Using POI Factory POIs with CoPilot Live for Android (and maybe other smartphones)

I like that!!!!!

I have the US version, and it is just '/copilot/save'.

Importing works fine, as long as you import one file at a time. If you try to do more than one it chokes on the 2nd file with a neverending "integrating data" message or similar.

So either add one .ov2 file for each invocation of CoPilot or, if it doesn't gore your ox, combine all the POI into one big .ov2 to begin with.

excellent info,worked v well,thank you v much

http://blog.copilotlive.com/na/2011/06/18/our-new-generation...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/copilotlive/collections/7215762...

Is there any way to import a custom image file? I've tried resizing and changing formats (.png, .bmp, etc).
If not, what is everyone using as their Wi-Fi Hotspot icon?

At least with the version of CoPilot Live I'm using, I've had no problems as long as they were 24x24 (or less) 8-bit colour BMPs; you place the BMP (which MUST share the same name as the POI except for the extension) in the same directory as the .OV2 file, and it should allow you to select it as one of the icon choices when importing the .OV2 into CoPilot Live.

As for myself, I've been using a wifi icon I have custom made based on some symbol sets in the Google Map Icons set (http://code.google.com/p/google-maps-icons/)--trim the borders away in Gimp or (preferably) Paint.NET (which leaves an almost perfect 24x24 icon), save as an 8-bit BMP, rename to (whatever your POI is named).bmp, and you should be good to go with whatever you do

(Right now, just for fun--and because I have a font set that is explicitly in the public domain that allows it--I'm in the process of creating a whole mess of POI icons based on the National Park Service's icon set for things like allowed activities, camping locations, etc. The idea is that it would be usable for things like this rather large POI file (http://www.poi-factory.com/node/22628) split up by location and use. Creating icons isn't hard at all, and Paint.NET is particularly easy to do this in--Gimp also is good at this and is free (as in beer and as in speech) but it's more difficult to set things to an 8-bit BMP in Gimp than in Paint.NET.)

thanks for the tip!

8-bit... that was the missing ingredient!
Thank you for the link to the Google Maps icons, I never would have thought of that.
I'll keep an eye out for your POI icon set too.

Thanks for sharing! Really cool program

Nice! Thanx

Not sure the app's an upgrade over v8, but at least it handles the import of multiple .ov2 files gracefully.

Just imported 3 at once -- it loaded each one and asked how to categorize each. Nice.

So with the iPhone, talking about hooking it up as a hard drive. Does it need to be jailbroken in order to do this? Do you go to the folder in iTunes? Will a new folder show up in windows explorer? When I hook up through USB(don't have CoPilot installed and not jailbroken) in explorer, the only thing I can see in my iPhone folder is the camera pictures.

I haven't heard an answer and wanted to revitalize this thread.

You can do it on the iphone too. You will need an application called i-funbox to manage the files. You won't need to jailbreak. Just connect your device, open i-funbox and navigate to the "App File Sharing" section and then down to copilot and save. Copy your .ov2 file there. It works like a charm.

If you plan on creating OV2 files, especially rather large ones like the Red Light Cameras file, then you may be interested in my free "ov2optimizer" utility. It can convert the CSV file directly into a properly-indexed OV2 file. Details here.

Was able to import Ov2 files to Copilot on iphone and it worked great.
Only problem is I can't get it to use custom icons. Any ideas?

Looking into this for Nexus 7

If you're eligible for upgrade, you might consider a Galaxy Note II as a GPS device. I have both, and the GN is easier to use than the tablet, plus it's one less thing to tote around.

I am not sure what a Galaxy Note II is but I think it is a phone.
I have a pay as you go phone that I average $9.00 a month on. Can't see paying more.

I got the Nexus 7 to see what the GPS was about. I don't carry my Nuvi 2450 in the car and only take it if we are going somewhere we aren't sure about. But with that said, there are times I needed the Nuvi but didn't have it. So, I bought the Nexus 7 to carry in my purse. I put my contacts and calender in Google and link them to the Nexus 7 so I won't carry my calendar and my address book and if I need a map or POI I always have it. And if I need the internet for something I can go to a wifi spot and use it. (Trying to talk my husband into a data plan for the Nexus 7)

Only received the Nexus 7 Thursday so there may be more I will do with it but don't know yet.

