
ignore units (for speedcam POIs), Express mode
Next
Finish

Job Done

One point:
When you use the "Select Database" menu option to limit your search to a single type of custom POI, the name you see is the name of the GPX file you loaded (I've now got a "test" category, with 2 bikeshops in it).

POILoader loaded a CSV file with 11,000 campsites in it for me, so it should swallow your GPX file.

Notice that when you create the GPX file in gpsvisualizer, there is a link at the top of the page for downloading the GPX file produced. You don't have to copy and paste out the results box. It is easier for small files though.

The gpsvisualizer geocoding tool looked like it was taking about 0.5s per address (on a sample of 2!), so if you give it a lot of addresses in one go, it could take a while. I'd guess your 4000-odd bike shops may take an hour?

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

Ok...I have got as far as converting the list (well up to the max 1000 addresses) using the 'batch geo de coder'.
It gace me a link to my new .gpx for download. However when i right click and save target as the file is downloaded as a .xml file and not a .gpx file. I tried to get poi uploader to upload the .xml file but it cannot see it. I also got a lot of coding to cut n' paste which I shouldnt need if I could download the .gpx file (which is actually a .xml file)...erm...any idea what to do next? I suppose I need to convert the .xml file somehow???


Edit:
Well I managed to get the file to import into mapsource and all of the french bike shops appeared as waypoints on the map. So i have uploaded that file into the gps and now have a thousand french bike shops listed unbder waypoints....which is pretty cool...except that they dominate the screen view which is annoying when not looking for a bike shop. Also they show up on the gps map as an icon with just the address of the bike shop...it would be better if they would all show as a simple icon like BIKE SHOP say

I feel I am getting closer to cracking this nut....all I need to do is get all those waypoints to load as a poi file...

 

[andrew_s]

gpx is xml

just rename the file so the extension says gpx

If you can't see the extension as part of the filename, in windows explorer go to
Tools -> Folder Options -> View -> Advanced Settings, and untick "Hide extensions for known file types"

I think you may be able to give them an icon by having a small (20x20 pixels) .bmp file in the same folder as the .gpx file when you run POILoader