Extra_POI_Editor v5.0 beta (.gpi file creation only in this thread)

I'm still building my 'decoder ring', but maybe you two are talking about different 03 byte blocks?

I understood turbo to be speaking about the 03 alert block that is part of the 02 poi block. And gymkski to be talking about the 03 that's in the 12 audio block?

Two different 'block' sets, yes?

(and thanks for the .gpi links!)

I will see what I can find on this 1B record. Thanks.

There can be only 32 map symbols per category. Using POI Loader, you can have only one map symbol per file (using .bmp with same name as poi file). This means you can have only 32 POI files with their corresponding map symbols (or .bmp) per folder. If you have more than 32, POI Loader will either ignore them or report an error.

If you are using .gpx files, you can set a different symbol in the Symbol field for each POI. Don't think you can go over 32 different symbols per file. You can't.

How should EPE manage this?

1- EPE can add up to 32 symbols and ignore anything above

2- EPE can add up to 32 symbols and use the last symbol for all remaining POIs above 32.

3- EPE can automatically create a new category for symbols above 32. Obviously, EPE would need to sort by symbols to regroup the maximum number of POI under the same category.

That sucks a bit from a process point of view. Let's make an example. You have a single POI file with 30000 POIs.

If you export by Symbols, I can create a category for each symbol. If you have 100 symbols in that file, you will have 100 categories with a single symbol per category.

If you save normally and EPE adds all the symbols, you have more than 32 symbols and you bust the gps limit. Ignoring anything above 32 would be the easiest course of action for EPE including poping-up a message telling you about it. You would need to re-organize the way you group your POIs. Asking EPE to do that for you would be disastrous.

If you export by category (and have bitmaps for each category name), you are also limited to the maximum of 32 categories.

Feedback? Suggestions?

For those of us that already arrange POI by category using subfolders, we can live with the 32 symbol limitation, so either option 1 or 2 is quite acceptable in this light. It also decreases program processing time which was always the major complaint about POI Loader versions before 2.6.0.

As a possible benchmark for EPE, compare its processing time to compile and load a file against that of the current POI Loader. I would say as long as you are within a few seconds of the time for POI Loader to perform its processing and loading, you are still on track. If your processing time exceeds that of POI Loader, then you risk the label of "bloatware" regardless of the added feature set.

I compared EPE against POI Loader with a 40229 POI file saved as a .gpi:

1- POI Loader version 2.6.0: 7 seconds!
2- Extra_POI_Editor v. 5.10: 12 seconds! (save time)
3- POI Loader version 2.5.4: 195 seconds!

I have to say POI Loader 2.6.0 is the winner, but EPE is not far behind. POI Loader 2.5.4 is really the loser here.

I must note that the time for EPE is just for saving to .gpi, not loading. I would have to include another 16 seconds for loading the file which doubles the time.

POI Loader 2.6.0 is really almost 28 times faster than 2.5.4?

But then 12 seconds for EPE with another 16 to copy over the GPI means you are still 7 times faster than 2.5.4.

I just ran a test as well.

I use folders to create categories and loaded a total of 149,240 different locations from a variety of GPX and CSV files. Version 2.6.0 took 115 seconds to read the files, write the databases and then transfer them to my 885. Version 2.5.4 took 570 seconds to do the same task.

As I have 8 categories it would be difficult to try the same test to write GPI files using EPE. But the difference in speed is really apparent 9 and a half minutes using 2.5.4 versus 1 minute 55 seconds for 2.6.0.

With EPE, you can merge open the 8 files. If you want to make categories, you need each file to have a different category name in the Category field.

Do I have your email? I already implemented a kind of "Export by Filename". It would automatically create a category for each file. If you do not have the category field set yet, this would be the simplest option to test.

I have not tried yet to optimize EPE since I am still developping, but I can probably improve the write speed for sure.

That's true, alert records are embedded into POI records. Moreover a "03 00 08 00" alert record may habour a "1B 00 00 00" record as its child.

No, sound records ("12 00 08 00") are stored separately from POI and alert records. Each sound record gets an ID number assigned. This ID number is used to link it to an alert record. A given sound record may be linked to several alert records (one-to-many). Linkeage is accomplished by storing the 1-byte ID number of the sound record in the alert record.

gymski-
There is an 03000000 block within the 12000800 audio block also (bytes 9-12) but it's a length indicator that's always been 3 so far. I thought you might have been referring to that when you said "so far I have only found the last byte of a 03000000 record to be either 00 or 20" in your earlier post.

In the 03 alert block within a waypoint, the 10 at the end means a beep and a 20 an audio (file) sound.
(..As near as I can tell. All of this is pure speculation, of course. )

Yes, bytes 9-12 contain a pointer to the start position of the multilanguage audio files. The "12 00 08 00" sound record is somehow irregular with respect to other "nn 00 08 00" records in that it is not comprising a true child record.