Thanks for your suggestion and as you can see by my phone plan I will never be offered an upgrade.

Point taken. I assumed you had a smart phone if you had the Nexus 7. I tether my Nexus to my phone if I need data on the road. The Galaxy Note II is a phone, it's the one with a 5.5" screen. The N7 makes a really good GPS device, but you'd have to have data access to use it on the road. So nice getting real time traffic updates!
If you find locking is a little slow, get a free app called GPS status which helps lock speed tremendously.

The Copilot said you don't have to have data to get turn by turn with voice, but it comes with 1 year of free traffic and I'm sure you have to have data for that. That is one of my points to talk my husband into data...

Just as an FYI, I inquired about the cost and back in November they told me it was $10 for an additional year of traffic data once your free year has worn out.

That's not bad at all I thought it would be a per month cost.

Thanks.

@mgarledge,

You will love CoPilot on your Nexus 7. I've had mine for a couple months now (got a refurbished one to play with for $169). The GPS chip in it seems quite good. It's very quick to get a location lock. I even used it in my car on a recent road trip and it worked very well.

I have not tried loading custom POIs in .OV2 format but I've loaded a bunch in .CSV format and it works just the way described above. If you use .CSV files you need a header line in the file, eg. Longitude, Latitude, Name as the first line in the file. Otherwise CoPilot won't know how to parse the data in the file. This is easy to add to any of the .CSV files downloaded from here. Just open it in Excel, insert a blank row at the top and put the titles at the top of each column.

I installed all my Garmin waypoints ("Favorites" from my Nuvi) to CoPilot by adding them as a custom POI set and installed them into the "Favorites" category. I used Longitude, Latitude, Name, Address, City, State, Phone as headings and CoPilot used them all. When I search one of the Favorites and tap the info button everything is displayed as I would expect. CoPilot even recognizes the phone number and properly displays it with a phone icon beside it so I can just tap it to make a phone call (I also use CoPilot on my Android phone).

It will accept multiple .CSV files at once. The only thing I found with using .CSV files is that it doesn't want to import a custom icon with it (yes, identical filename, but I didn't check the graphic attributes). At least it did not work for me.

On my Nexus 7 CoPilot installation I've been placing the files in this folder:

"...\com.alk.copilot.mapviewer\save"

I haven't tried putting it in "...\copilot\save" but I see no reason that shouldn't work, too, given the experience here.

Now I'm off to download an .OV2 file and see how that works.

Ooops, sorry for the book. I hope some of this info will be helpful to others in making and/or adding custom POI sets to CoPilot on Android.

...ken...

I tried placing a custom POI file in "...\copilot\save" and it does not work on my devices. I'm not sure why CoPilot creates that folder structure. It seems like all my active stuff is in the "...\com.alk.copilot.mapviewer" folder structure.

Out of curiousity I tried a couple of .OV2 files and was disappointed. For example, I downloaded a list of wineries in British Columbia. The OV2 file only contains the location and name. The CSV file contains a wealth of information -- location, name, address, city, phone and a description of the hours of operation.

In fairness, I did not look at very many files so perhaps other OV2 files contain more info.

The only thing I couldn't figure out how to get into CoPilot with the CSV file was the description of the hours of operation.

I would very much appreciate it if anyone knows the column title needed to persuade CoPilot to import this sort of information. So far I've tried Desc, Description, and Comment with no luck.

...ken...

I found my problem with the custom icon. The original was 16bpp so I decreased it to 8bpp and it worked with the .CSV file.

...ken...

This all sounds so great. Will have to try it.
I have all my files in GPX so will I have to convert them?

Still having a learning curve. Can't find how to delete the favorites I put in.

Working on it. As I get older my learning curve gets longer..

Thanks again for all the good information.
Mary

I'm ramping up my use of CoPilot over the nuvi's and have a couple of questions for the long-term CoPilot users ...

Anyone ever figure out if added POIs could be deleted?

Ever find a header label for comments, etc that imports with a csv file?

Also, anyone know if more info than location and name is possible in ov2 files?

I have been trying to put the McDonald's file on CoPilot Live.
Used Excel and added the headings but didn't work so I re did it and didn't work again.
I went in the save file and deleted my file but because CoPilot intergraded the file with their POI file I can not find how to delete the two files. I don't want to try again till I can delete it.
Hope someone on here knows how.

