Garmin custom 'Points of Interest'
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Garmin custom 'Points of Interest'

 
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Seacon
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Joined: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 56
Location: Northern Ireland

PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 1:38 am    Post subject: Garmin custom 'Points of Interest' Reply with quote

Help needed from the Techies please. Question

I need to create some custom Points Of Interest (POI) to upload to a Garmin GPSr. I have the POI software and have already uploaded POI from other sources as a trial.This part of it seems to work reasonably well!

For my own Custom POI I realise that I need to create .csv files for each POI (and draw appropriate custom bitmap icons) in an Excel table by entering latitude and longtidude in WGS84 format along with associated descriptors. Hopefully I'll be able to manage doing this (however advice greatly welcomed from those of you who have already done it), however here is the problem! Sad

The co-ords which I need to create custom POI for (and there are a few thousand of these) are all in Ordinance Survey (NI) Irish Grid format and I belive that I need to convert these to lat/long in wgs84 format before inserting into a .csv Excel.

1. Does anyone have/recommend software which will do this conversion for a large volume of waypoints? (I've already tried 'Chris n Maria's' excellent Waypoint Workbench' spreadsheet unfortunately it deals with UK grid).

2. I'm considering creating the customised icon symbols in something like Microsoft Paint. These need to be about 12 x 12 pixels in size and saved as a bitmap (.bmp). My freehand drawing skills may not be the best. Can anyone suggest another simple option rather than MS Paint? I probably only need to create about 6 different icons.

What has given me the zest to do this now, is the recent upgrade from Garmin i.e. Garmin European City Navigator V8 which I have been using this weekend on a Garmin Quest and also the Version8 NT of the software on a Garmin i3 . It really is the business Very Happy Very Happy

For the first time in Northern Ireland we have detailed mapping available to a similar standard to mainland UK. Thanks Garmin and thanks WLW for giving us a sneak preview of this Navtech mapping via your link in a separate thread to the Maporama website a couple of months ago Wink
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Wildlifewriter
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Joined: 04 Aug 2005
Posts: 948
Location: Norn Iron

PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 11:48 am    Post subject: Re: Garmin custom 'Points of Interest' Reply with quote

Seacon wrote:
1. Does anyone have/recommend software which will do this conversion for a large volume of waypoints? (I've already tried 'Chris n Maria's' excellent Waypoint Workbench' spreadsheet unfortunately it deals with UK grid).

Chris,

The software you need is GridInquest from Questweb. You can download it free (registration required) or I can let you have a copy.

It's not generally known, but GridInquest has a batch conversion mode, and it should be able to use your .csv files straight off - provided that...

a) The Eastings and Northings are in different columns, AND

b) Locations in NI and ROI are in separate files.

This will provide a very accurate conversion (and will convert orthometric heights as well, if present in the file) without affecting the other data in any way.

The conversion is a bit fiddly to set up (typical of GridInquest) but at least you can save the configuration when done. Set up a small test file and work through it, then processing subsequent files should be a breeze.

Once the positional data is in Lat/Long/WGS84, you can use Waypoint Workbench or GPSBabel to do any other conversions - such as getting your POIs into Mapsource on the PC desktop.

Hope this helps,

-Wlw
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Wildlifewriter
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Joined: 04 Aug 2005
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Location: Norn Iron

PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 1:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Supplementary info...

One thing about GridInquest is that it uses grid refs to 100km, instead of Grid letters.

If a location in Irish Grid has the square letter, then the ref has to be changed. The following chart shows the required figures...



Thus, a six digit grid ref... J 30445 83075

becomes... 330445 383075

This can easily be accomplished in Excel, if necessary.

-Wlw
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Wildlifewriter
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Location: Norn Iron

PostPosted: Mon Mar 13, 2006 5:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Alternative method... (Much easier than the above, and should not need data changes - but involves the expenditure of about 30 quid.)

Download the shareware version of GPSU, together with its Co-ordinate converter.

