Convert CSV to GPI format - error in GPSBabel

 

I am following this hack (steps 1-5) to enable UK poscode search on Garmin devices when using open street map:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_Map_On_Garmin/Postco...

I have not had to do the conversion to latitude / longitude as I found a version which has already been converted here:

https://www.freemaptools.com/download-uk-postcode-lat-lng.ht...

I download the Full UK Postcode Latitude Longitude in CSV format. which is se tout like this:

postcode latitude longitude
AB10 1XG 57.14416516 -2.114847768
AB10 6RN 57.13787976 -2.121486688
AB10 7JB 57.12427377 -2.127189644
AB11 5QN 57.14270109 -2.093295
AB11 6UL 57.13754663 -2.112233
AB11 8RQ 57.13597762 -2.072114784
AB12 3FJ 57.0980029 -2.077438
AB12 4NA 57.06427275 -2.130018015
AB12 5GL 57.08193792 -2.246567389
AB12 9SP 57.14870708 -2.097806027
AB14 0TQ 57.10155692 -2.268485752
AB15 5HB 57.147428 -2.1472662
AB15 6NA 57.151797 -2.185398
AB15 8UF 57.15400596 -2.22440188
AB15 9SE 57.11864762 -2.174250607
AB16 5ST 57.16346588 -2.15933343
AB16 6SZ 57.15875117 -2.165214861

In step 3 of the instructions it says "use GPSBabel or similar software to convert your desired postcode coverage files to .GPI format" The problem is when I load the CSV file into GPSBabel and try and convert to GPI format, conversion fails with the following error:

"No valid waypoints/routes/tracks translation specified"

here is a screenshot of the error:

https://i.ibb.co/mSp2D2X/error.jpg

Does anyone know how I can convert my CSV postcode data into gpi, so that it works with OSM on my garmin?

Format

GPSBabel wants this CSV format, I think

https://www.gpsbabel.org/htmldoc-1.6.0/fmt_csv.html

jgermann wrote: GPSBabel

jgermann wrote:

GPSBabel wants this CSV format, I think

https://www.gpsbabel.org/htmldoc-1.6.0/fmt_csv.html

Many thanks for your reply. I just read that and reformatted the CSV, however I still get the same error stating:

"No valid waypoints/routes/tracks translation specified"

These are examples from the CSV formats I have tried:

Example 1

latitude,longitude,post
57.149606000000000,-2.096916000000000,AB10 1AB
57.148707080000000,-2.097806027000000,AB10 1AF
57.148231880000000,-2.096647896000000,AB10 1AG
57.148080680000000,-2.094664297000000,AB10 1AH
57.149616270000000,-2.095329325000000,AB10 1AL
57.149700000000000,-2.094742000000000,AB10 1AN
57.148978000000000,-2.095691000000000,AB10 1AP
57.148080680000000,-2.094664297000000,AB10 1AQ
57.148080680000000,-2.094664297000000,AB10 1AR
57.148321040000000,-2.097507523000000,AB10 1AS
57.147774010000000,-2.096432000000000,AB10 1AU
57.147387160000000,-2.097058848000000,AB10 1AW
57.148707080000000,-2.097806027000000,AB10 1AX
57.148832140000000,-2.098451000000000,AB10 1BA

Example 2

57.149606000000000,-2.096916000000000,AB10 1AB
57.148707080000000,-2.097806027000000,AB10 1AF
57.148231880000000,-2.096647896000000,AB10 1AG
57.148080680000000,-2.094664297000000,AB10 1AH
57.149616270000000,-2.095329325000000,AB10 1AL
57.149700000000000,-2.094742000000000,AB10 1AN
57.148978000000000,-2.095691000000000,AB10 1AP
57.148080680000000,-2.094664297000000,AB10 1AQ
57.148080680000000,-2.094664297000000,AB10 1AR
57.148321040000000,-2.097507523000000,AB10 1AS
57.147774010000000,-2.096432000000000,AB10 1AU
57.147387160000000,-2.097058848000000,AB10 1AW
57.148707080000000,-2.097806027000000,AB10 1AX
57.148832140000000,-2.098451000000000,AB10 1BA

Any idea how to get this working as I am completely lost.

GPI file

I did it this way.
1.Using Notepad.Data per your example 2
A.Go to top of Notepad page and click on file, save as, put the file name in and add period(.) then type csv
Example:
postcode.csv
B. Click save and you should now have a csv file.

2. Reverced column a and b in csv file. Longitude,Latitude

3.Using Extra POI Editor.Loaded file and saved as a Garmin Gpi file. http://camerabob.dyndns.org:5190/TurboCCC/

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

Thnanks for your reply, but

Thnanks for your reply, but I really want to use GPSBabel, as Extra POI Editor just crashes, due to the large volume of postcodes I have (almost 2 million)

Problem is I can't get GPSBabel to work, it just returns the same error . As a test to see if GPSBabel would convert any CSV data, I even tried copying the exact example given on their website for CSV:

35.97203, -87.13470, Mountain Bike Heaven by susy1313
36.09068, -86.67955, The Troll by a182pilot & Family
35.99627, -86.62012, Dive Bomber by JoGPS & family
36.03848, -86.64862, FOSTER by JoGPS & Family

But again it returns the same error. Not sure what is wrong with GPSBabel?