EDIT: Found this but I looked in all my folders and can't find anything called McDonalds.

"Now here's the most important part that hasn't been included until now. If you want to remove a custom POI set that you didn't get quite right -- say, you want to replace it with an updated version or you simply don't like the name or category -- they are stored in "...\com.alk.copilot.mapviewer\NA\save\user_places".

In that folder you will see a folder(s) with the name(s) of the custom POI set(s) you have added. Just delete the folder of the POI set you want to remove.

As noted in the discussion below, you do not need to delete an existing POI set to replace it with an updated file. Just make sure the file you place in the "save" folder has the exact same name as the original had. You only need to delete the POI set if you want to change the category it's in or the icon."

Thanks, mgarledge. That's great info about where they are stored. Where did you find it, if I may ask? In a thread here, or somewhere else?

I'm currently on my PC but I'll be experimenting with this on my tablet a bit tomorrow, I hope. If I find out anything I'll let you know.

http://www.laptopgpsworld.com/5091-how-add-custom-pois-copil...
Maybe it has more information for you. I can't make it work but if you can please let me know.
Thanks
Mary

EDIT:
This showed up today, not last night, it must have to update or something.
com.alk.copilot.namarket.premiumusa/NA/Save/user-places
Last night the user-places did not show up.
It showed both McDonalds I put in. I went in deleted the 1st McDonalds and kept the second. It still shows the double post in my POIs but I will check back and see if it updates.

Checked 10 min. later and all my double post were gone.

I put the McDonalds File .ov2 and .csv

Both showed up the same.

I found out what I was doing wrong.

I did not separate the address by city state and phone number in Excel.

There are too many to do this with so I will not do McDonalds but I did one of my POIs for Rockport in Excel and saved it to .csv and put in all the labels on the 1st line and they all showed.

Thanks for all the great information to all of you.

I put the red light camers in CoPilot Live on Nexus 7. First I just did the .csv file but it told me there was no heading so I deleted that file and changed it to .ov2 in Extra poi editor.

The second time it didn't even ask me anything just put the file in the Camera file as I told the first one to.

Does anyone have the Red Light Cameras on their Copilot? Does it alert or are they just pois?

Thanks..

I experimented a bit last night, and I wondered if your problems might have been not refreshing the directories and contents with whatever you're using to view the files.. because it happened to me.

I'm using an ASUS Transformer TF101 tablet, and on my device the folder I save the poi file to for import is "...\com.alk.copilot.mapviewer\save" and after import or even aborted import (meaning you hit "back" or "map" when it says it has found new pois) the ov2 (or csv?) file gets deleted but the .bmp file remains.

And as advertised, deleting the folder/files in "...\com.alk.copilot.mapviewer\NA\save\user_places" removes the added pois.

I haven't tried csv files yet so I can't tell you about alerts, but I DO get a prompt that asks me if the new poi's are a speed camera file, and I also can't tell you what if anything it asks if you say yes.

I'm a bit dissapointed with the icons though. My unit will accept as large as 100x60 but no matter what it displays it in only the upper left 1/4 of an ugly white square both in the import preview and on the map. Although the preview shows one image in the upper left, on the map it shows in the upper left as well as a tiny left edge of the image on the right side, no matter what size I've tried. It's like it wants to tile it or something. I also can't find out how to get a transparent background.

Other than that, after an upcoming trip with nuvi as a backup just in case ... I may ditch Garmin (unless Trimble screws up CoPilot somehow!).

One last comment - I'm using CoPilot Live version 9.4.0.183, and running it on a 10" tablet, but I'm able to use both .bmp and .jpg files as large as 150x150, although in the end any size reduces down into a small rectangle with a white background on the map. The files don't need to be the same name as the ov2 or csv files either. All I need to do is put them into the com.alk.copilot.mapviewer\save folder and they will appear as a choice in the icon selection screen.

Just passing this on for what it's worth.

I saw a youtube demo of a iphone app that would alert of an upcoming POI with a sound. What I would like is the ability to have custom *.wav voice files to play - like you can do with sox.exe on the Nuvi. Anyone know if this is possible? The best would be where it could work on iphone, Android and Windows Mobile (I like to dream).