The demo version of GPSU is no good, because it won't handle enough waypoints. (This is what the 30 quid is for. Smile )

Use the converter to load text file with format similar to this...

Code:
Wpt001 Sandyknowes User Waypoint   J 30445 83075 100


It's fairly flexible about layout. (The "100" is a field for altitude, in metres). Load the file and set Datum to "Ireland 1965" and "Irish Grid"

Make sure that the grid ref is in the format: L nnnnn nnnnn and select this column as "Grid Zn E/N". Select "Ignore" for any columns not to be in the output file.

Export the data as ".gps" format.

Load the data in GPSU, and save it again as ".GPX" format. This will now work in the POILoader software.

It's a fearsome carry on, but this is the only way I know to do this without editing files.

-Wlw
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Seacon
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Joined: 16 Sep 2005
Posts: 56
Location: Northern Ireland

PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 12:49 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks wlw for the detailed and comprehensive info. Much appreciated that you took the time and effort to come up with a solution. There's a bit more to doing this than I first thought though! Shocked

Not convinced that my I.T., and particularly in this case my map datum knowledge, skills are up to this challenge Embarassed however it will take me a few days even trying to understand what I have to do.
I'll then try and do it. Probably fail (glass 'half empty' type of guy)and there goes another good idea that I didn't deliver on! Crying or Very sad
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Wildlifewriter
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 1:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Seacon wrote:
I'll then try and do it. Probably fail (glass 'half empty' type of guy)and there goes another good idea that I didn't deliver on! Crying or Very sad

Do you have data in a file already, that you could send me a sample of? Maybe there's an easy way of cutting this.

If you're planning to type more than a thousand grid refs by hand, then the problem of converting them won't arise for a while. Smile

-Wlw
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the windsockers
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 9:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I would be interested in how this works out as i'm changing to one of the new garmin units soon Shocked
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Wildlifewriter
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Joined: 04 Aug 2005
Posts: 948
Location: Norn Iron

PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 2:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

the windsockers wrote:
I would be interested in how this works out as i'm changing to one of the new garmin units soon Shocked

The Garmin POI loader works quite well, in its latest incarnation. (Early versions were seriously broken.)

A toolkit that included GPSU and its converter for .csv data; GPSBabel for other file formats; and Richard Davies' POI Converter for digging out the TomTom stuff, should handle almost all eventualities.

The present discussion is only necessary because of the complications involved in handling Irish Grid references, in all their wonderful variety... Smile

-Wlw
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Seacon
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Joined: 16 Sep 2005
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Location: Northern Ireland

PostPosted: Tue Mar 14, 2006 11:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wildlifewriter wrote:
Do you have data in a file already, that you could send me a sample of? Maybe there's an easy way of cutting this.

If you're planning to type more than a thousand grid refs by hand, then the problem of converting them won't arise for a while. Smile

-Wlw


Thanks for this. Very Happy Have sent you a PM with further details
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Wildlifewriter
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 15, 2006 1:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

One thing I have discovered about Garmin POIs (and it's taken me 'til one o'clock in the morning to discover it) is that they are very efficient.

For example: a GPX file of "ordinary" waypoints representing all the geocaches in Ireland (approx 500) is 375KB.

The same data compiled into a POI file, takes up 52KB.

What does this mean? It means that - on compatible units - it would be theoretically possible to store thousands of POIs, instead of the few hundred waypoints allowed on some Garmin GPSr's. And on the right machine, they're searchable and routable, as well.

This thing has definite possibilities.... Smile

-Wlw
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Wildlifewriter
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Joined: 04 Aug 2005
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Location: Norn Iron

PostPosted: Fri Mar 17, 2006 7:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Seacon wrote:
Thanks for this. Very Happy Have sent you a PM with further details


<Much calculating of ellipsoid tranformations later...>

If anyone knows how to express THIS in an Excel spreadshseet, it might save me another couple of late nights:-



... and that's only a small part of the calculation. Weeping


-Sleepy Wlw
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