Error

Almost 2 million?That may be the problem. Try a sample of about 100 on Babel and see if you get the error.You may have to look at breaking this file down to several files.

Also check this out https://poi.gps-data-team.com/united_kingdom/postcodes/

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

I tried a small sample

I tried a small sample already in Babel, but I still get the same error. I can't understand what is wrong as the format is exactly what they suggest. I even tried Babel on another computer thinking the install may be bad, but still the same problem.

Conversion

If you already have a csv file.Did you try loading the csv into POI Loader? Then save the gpi file to the computer. https://www8.garmin.com/support/collection.jsp?product=999-9... Or just save poi file to a SD Card from POI Loader.

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

Garmin POI Loader

charlesd45 wrote:

If you already have a csv file.Did you try loading the csv into POI Loader? Then save the gpi file to the computer. https://www8.garmin.com/support/collection.jsp?product=999-9... Or just save poi file to a SD Card from POI Loader.

I just tried the Garmin POI Loader with a small sample of postcodes and it accepted the csv and successfully updated my Garmin. Also it was not fussy at all, since there was no need to even strip headings from the columns. One thing which is import though, is to formulate the csv in the following order:

Longitude, latitude, postcode

longitude latitude postcode
-2.114847768 57.14416516 AB10 1XG
-2.121486688 57.13787976 AB10 6RN
-2.127189644 57.12427377 AB10 7JB
-2.093295 57.14270109 AB11 5QN
-2.112233 57.13754663 AB11 6UL
-2.072114784 57.13597762 AB11 8RQ
-2.077438 57.0980029 AB12 3FJ
-2.130018015 57.06427275 AB12 4NA
-2.246567389 57.08193792 AB12 5GL
-2.097806027 57.14870708 AB12 9SP
-2.268485752 57.10155692 AB14 0TQ

It had no problem processing the above. Next I need to see if I can upload a data set of a few million. Anyone know the limit for custom POI for Garmin 64s? It looks promising so far.

It's just a shame that GPSBabel would not work, since I mainly use Linux. Anyone know why GPSBabel would not work? I tried it in Linux and windows with no luck. As for the Extra POI Editor, I found it very unstable on a few different machines, and it did not cope well with large datasets. But at least now I have a solution under windows with the Garmin POI Loader.

Many thanks

Storage

Anyone know the limit for custom POI for Garmin 64s?

As far as the limit on custom pois, you are only restricted by the amount storage available on the gps device.POI Loader can load custom pois to the SD card also. Pois really don't use much storage space.

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

Postcode search is so slow

I manged to do it in the end using the Garmin program (all other programs kept crashing for such large data sets). Also I could not get GPSBabel to work at all.

I now have all the postcodes loaded as POI on my Garmin 64s, but postcodes are so slow to search. It takes about 3 minutes to search for 1 postcode. I know I have nearly 2 million postcodes loaded, but things should not be that slow. Even my old Tom Tom is much quicker to search for postcodes, and the 64S has much better hardware specs. So I don't understand why it is so slow? I found that splitting postcodes up into smaller geographical regions, and having multiple files loaded to the garmin rather than 1 large file made things quicker, however it is still unacceptably slow. Are there any workarounds for this? As I say my old Tom Tom is much quicker to search for postcodes and it's hardware is much less than my 64s. Any ideas?

gpsbabel

I struggled with this, this is how it worked for me
Your csv must have headings, postcode,Lattitude,longitude on the first line of the file, mine where in this order as they were from the ONS site, I striped out just those 3 columns into a new csv file.

The key was to change the csv format to "Universal csv with field structure in the first line"

I hope this helps with others who are getting to grips with supporting their Garmins

poi index

marada wrote:

As I say my old Tom Tom is much quicker to search for postcodes and it's hardware is much less than my 64s. Any ideas?

On that;
.ov2 file format includes a skip index, may be faster to search only because the search of 2 million in ov2 only searches 20 skips and 20 pois instead of 2000000 poi
the skipper index system works so well, a bloke, VersatileGuy from this site, made a program to do it for home made poi groups back in 2012, still works excellently the ov2 file format has not changed
'ov2optimiser.exe' that sorts poi, and resaves the file with skipper records
I dunno if the gpx csv formats have anything similar in the file spec

Garmin reads firstline headers in .csv -I assume there must be something, I dunno where to look for documentation
there is something called 'efficiency index' discussed in garmin forums

node/37978
node/51829
https://gordthompson.github.io/ov2optimizer/
https://forums.garmin.com/apps-software/mobile-apps-web/f/ga...

--
the title of my autiobiography "Mistakes have been made"