And it's fun to unravel these little secrets.

Yes, bytes 9-12 of a "12 00 08 00"" sound record are pointing to the beginning of the multilanguage sound file structure. A sound record is somehow irregular with respect to other "nn 00 08 00"" records in that it does not comprise a true child record.

And it's fun to unravel these little secretes.

Turbo,
Just to confirm that the speed camera @speed Imperial/US appears to be working with v5.10.

Super! Thanks! Audio alerts are coming too.

I read some information about directional POI.

It seems possible to specify a direction or even multiple directions to trigger an alert. Each direction can be unidirectional or bi-directional. You just specify the bearing angle with a tolerance.

For example, bearing 57 degrees with a tolerance of +/- 25 degrees. This way you are sure to hit the mark without making the alert bi-directional.

If you specify the alert is bi-directional, it will also trigger the alert at 237 degrees (57+180) with the same +/- 25 degrees tolerance.

Pretty cool. The normal POI Loader cannot chew those bearing information, but GPI Creator can. Maybe EPE will do it too..

Hi.
I dont know if you have figure it out how do do this, but Garmin made it a litle bit tricky.

Example:
You should use "Along Road" and set a proximity + speed if you want speed.Make the bearing where you want the alert. Then make a (circle list,lat/lon + radius) cirlealert inside the bearing . The circle (circle list)have to be inside the proximity of the poi.

Are you saying that a poi must have a circle list AND a bearing list before a directional alert will work?

I haven't built one just yet, but it looked to me like just a bearing list would work. .. No?

The poi must have a circle list and a bearing.
If you make a poi with only bearing, the poi wil act like a normal poi with alert both ways.
But if you make a circle and put it in the bearing sone
inside the proximity of the poi it wil be directional(dont let the radie of the circle past the poi).The radie+radie of circle wil be the alert distance, the coordinate of the circle as a center.
The ikon wil be at the poi coordinate.

ty vestenfjell.
..onward & upward!

Hi vestenfjell,

As you may have read elsewhere, I have been told by someone more knowledgeable than me that directional POI were not implemented by Garmin yet. This may explain why it is not working with just bearing information. I think your circles alone are triggering the alerts.

Directional POI work for Cyclops though, so it is possible. Do Cyclops not use Garmin software?

It must be the circles that trigger the alert, it is only inside the circles the alarm work.But if Garmin do not support directional alert and bearing ,why does circles work directional.If you make a poi without bearing and put a circle in the proximity it give both way alert.If you make a bearing and put the circle inside the bearing you will get an alert going against the bearing. The opposit way it gives no alert.You kan drive right through the poi and it will only give alert one way. I am also been told that directional alert are not suported, but I gess I mostly trust
myself, even when Im wrong.
I have only made 6 directional pois using this method but they all work.
This is ofcourse only what I experienced.

I did some more testing.
It looks like the circle will be directional without the bearing.It's directional against the poi.If you pass the poi before circle it gave no warnings.

I have now tested 20 pois with circles and no bearing.
This is what I experienced.
Turboccc, as you said the bearing do not seems supported , and is not connected to the circles.
All the poi I tested with circles inside the Proximity
have directional alert.The poi I tested was all by type "Along the Road" and the alert circles was also
behaving Along Road.
NOTIS:If the radius of the circles get past the POI I get a Proximity alert when passing the POI in opposite direction.
I havent tested, but I suppose a TourGuide type will not be directional.

I couldn't follow the discussion lately since it was unclear how these cicle lists are really implemented. Now I came across a GPI file provided freely by the Japanse subsidary of Garmin.

http://www.iiyo.net/download/orvis/SpeedCamera.gpi

This file enlighted me how circle lists look like. However, I'm still not shure what the data records starting with "10 00 00 00" and with "1A 00 00 00" are used for. I have not found them in other GPI files so fare.

For me, the 10 00 00 00 is a sub-record of the 03 00 08 00 alert record. It contains the circle list for that POI which includes a list of cicles with the center coordinates and the radius distance.

I have experienced if the poi contains circles ,the alertzone will be moved in to the circles.
And when it have 2 or more circeles, and if the circles radius are overlap like a chain, the alert zone will merge in to one alert zone on the nuvi.
So it should bo possible to make a corridor along road with only one alert sone, build up whith several circles.
The alertzone do not seem directional, but if it only have alertzone on the one side of poi, the alert will be turned of by driving over the poi before you reach the alertzone .An ordenery poi do also turn of the alert when driving past the poi. (Along Road type)
Hope it is possible to understand my English writing,
its not among the best.

