Extra_POI_Editor Question

 

Is there an easy way within Extra_POI_Editor to chose only the states you will be traveling in when edition a POI file? I have a very large POI file that covers the eastern part of the US and would like to limit it to only those states that I will be traveling in. No need to include those states that I will not be in and it will also reduce file size and memory usage. I know with Extra_POI_Editor you can chose only those locations along your route but I would like to include the entire state while eliminating those that I will not be in. For the most part the .CSV does not contain a reference to a city or state so using Excel to edit the file has limited value. Also using a manual delete for each location in Extra_POI_Editor would be very time consuming.

Thanks

because

johnju wrote:

For the most part the .CSV does not contain a reference to a city or state so using Excel to edit the file has limited value.
Thanks

You evidently don't have this information in the file, EPE wouldn't be able to select a state either. EPE references data found in the fields but doesn't have state boundaries it can reference.

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Illiterate? Write for free help.

Suggest doing nothing

johnju wrote:

...
For the most part the .CSV does not contain a reference to a city or state so using Excel to edit the file has limited value. Also using a manual delete for each location in Extra_POI_Editor would be very time consuming.

I can sympathize with your wanting to keep internal memory usage low, but you may be penny wise and pound foolish, so to speak.

Since you are worried about memory usage, I assume that you have already backed up your units and have deleted any unnecessary files from the Voice, Help, Vehicle, and Text folders.

However, you might be surprised at how little space you would save by deleting individual POI locations from a POI file. I suggest a test to see.

Use POILoader to load your file as is. (if it is now in a folder with other POI files, create a new folder for it). Recall that the latest version of POILoader will let you "name" the output .gpi file with any name of your choice (this makes it easy to later delete specific POI files). Take note of the number of locations in the final POILoader message; also, look at the unit to see how much space that file occupies.

Then, use any method (Wordpad, Excel, etc) to delete about half of your file and save it under a new name in a new folder. Point POILoader to this new folder and load the reduced file. Take note of the number of entries and the file size.

Having done this, you may determine that the effort in culling unwanted entries from a POI file is really not worth the effort.

Also, if you decide to cull entries and ever want to use the file on a later trip, you will have to go through the process again - which would involve downloading an updated version and following whatever procedure was necessary to cull the file again.

I would be interested in your results.

Good luck.

By trip

johnju wrote:

Is there an easy way within Extra_POI_Editor to chose only the states you will be traveling in when edition a POI file? I have a very large POI file that covers the eastern part of the US and would like to limit it to only those states that I will be traveling in. No need to include those states that I will not be in and it will also reduce file size and memory usage. I know with Extra_POI_Editor you can chose only those locations along your route but I would like to include the entire state while eliminating those that I will not be in. For the most part the .CSV does not contain a reference to a city or state so using Excel to edit the file has limited value. Also using a manual delete for each location in Extra_POI_Editor would be very time consuming.

Thanks

Here is a trick I learned from Turbocc author of Extra Poi Editor.This may be what you are looking for.
How to include custom pois for a route and save as a GPX file.

1.Using Excel or Notepad make a csv file to include your start, via points and destination point for trip.
2.Open in Extra Poi Editor and save as a Garmin GPX file.
3.Open the GPX file in Mapsource.
4.Select under edit New Route.
5.On left click Insert Waypoint.
6.Go down the waypoints and highlight the first one and click ok.
7.Repeat until all waypoints are now showing. Click ok at top.
8.You will now see your route.
9.Go to file and select save as and select a GPX file.
10.Open the GPX file in Extra Poi Loader http://turboccc.wikispaces.com/Extra_POI_Editor
11.Select Merge Open under file and load the custom poi files you want to include in your route.
12.Once all files have been loaded go to edit and select Find Poi on route.
13.You will get a pop up for how far to search off route. Insert the miles for search and click ok.
14.You can go to view and select View all Pois on Map.
15.Once view is completed select close map at bottom.
16.Go to file and select save as Garmin GPX.

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Charlie. Nuvi 265 WT and Nuvi 2597 LMT. MapFactor Navigator - Offline Maps & GPS.

but charlie

charlesd45 wrote:

Here is a trick I learned from Turbocc author of Extra Poi Editor.This may be what you are looking for.
How to include custom pois for a route and save as a GPX file.

