Custom POI icons
Thu, 07/07/2011 - 4:35pm
 |
 14 years
|
I have loaded five files into my TOMTOM ONE. I used existing BMP icons.
1Mcdonalds.ov2
1Mcdonalds.bmp
5aWal-Mart.ov2
5aWal-Mart.bmp
These icons show up on my Garmin ok.
Only the McDonalds does not show up on the ONE. It does show up when I am navigating to it but not when driving past.
Any ideas?
Same for me...
Hmmm, I was hoping somebody had the answer to this. I have a similar situation where it works on my Nuvi 760 but not on my brother's Nuvi 260W. I understand how the MP3 file wouldn't play on a unit that doesn't have an MP3 capability, but it seems like the icons would still show up.
@spokybob , You been on this
@spokybob ,
You been on this site for a while and I'm not a TT guy so I can only offer this. What is the size and resolution of both of the bmp files? One works, the other doesn't.
Good luck,
Harley BOOM GTS, Zumo 665, (2) Nuvi 765Ts, 1450LMT, 1350LM & others | 2019 Harley Ultra Limited Shrine - Peace Officer Dark Blue
Solved
I checked the size of both bmp files. Wal-Mart is 24x24 and McDonalds was 22x22. I changed McD to 24x24 with no success. I switched it back then. I downloaded the Mcdonald ov2 again. No luck.
Next I loaded my McDonald CSV file into EPE and saved it as ov2. The TOMTOM works OK now. At this point I don't really know where the trouble was.
When I view an ov2 file in Excel, it is all jumbled up and I can't edit any given poi.
1490LMT 1450LMT 295w
excel will not open an ov2
excel will not open an ov2 file. It is not a proper format for it.
I checked the size of both bmp files. Wal-Mart is 24x24 and McDonalds was 22x22. I changed McD to 24x24 with no success. I switched it back then. I downloaded the Mcdonald ov2 again. No luck.
Next I loaded my McDonald CSV file into EPE and saved it as ov2. The TOMTOM works OK now. At this point I don't really know where the trouble was.
When I view an ov2 file in Excel, it is all jumbled up and I can't edit any given poi.
Nuvi 2460LMT.
Helpful hints with TomTom format files
The one *FOOLPROOF* method I've seen of getting custom POI icons to work is to size them around 24x24 pixels AND set them to 8-bit colour depth.
The latter is a little tricker, as not all editors will do it (regular Paint on Windows doesn't, to my knowledge).
Fortunately, there are two very good and free (and one is even free as in speech AND as in beer) programs that let you do this under Windows:
a) IrfanView is a viewer that can do light editing; a big bonus for it is that it can in fact do batch conversion to 8-bit colour depth.
b) Paint.NET is a free editor (which is far more powerful than Paint--I'd put its functionality at the level of early versions of Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro) that will happily convert a BMP file to 8-bit colour depth.
(And yes, I've occasionally seen both with regular GPSr's and with smartphone tools that take POIs in TomTom format (CoPilot Live) where the hiccup was just that it was a 32-bit colour depth BMP rather than 8-bit. Let's just say I've gotten FAR more familiar than I ever desired for this, as I'm making up a little custom POI icon set myself.)
As for editing OV2 files--OV2 is a binary format (rather like Excel's XLS format) and thus can't be edited directly from Excel. In this case, you just need the right tool (a dedicated POI editor) for the job.
POIEdit will edit OV2 files, as will the (superior IMHO) Extra POI Editor (which, among other things, does have data verification via Google Maps). Both will also happily convert from CSV to OV2 and vice versa (as well as to and from GPX format, which pretty much has all your needs covered here
).
Great stuff
The one *FOOLPROOF* method I've seen of getting custom POI icons to work is to size them around 24x24 pixels AND set them to 8-bit colour depth.
The latter is a little tricker, as not all editors will do it (regular Paint on Windows doesn't, to my knowledge).
Fortunately, there are two very good and free (and one is even free as in speech AND as in beer) programs that let you do this under Windows:
a) IrfanView is a viewer that can do light editing; a big bonus for it is that it can in fact do batch conversion to 8-bit colour depth.
b) Paint.NET is a free editor (which is far more powerful than Paint--I'd put its functionality at the level of early versions of Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro) that will happily convert a BMP file to 8-bit colour depth.
(And yes, I've occasionally seen both with regular GPSr's and with smartphone tools that take POIs in TomTom format (CoPilot Live) where the hiccup was just that it was a 32-bit colour depth BMP rather than 8-bit. Let's just say I've gotten FAR more familiar than I ever desired for this, as I'm making up a little custom POI icon set myself.)
As for editing OV2 files--OV2 is a binary format (rather like Excel's XLS format) and thus can't be edited directly from Excel. In this case, you just need the right tool (a dedicated POI editor) for the job.
POIEdit will edit OV2 files, as will the (superior IMHO) Extra POI Editor (which, among other things, does have data verification via Google Maps). Both will also happily convert from CSV to OV2 and vice versa (as well as to and from GPX format, which pretty much has all your needs covered here
).
Thanks for the great info.
oh my..
Looks like I am going to have to start updating my old icons.. I see that new ones need to be created too..
MISS POI be ready for my flood of icons.. LOL
Bob
Bobkz - Garmin Nuvi 3597LMTHD/2455LMT/C530/C580- "Pain Is Fear Leaving The Body - Semper Fidelis"
Nope....
Looks like I am going to have to start updating my old icons.. I see that new ones need to be created too..
MISS POI be ready for my flood of icons.. LOL
Bob
Bob, nope not ready. I will send you an email when I am;)
Miss POI