Good news! EPE now supports reading/writing bearing list and circle list from/to GPX file. 2 notes:

1- Garmin extensions only support bearing lists in the GPX files. Not circle list. Because of this, I created my own GPX schemas which allows EPE to read and write both circle list and bearing list.

2- POI Loader does not support circle lists because there is no GPX schema for it(point #1 above). POI Loader does not like bearing lists either. Only GPI Creator supports bearing lists, but no GPS supports them. Life is tough!

To ensure GPX compatibility with both POI Loader and GPI Creator, I put all my bearing lists and circle lists in a special comment statement. This way, they are ignored by both programs except EPE. Yeah!

A couple limitations:

1- My bearing lists will be ignored by GPI Creator. So, even if I provide a way to edit those statements in EPE, you can't use EPE to write GPX files with bearing lists and convert them to .GPI with GPI Creator. No worries! This is just a temporary limitation and I will let you configure this in the Preferences soon.

2- EPE does not save bearing lists and circle lists to .GPI for now. This is the next step.

What can you do for now?

Simply enjoy EPE and give me feedback about the circle list or bearing list interface. You can read/write .GPX files and make sure everything is correctly read/written.

Oh yeah: a little link for v5.13:

http://turboccc.wikispaces.com/file/detail/Extra_POI_Editor+...

Turbo

I'd suggest that the 'Add' button for Circle list be labeled 'Grab' when lon/lat is empty, allow clicking on the map after clicking 'Grab' (which then copies the lon/lat into the Circle List entry boxes), then return back to 'Add' once the radius is typed.

Either that or have a right-click-on-map menu option that will copy & paste the lon/lat into the bottom (entry) Circle List boxes.

Nicely integrated into the edit UI, btw.

Edit.. On further reflection, I think an addition to the map right-click menu might be better. I suspect it could take a few tries to get the center of the circle(s) positioned exactly where you want them, and if a right-click paste simply overwrites the lon/lat until you click 'Add' it might be a bit easier.

@JD4x4,

This will most probably be a right click thing. If I can move the circle in the map, then it will be even better. I really suck at javascript. I know what I should do, but it will take me a long time to get there...

NOTE: EPE v5.14 now writes circle lists into the .gpi file. Test on!!!

Edit:

I added the display of the proximity circle around the POI in the POI Edit window map. This way, you can easily see what is covered by the proximity distance.

I also added code to maintain the current zoom value when changing the lon/lat coordinates, proximity value and maximine/minimize map. That was bugging me since forever...

Woo Hoo!
Where is it, where is it??? (5.14)??????

edit- Aw, never mind. Take your time. I can wait.

I will post soon. I am just trying to figure out how I am going to display the circles from the circle list.

Thanks, this was a nice update (This time to). Gpi Creator go home . Looks good so far.

Here's the link for EPE v5.14:

http://turboccc.wikispaces.com/file/detail/Extra_POI_Editor+...

What's new:

- Save POI files with circle list to .GPI (cool!)
- Overlay proximity circle on the POI Edit window map.
- Maintain the last zoom level in the POI Edit map when refreshing map

In Poi Edit:If i have a circle in a poi and goes to next poi, it takes the circles with it to next poi, and than back again it have duplicated the circle list.

Fixed. Just download again.

Hi
Do the EPE have a limit of circles?
With 12 circles I get runtime error 9.
Have not tested exactly how many i can use before runtime error.

That is a good point: I set the limit to 10 circles without thinking too much about it. I was not expecting anybody to use that much.

Garmin does not limit the number of circles. So, I just changed the limit to 20 circles for the next release. I hope this is enough. I can put much more if needed.

Is it just me, or does it only plot the first circle on the map?

It plots only the Proximity value. No circle yet!

Ok. thanks.
I have pois with over 30.
To make corridors for section Camera you will need even more than that.
But 20 is better than 10.
Another thing is that EPE got frozen and I could not
save when breake the limit.

When setting both Bearing and Circle limit to 20, I got an out of memory message. I reduced the bearing list to 5 and increased the circle limit to 20. It seems I will have to be more carefull with the memory I use.

@Turbo,

I guess I'm a little behind in figuring this out. I am making the GPI appear in the Where To with 2 different files/categories no problem. I have the xxx1.bmp & xxx2.bmp files working fine. But the map icon from the 2nd file I merge opened is the icon being applied to all POIs in both files.

Is that correct for now or am I missing something?

Using v5.14

I think it matches what I have coded. Maybe if you export using File-Export by Filename, it will put a different map icon using the filename for each file.

I have to admit I did not think about everything when creating .gpi file. So far, EPE is good at merging multiple files, but not in the way POI Loader does it. When mergig EPE assumes you are simply adding more POI to a file. I will have to improve the multiple file processing in the future.

