Creating POI File

 

I would like to know how to create a POI for Garmin to be uploaded.

I am under the impression that you would need to create a CSV file. But how to you obtain the GPS coordinates for a large number of addresses?

Is there an easier method? Can you purchase software to convert an address to the GPS coordinates?

Is there a company that this can be outsourced to create the file?

Thanks in advance for your guidance.

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Have you read the Getting Started and FAQs sections?

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/6664
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/821

I just created two POI files

I just created two POI files and went through the process of trying to find an easy way of getting the correct locations and still have not come up with a good way of doing it. I even tried to create a CSV file and entered 1 and 1 for the coordinates and then let EPE geocode the location. For one address I had in Florida regardless of what I tried it would always locate me in Maryland. Others I found were miles off and then some were dead on the doorstep. I tried to use street view in EPE to verify things when ever possible and also used MapQuest and Bing Maps.

EPE is supposed to have a way to mass geocode a set of addresses but I could not get it to work so I gave up and did things one at a time.

I have no idea how the guys keep things up to date on the Starbucks, McDonald's and Subway POI.

EPE does have a learning curve

There are numerous ways to geocode a location. None of them will be exact. EPE seems to be the best when it comes to geocoding a location though.
When we create a file we verify the location with different programs as you have seen. Even then we can not be exact. We hope to be close and then let the community users at poi factory give us changes so we can make our file better. And if you have no coordinates for a location then you never enter a 1 and a 1 in there. EPE will assume it is a coordinate.

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Nuvi 2460LMT.

Maybe Overkill

MrSafeMoney wrote:

I would like to know how to create a POI for Garmin to be uploaded.

I am under the impression that you would need to create a CSV file. But how to you obtain the GPS coordinates for a large number of addresses?

Is there an easier method? Can you purchase software to convert an address to the GPS coordinates?

Is there a company that this can be outsourced to create the file?

Thanks in advance for your guidance.

This exercise may be overkill for your question, but I would hope that you would look at
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/36195

Buried in this exercise are some details on using EPE to create a "Test File" from basic address data.

The purpose of the exercise was to show how to test alerts but to do so it teaches how to create POI points near one's home for easier test drives.

You will learn how to create a CSV file.

"And if you have no

"And if you have no coordinates for a location then you never enter a 1 and a 1 in there. EPE will assume it is a coordinate."

The reason I entered a 1 and 1 for the coordinates was to get around an error that message from EPE for every entry I had in the CSV file. I needed to put something in columns A and B so that is what I did. I could then open the file without error messages and geocode each of the entries in the POI.

When you load

johnju wrote:

"And if you have no coordinates for a location then you never enter a 1 and a 1 in there. EPE will assume it is a coordinate."

The reason I entered a 1 and 1 for the coordinates was to get around an error that message from EPE for every entry I had in the CSV file. I needed to put something in columns A and B so that is what I did. I could then open the file without error messages and geocode each of the entries in the POI.

When you load a file into EPE if it is missing data you are given the option to either delete the record or to skip the error check and load the file. Then you press F5 and have itgeocode the entire file.

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Illiterate? Write for free help.

Thanks for the info. I am

Thanks for the info. I am sure I will give it a try the next time.

Thanks so much

Rarely do I bulk geocode, thanks for the F5 tip.

Loading a file missing data into EPE

Box Car wrote:

When you load a file into EPE if it is missing data you are given the option to either delete the record or to skip the error check and load the file. Then you press F5 and have itgeocode the entire file.

If you create a CSV file using Excel or another spreadsheet program and try to leave what woulf be the coordinates empty you will not be able to load the file into EPE and have it geocode UNLESS you do other changes.

The default for a CSV read/write is for the coordinates to be in the first two locations. Unless you set your preferences in EPE to show that position 1 contains a field that will ALWAYS contain data, the empty locations will be skipped and the first field containing data will be read as a coordinate.

To use EPE to load and geocode a file in CSV format you will need to have the POI Name in column 1. The remaining 3 columns can be designated as holding the coordinates or description.

Assume you are creating a new file in CSV format and want to use EPE you must create the file as such:
POI Name, Longitude, Latitude, Description.

Your EPE file preferences must match exactly. For this example Field A is POI Name, Field B is Longitude, Field C is Latitude, Field D is Description. EPE will then read the file and once stored within EPE you can use F5 to geocode. Once any errors have been fixed, you can then output the file as a Garmin CSV and it will be in the correct format of Lon,Lat,POIName,Desc.

The key point to remember is that EPE will read an input file skipping any positions until it finds a field that is not blank. It uses the first field having data as the first field in the data assignments set in your preferences.

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Illiterate? Write for free help.

POIs

I use a combination of GPS Visualizer, Bing Maps, and iTouchMap. GPS Visualizer to get the coordinates both bulk and individual, Bings birdseye view, and iTouchMap's street view and it's ability to drop a Lat/Long marker.

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Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.

Steps for a four column, comma-separated values (CSV) POI file

I usually use a Microsoft word document to create everything about the POI file will go with the posting of that file. I then add the comma-separated values (CSV) info into a Microsoft excel spreadsheet.

Steps for a four column, comma-separated values (CSV) POI file:

1. Acquire name, address, and text information of POI entries
2. get geo codes of addresses from http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/geocoder/ (you can bulk geo code up to 1,000 addresses)
3. Put geo code addresses into two columns of a table
4. Rearrange the geo code address columns so that longitude is Col. 1 and latitude is Col. 2
5. Add the names to Col. 3 of the table
6. Add the address, and text information of POI entries to Col. 4 of the table. For formatting, you can use the "br" symbol positioned between two carrots "<" and ">" to cause the text to move to a new paragraph.
7. Copy the table into a CSV excel spreadsheet
8. Upload to POI Factory

To see an example of the above, download one of the POI files I created and open it with Microsoft excel.

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Vince Nuvi 350