1.Using Excel or Notepad make a csv file to include your start, via points and destination point for trip.

16.Go to file and select save as Garmin GPX.

The OP stated he knew how to do that but it doesn't give him all the POI in any state he wants to select. A trip down i-95 from NYC to DC wouldn't let him separate out all the locations in PA from his file. It would only give him the ones near I-95 and not others.

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Illiterate? Write for free help.

Correct but but putting the

Correct but but putting the distance out far enough should give him what he wants when in travel.I used this method on my last cross country trip.

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Charlie. Nuvi 265 WT and Nuvi 2597 LMT. MapFactor Navigator - Offline Maps & GPS.

Displaying my ignorance

OK, charlesd45 and BoxCar, enlighten me (and maybe it will help others reading this post to gain a fuller understanding).

If I were to follow the instructions given above by charlie, I get a .gpx file that has my route with additional waypoints (which additional waypoints I really do not want to navigate to unless needed - in following the instructions I used Suburu dealerships I might need for on-the road repair work).

My question is - How would the OP use it? Does he copy the .gpx file EPE created to the GPS (into the Garmin/GPX folder? Does he use POILoader to add "Custom POIs"?

Let's say he wanted to go to one of those POI locations remaining after culling out ones in states he did not want, how does he do so?

well,

jgermann wrote:

OK, charlesd45 and BoxCar, enlighten me (and maybe it will help others reading this post to gain a fuller understanding).

I've never used that particular feature on a route I've created. That doesn't mean I didn't try it, it means I've never built a route and followed it using that feature. For one thing, we prefer the unit to give alerts when they are meaningful to us. That's the primary reason I have very few of my POI set to alert, I think it's less than 6 or 8 out of the 70 odd files I load. With my 885, I can tell the unit to do a search along my current route if we are looking for someplace to stop. Keeping an eye on such things as fuel levels lets me decide when I want to search for a stop, but in all actuality, most of our stops for fuel etc. are combined with others such as rest room breaks or we just want a break.

As to your example, do you really want to be alerted for ALL the Subaru dealerships along the route or would you just go to the list if you wanted service?

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Illiterate? Write for free help.

Route

jgermann wrote:

OK, charlesd45 and BoxCar, enlighten me (and maybe it will help others reading this post to gain a fuller understanding).

If I were to follow the instructions given above by charlie, I get a .gpx file that has my route with additional waypoints (which additional waypoints I really do not want to navigate to unless needed - in following the instructions I used Suburu dealerships I might need for on-the road repair work).

My question is - How would the OP use it? Does he copy the .gpx file EPE created to the GPS (into the Garmin/GPX folder? Does he use POILoader to add "Custom POIs"?

Let's say he wanted to go to one of those POI locations remaining after culling out ones in states he did not want, how does he do so?

In my case my last cross country trip with a end stop of Las Vegas.Started from VA.I first made a list of all the places we plan to stop and visit.Mostly national parts or places of interest.Made a file with all these locations.Using EPE used method to sort by best route.Since my unit does not do routes I made a printed copy.Then using this file used merge open on EPE and selected hotels,certain food stops ,Ford dealers and gas stations. Using distance off the route to how far I wanted to go out of my way.Then saved as a gpx file and loaded it with poiloader.Note to sort by best route you highlight the start point.Using gpx you can put a alert for any of the single pois you want in the file if needed.

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Charlie. Nuvi 265 WT and Nuvi 2597 LMT. MapFactor Navigator - Offline Maps & GPS.

Thanks to both BoxCar and Charlesd45

I appreciate your replies. What you explained was what I thought it would be, but I wanted to make sure that I was not missing something. I would not want to route to a Suburu dealer, but I do want to know where they are (and so I have a Custom POI Suburu file for that purpose).

What was described by charlie would be great for a trip that had several intermediate side stops.

Guy thanks for the replies.

Guy thanks for the replies. I have have used EPE to include all the notification points on my intended route of travel. The trip ending point is near Ocala FL and I even created four different routes from Jacksonville to the Ocala area and EPE worked great in creating the necessary file.