Turbo

I know this is a fun project in the works so don't change your chain of thought for this. Keep with the circles, bearings, etc, that you are working on now.

I know you will tackle it when the time comes. I also know switching subjects just slows things down and clouds the mind.

BTW, I have to read about all of the circles and bearings another time or 2 because the posts have my head going in circles. I'm sure glad you understand it.

Keep up the fantastic work!

Ok, thanks. 20 cirles are not bad, 20 circles are 20 times better than no circles. This is just fun to work with.
Once in the future ,is there possible to make a choice between the three alert types ?
1- Type:Along Road (Hex 01)
2- Type:Tour Guide (Hex 02)(this one we of course allready have with the "name code")
3- Type:Poximity, (the 360 degrees, not"lock on road" and not "TourGuide" alert )(Hex 00)
No hurry, and I dont want to push, just want to know if this is could be an future opportunity.

@vestenfjell,

I have not checked the differences between the different alert type: along road, tourguide and proximity. Sorry, I am a realy newbie for that stuff.

My newbie questions:

1- Proximity: is it the regular proximity with 360 degrees and distance?

2- Tourguide: what does it really change compared to proximity?

3- Along road: again, how this differentiate from Proximity. I am not sure I see the difference in the .gpi with locked on road or not.

Other subject: you said 10 circles were not enough for red light camera. Can you explain this again to me? I would have tought you would only need 1 few circles (like 4, maybe 8 at worst). I have never played with red light alerts before. I'm a newbie again.

Thanks.

Anything you can tell me about this would be greaté

Well,If you are not confused enough ,her is the total :
The diffrent alert type:
*Type Proximity silly enough Garmin called this alert type the same as the distance alert circle around the Poi, I dont know what else to call it either. I cant call it circle alert either, this would really confused it.) This is a type of alert like TourGuide that is alerting if you are crossing the line of the distance/ proximity.
Different from "TourGuide" this is a clean distance alert and will only be alert when crossing the line of proximity (Like "Along Road").It will not be active when you are inside the proximity like TourGuide.It do not have to contain audio alert like "TourGuide". Different from Type "Along Road" is that the poi dont have to be close to the road to work.
It can contain speed alert.
Pois you want to be alert for even if they are not close of the road.

*Type Along Road:This is the ordenery poi type, where poi have to be on ,or close to the road (I dont remember how far from road they will work, but its like 20 meter or so)This is a good thing for some poi ,course you have to be on the road the poi is, or have a route by it to alert you.Pois you only want to be alert for if you drive by them.

*TourGuide: Well, this have been discussed many times here. Short fact:
Have to contain proximity and audio.
Will be active as long as you are inside the proximity.
Cant contain speed

Circles:

Its not in the ordenery Redlight/speed traps the moore cirles are the most wanted.It is in the speed sections. There is one camera in start and one in end.If youre speed is average moore than limit,you got youre selfe a ticket.Longest distance I have to cover is 9.3 km. 9300m/20=speed alert corridor of 465m .
If you are on a road 465 m away, and you have setup a route that include the road with cirles, you will have the alert as long you are inside the cirles.
I must admit that this was smaller corridor than I had Thought it would be.
Its not a big deal. What you have created so far is admirable.
Phu.. Im useing like forever to write these lines in English .

Thank you for this good explanation.

I think I get the circles: you can put a few of them on a road and each time you cross a circle, you get an alert. That seems useful. You can do this instead of creating many dummy POIs.

Note: you did not specify any rules for the proximity distance. I think it was mentioned that all circles must be within the proximity distance to get the alert.

I need to make POI files to compare the .gpi for Proximity type alerts (to compare it to TourGuide and Along Road POIs).

*Yes, the circles have to be inside the Proximity distance of the Poi.
*And circles that overlap each other merge in to one zone.
*The entire alertzone will be moved into the circles.
*Circles works in all three alert Types:Along Road(PoiLoader type),Tour Guide,Proximity(360 degrees alert)

Only two ways of getting directional alert with circles and Alert Type: Along Road.(the zone/circles itselfe is not directional):
1-Dont let the opposite driving direction come inside the circles.
2-(Circles on one side of poi).Put the POI in the middle of road so they have to drive over the poi before reaching the circles/alert zone.This will turn of the alert before reaching the circles/alert zone.

Edit: Two example picures https://sites.google.com/site/odingpsm/circles

EPE v5.15 now displays the circle list on the map in the POI Edit window along with the proximity circle.

http://turboccc.wikispaces.com/file/detail/Extra_POI_Editor+...

The next step is to be able to drag the circles or create the circles by clicking directly on the map.