I put the camera file in Excel and added the headings and reloaded.
I now have red light cameras. I had to go into settings and activate my cameras.
I did a preview of a route that takes me through a red light camera and it alerted.
The only problem now is it uses a soft ding. Like the above post I would like to change the sound and have a louder alert for the camera.
Any ideas?
Thanks

I did the camera file in Excel to add header as stated above the other day and it worked great.

Today I put one of my files make in MapSource and it has a lot of other fields, created by, and a lot of web page links.
I put it in BaseCamp and saved it and tried again, it had the same stuff but said Garmin App and all the other fields, there are 34 columns of fields.

What have I done???

EDIT.....Answered my own question
I forgot to save the file to .csv

Good reading!

I loaded the speed camera files today on my Android tablet, and was able to change the alert.

Look in the CoPilot folder for the folder called Audio. There are about 7 .wav files in there. One is named message.wav. This is the file that plays for the safety camera pois. I don't recall the specifics of the format other than it is PCM and mono, and I don't think it matters too much anyway. I put together a new .wav file from 2 of the sound files from here, and it's a much better alert. You'll need some sort of audio file editor (I used Audacity) but it's fairly easy to modify one of the mp3 files here and save it as a wav file.

There is also a file named speedwarning.wav which I replaced but after I found that didn't work for speed cam poi alerts, I realized it's the sound for general overspeed warning that you can activate in settings.

The red light camera alert on my Nexus 7 is so weak. Thanks for the information. I will try to Change it.

That post was for you anyway. My tablet messed up the quote text a bit so I edited it and made it generic.

message.wav, NOT speedalert.wav!
My replacement sound file rocks now.

I also have some tips brewing about icons. If yours are like mine and others, custom bitmaps placed in the save folder get transformed into 1/4 size and in the upper left of the resulting icon. CoPilot builds the icon into .png files, 3 for each category, and makes about 7 different sized sets in about 7 different folders in skin/user. On my tablet and on at least one other person's smart phone, the icons used are in the skins/user/204 folder. The fix is to edit the graphics in each of the three files for the poi in question.

A bit tedious, but it works great. I've used Gimp to mod two sets and so far, so good! If you want, PM me and I'll send you my camping trailer and speed camera icon set in the 204 size and you can drop them in the 204 folder and see if they work for you too.

Not able to use the main computer for a while but when I am able to get back on the PC I do want to try this. Thanks so much for the great information.

I need this info tomorrow and need to find it again. Just keeping in my tracks.

I have the Mcdonalds.csv file I used before on my Nexus 7. I put it on my Note 4 and it works great. Now for the problem, my custom pois will not show up. I opened them in Excel and they look just like the McDonald's file. Any suggestions?

Is this like the old POI Loader where it always named the file it created poi.gpi.

You can name it anything.

You make a csv POI then drag it to the correct directory.

The directions tell you they will only save POIs from approved sites. The McDonalds came from here so it worked their way, put in save folder on the sd card.

I finally opened the program and there was a save on the program. I put one of my POIs in and it works. Two days and just a matter of putting it in the SAVE on the Program and not on the SD card as the directions say.

Just a tip, when looking for the file if you need to delete it it is not on the Program. The program takes it and moves it to the SD card.

I have a Samsung Galasy Note 4. I don't know if this will work for any other phone.

From your computer put the .csv files in Dropbox that you want on CoPilot.
Be sure CoPilot is closed
Open Dropbox on your phone

Find the file on Dropbox, hold it down until a menu opens.
Scroll down to Export and select it
Another menu opens
At the top of the menu is "Save to device"
This is your phone
Find com.alk.copilot.namarket.premiumuse (Mine is V9 but find whatever you have)
Scroll down to the Folders, the first one on mine is "Save"
This is the folder you want.
Click right arrow to accept the file name
Click on New Catagory (It may be another word but I can't remember it)
Name your new catagory and click right arrow
Pick your icon and right arrow
No to "not cameras" if they are not the cameras
Click right Arrow
It will now be put in your Points of Interest in CoPilot

Mine are saved to my SD card under User Data after CoPilot creates the POI.

After you make your file, open it in Excel, or a program that will save as .csv file.

On the top line it should have only the four cloumns named:
Longitude, Latitude, Name, Address in the first four columns.

If you put in more columns and name them they won't show after exported to CoPilot.
I put the address, city, state, and phone number all in the fourth column (Address) with a , inbetween each. It all showed on the POI

Took me awhile to figure this out. A little slow.