Discrepancy with KFC in USA file

Just submit the corrections to the maintainer, and it'll be fixed.

When you search for a location the GPS returns a straight line distance between tour current coordinates and the point. You don't get road miles until you tell the unit to calculate a route.

Those two locations are in the right places.

The file is correct.

I understand they are in the right place (location wise). I am new to this GPS thing. I just thought if I was looking for KFC, I would probally pick the first one on the list with distance of 2.5mi. Which is really the farthest one. This would make my drive out of the way of the one closer. It is listed at 5.3mi. I'm just saying there should be a way to swap the mileages.

This isn't a POI issue but a Garmin issue. The only way to "swap" as you say would be for the unit to calculate a route for each possible destination at the same time.

"And that's the way it is", as the late Walter Cronkite would say as he closed the nightly news. The fact that your unit provides you with KFCs based on the "as the crow files" distances from your location is designed that way for a reason.

Consider the alternative that you seem to be asking for. If the unit were to give someone the "along the route" distances to every one of the 50 (potential) locations to a KFC, then it would have to calculate 50 routes just to let the user pick one. As I am sure you have noticed, the calculation of routes is far from instantaneous. Doing 50 would be noticeably time consuming.

Perhaps you will actually navigate to both the KFC locations mentioned in your OP and let us know how long it actually takes to drive there. I am confused by the numbers you gave. I can visualize that something only 2.5 miles away ("as the crow flies") might require one to drive, say, around a body of water to get there - and this could take 10 minutes of driving time. For the life of me, I cannot see how a location that is 5.3 miles ("as the crow flies") from your home (I assume) can be driven to in 2 minutes.

As noted, this is not an issue with the file. This is the way the data is presented on the unit.

The distances are straight line distances. They are not routed distances.

The unit does not calculate the routed distance until you press "Go". Trying to show the routed distance would severely slow down the display of the information. Plus the unit does not know what routing preferences you have set until you press "Go".

I guess I will put this to rest. That is my point the one that should take 2 minutes to get to according to GPS is 5.3 miles away. The one that takes 10 minutes to get to according to GPS is 2.5 miles away. Makes no sense to me.

Is how you can travel at approximately 150 MPH to get to the store 5.3 miles away in 2 minutes.

Here's a map screenshot of those two locations. I put a 5.3 mile circle around the KFC on General Booth and a 2.5 mile circle on the KFC on First Colonial.

http://i42.tinypic.com/j7gcv4.jpg

I'm familiar with that area, and it does not seem that you could be "2 minutes away" from the location that indicates that it is 5.3 miles away as the crow flies. Especially not if you are 2.5 miles (straight line) away from the one on First Colonial.

When you press "Go" for each of the locations, what is the routed distance/time that comes up?

Not to hijack this thread, MM the pic looks like Mapsource, if so what did you use to add the circles? I am assuming a mapsource tool but cannot find it in my mapsource.

I now return control of your TV back to you.

Thanks

Looks like Bing to me...

MapSource

Go to the Waypoint Properties.
Enter the distance in the Proximity box.

Got it, thanks for the help.

Thanks, MM!

gotta get the kfc straightened out

Its simple. Its already been said. There are 2 KFC locations referenced. Each has there own coordinates. They are named correctly and have proper coordinates in the file.
When you pull up a group of poi's you get distance "as the crow flies". It does not get any simpler than that.

Funny, I did exactly the same thing but I just grabbed a Google Maps image and then added the circles in Photoshop Elements. The Mapsource approach is considerably more elegant.

I hope navycop comes back into the thread so that we can help explain/understand what is going on with the GPS unit compared to the real-life situation.

My guess is that the location that he feels is "2 minutes away" is actually farther away than he thinks.

But since he is admittedly "new to GPS", hopefully we can help him get the most use of the unit.

I think I may know what's going on. On my TomTom if I choose

Navigate to... > Point of Interest > POI in city

and choose "Virginia Beach VA" then when I select the KFC POI group it shows me the list of POIs with their "as the crow files" distances from the center of Virginia Beach, not from my present location.

If I pick the first one, which appears in the POI list as "2.5 Miles" (from the center of Virginia Beach), the TomTom then calculates the route from my present location: the distance is 713 miles and the transit time is just under 11 hours.

It is easier for me to say this is person, but here goes. The KFC on general booth (2 minutes away) is so close I can walk to it in real life. The GPS says it is 5.3 mi which is way to far to walk. I CAN'T walk to the KFC on first colonial in real life. Yet the GPS says it is 2.5 miles. So you see I am psyically closer to the general booth one, but not a coordining to GPS.

Did you download and install a POI file from here, or are these the POIs that are on the map?

If you downloaded a file, when did you download this POI file?

Was it from here?

It may be the KFC locatoins imbedded in the Map File that are wrong - NOT that that ever happens, right?

What is the version of the map on your unit?

...and from an earlier post, he states that he is using a Tom-Tom. It is guite possible that the maps on his unit is causing the problem. My brother-in-law just went from a Garmin to a Tom-Tom, and he has had all kinds of problems with the mapping on his unit. Says he wishes he had his Garmin back.

navycop,

What menu selections did you use to bring up the list of KFCs? As mentioned in my previous post, if you are using...

Navigate to... > Point of Interest > POI in city

...and choosing "Virginia Beach VA" then the POI list will always display distances relative to the corner of Pacific Ave and Laskin Rd, regardless of where _you_ are. On the other hand, using...

Navigate to... > Point of Interest > POI near me

...will display a list with distances relative to your current location.

navycop - could you give us the exact coordinates of your location so that we can test this ourselves.

Ah Ha, on a Garmin, it is different.

You select:
"Where to? + Extras + Custom POIs" and then the specific file (on my 660, others may be different). It always tells you the "Air" miles and direction from your current location. The list is ordered by distance, starting with the closest one.

Glad a TomTom owner responded.

N 36 46 465
W 76 00 364
say map v860.3121

Can you elaborate on the method you are using to search for the POI?

Based on the posts above, it looks like there are a couple of different ways to search on the TomTom.

Is the unit showing the POIs "near me" or "in City"?

I did it by "in city". I went ahead and uploaded the POI from here. It seems to be working right. I will just have to remeber to use that instead of the preloaded one.

POI's from here are generally far better than the pre-loaded ones that most nav's offer, because folks correct them as required.

Glad to hear it's working now.

Yes, and be aware that if you search by "in City", it might be displaying the location distances from the city center and not from your location.

It sounds like you might need to use the "near me" option to make sure that the distances are calculated from your position.

Good luck.

Thank you everyone for bearing with me on this. It was a splinter that was under my skin and kept bugging me.

Its just great that we got you straightened out on this. I am sure it will help others.

@navycop - thanks for updating us. I would have been confused as you were.

I learned a lot by following this post.