I have already removed all unnecessary files from the GPS to save memory. My concern regarding memory is why have all kind of points in a file that you will not need. It would surly speed things up in the overall operation of the unit. I will play around with looking at the overall CSV file size compared to the POI file that is actually loaded onto the GPS.

Bottom line is that there is no easy way to do what I am looking for without having the states listed in the CSV file. I will just upload the POI file that I have and let it fly.

Thanks again.

Appreciate the update

johnju wrote:

Guy thanks for the replies. I have have used EPE to include all the notification points on my intended route of travel.

@johnju, Thanks. We always appreciate knowing the outcome of someone's post.

By state

johnju wrote:

Guy thanks for the replies. I have have used EPE to include all the notification points on my intended route of travel. The trip ending point is near Ocala FL and I even created four different routes from Jacksonville to the Ocala area and EPE worked great in creating the necessary file.

I have already removed all unnecessary files from the GPS to save memory. My concern regarding memory is why have all kind of points in a file that you will not need. It would surly speed things up in the overall operation of the unit. I will play around with looking at the overall CSV file size compared to the POI file that is actually loaded onto the GPS.

Bottom line is that there is no easy way to do what I am looking for without having the states listed in the CSV file. I will just upload the POI file that I have and let it fly.

Thanks again.

There has been a lot of past discussions on the topic about including the state by the custom poi.Some users do and some don't.The files really don't take up that much space on the gps once they are changed to the gpi file with poiloader.Then you have the SD card to put them on also.

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Charlie. Nuvi 265 WT and Nuvi 2597 LMT. MapFactor Navigator - Offline Maps & GPS.

speed

The GPS has a solid state memory so you are really talking about shaving billionths of a second off the search times when you pare down a file. Now, I do edit many of my files to remove Canadian locations, not because I don't like Canadians, it's that I'll probably not travel north of the border again.

I can understand your reluctance in carrying around a lot of locations you probably won't use, but as far as both file size and access speed, it really doesn't make a lot of difference. I do a lot of business travel and when I know I'll rent a car, I do pack my unit so those locations outside my normal travel zone do come in handy.

Charlie mentioned earlier he uses the feature to help with trip planning, and that's a good use for it. I also spend many hours planning trips and usually only decide on the day's destination and possibly lodging. But then those plans have been known to change on a whim as my bride and I often take off with only a destination in mind and often change the route enroute.

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Illiterate? Write for free help.

TurboCCC was here! LOL!

This thread seems to be on track. Good job guys!

Where there is a will there

Where there is a will there is a way. Problem has been solved by using some of the great features of EPE. I was trying to find an easy to edit out a large number of way points for states that I will not be traveling in from a very large POI file but I still wanted to include Florida where I will be spending a lot of time. Here is the solution.

1. Create a route in MapSource from the starting point to the Florida state line.

2. Use EPE to merge the POI file and the route to give you a file that contains just the way points along your route to the Florida state line. Save the file to a new name #1.CSV.

3. From MapSource get the latitude of the northern most point in the state and then do the same for the western most point for the longitude. Write both down.

4. Open the original POI file in Excel and first sort the file by the latitude column. Delete any entry with a latitude greater that the one you have written down as the northern most point in the state.

5. Next sort the remaining file by the longitude column. Delete any entry with a longitude greater than the one you have written down.

6. Save the remaining file with a new name #2.CSV.

7. Now use EPE to merge the two newly created files.
Save the new file and there you have it.

8. Use EPE to look at the points on the map and do some tweaking if needed for a few points along the Georgia border. Also make sure that the starting and ending points of your route have been removed from the file so you do not get a false location warning.

That is it, the file I wanted and it was easier than I thought. This worked easily for Florida because of it being surrounded by water. Other odd shaped states not bordering water will take more work and tweaking but it can be done by just using the general steps from above.

Way to go.Always a way when

Way to go.Always a way when you put your mind to it.

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Charlie. Nuvi 265 WT and Nuvi 2597 LMT. MapFactor Navigator - Offline Maps & GPS.