Creating a POI alert for a single direction only

Even though a speed alert on a Garmin GPS is "different" from a red light camera alert, they are both simple proximity alerts. In other words, when the location of the car is within the alert distance (default 1320 feet (400 meters), or longer for speed cameras) the GPS alerts with a sound and display.

There is no way to modify that proximity alert to operate from one direction only.

Boy, it's been a long time now since I have fooled with POI files. There may be a way to do this with your downloaded version of the POI file.

But, I'm interested in why you would want to do this.

It's been several years since this subject was looked at by Factory users. I remember Garmin released a program allowing the creation of directional alerts but the license for the software wasn't cheap. It apparently provided the same results as found in the Cyclops red light program. I believe the POI-Factory looked into obtaining a copy but decided against it at the time. Another user, in Denmark I believe also did some experimenting and came up with a method using circles. This method evidently worked but was cumbersome and complicated to implement. I don't remember if anyone else was successful in creating a directional file.

Bottom line, I don't know if Garmin would still make the software available or if so, what its cost would be. Using the circle method can be researched in past Poi-Factory posts but if enough information could be gleaned to recreate the success is unknown as well. A third option would be to position the proximity point off to the side of the camera so it only trips in one direction but that would be a very slow and laborious process for each of the cameras.

certain types of Garmin Nav devices have RL and Speed Cams warnings Pre-Installed; and on my Drive 52 there is a way to report these cameras as to if they are in your driving direction or on the opposite side.
What Garmin and Cyclops do with then is put them in a data base AND then you have to PAY a subscription for updates. ( I have reported such cams and never got them added to my device). see Garmin support page: https://www.garmin.com/en-US/safety-alerts/

Some POI have locations shown as in the middle of the road or intersection. When I create a POI, I try to place the gps coords as near as possible to where and on side of the road as the POI, as such the icon shows the difference in the location.

I have been playing with Extra Poi Editor for a while and managed to do that, but I could not reproduce the results other times.
I have a document here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/0B3W8KxGJYcxVRE85TWQzZkx3...
but it is in portuguese.
I hope it helps.

I do not use Garmin devices, but I create directional RLC/Speed POIs for "Navigon for Android" using software I wrote. Navigon (which was bought out by Garmin and subsequently shut down) supports 360° approaches, 1 direction, and 2 directions (180° apart) using the POIWARNER API, which Garmin probably uses as well.

The Android app "Radardroid" also supports 360°, 1 direction, and 2 directions using the following .csv file format:
;RADARDROID
X,Y,NAME,TYPE,SPEED,DIRTYPE,DIRECTION
-79.37092,43.64821,"Jarvis & Esplanade - ON Toronto",21,0,2,342 <--- example of a 2 directional RLC

That is interesting info on Radardroid! Can we assume that the direction number is a compass bearing? There must be a wide tolerance for direction. Or is 2 direction either along the road and not perpendicular to the road?

Besides camera alerts, another practical use for directional alerts would be for the rest areas POIs. In many places interstate highways have a rest area located only on one side of the highway and no direct access to it driving the opposite way.

But I'm having a hard time understanding what BoxCar was posting about and how such a technology could function, because it seems to me that POI has no way to analyze in which direction the vehicle is traveling. It's purely a proximity alert--get close enough, and it's triggered. Sure, the GPS understands direction, but not POI. I'm not doubting BoxCar's post; I just don't get how such a thing could work. I would think one would always get alerted even when going in the wrong direction. My feeling is it's better to be alerted unnecessarily than to miss an alert I need.

There is no problem with the Rest Areas file and Rest Areas with Restrooms because Mahoney has geocoded each POI location on the exit ramps to each rest area for each direction. That is far enough off the road to alert in one direction only.

...and in the rare cases when an alert does occur for the opposite side, just send M a note and the file will quickly be tweaked to fix the issue which can arise when the median strip is particularly narrow.

@dobs108

;RADARDROID
X,Y,NAME,TYPE,SPEED,DIRTYPE,DIRECTION

The DIRECTION is a compass heading [1 -> 360] of the direction of travel along the roadway and the "tolerance" you are referring to is a 60° "approach cone" ... 30° on each side of the DIRECTION.
For example, a DIRECTION of 90 would mean you are going East and the camera will be capturing approaches from the West +/-30°. This info would be coded in the last 2 csv positions as 1,90. If the camera was capable of also capturing approaches from the opposite direction (+/-180), in this case from the East +/-30°, this would be coded as 2,90 (or 2,270 would work as well).
DIRTYPE of zero means any direction is monitored, and DIRECTION should be coded as a zero.

POI Factory already has a Radardroid plugin for our red light and speed camera files. This has been running on my Android phone for a couple of years. The plugin is updated monthly. We know the locations are up-to-date because the data comes from crowd-sourcing our members. I am one contributor.

In the Play Store, search for:

Premium US Radardroid Database

There is no iOS app that does this.

So it is possible to make a POI file understand vehicle direction?
But it doesn't work for cameras because the distances are closer?

The rest areas file doesn't understand vehicle direction. Mahoney's work-around works because limited-access highways are usually wider than city streets, so the POI locations on opposite sides of the interstate are separated by 100 feet (30 meters) or more. When a Garmin approaches a POI, it sees along the road about 50 feet (15 meters) to the right and 50 feet (15 meters) to the left.

An example of this same work-around not working is near my house. A four-lane state road about 55 feet (17 meters) wide intersects with a two-lane side road about 40 feet wide (12 meters) . There are red light cameras on the side road but not on the state road. When I geocoded it I put the POI location dead center in the intersection. Both roads are not wide enough to put 2 POI locations and avoid alerting on the state road where there are no cameras.

It is a long time since I posted at Poi Factory, but if you are interested in directional poi alerts, perhaps som of the stuff I posted
at my homesite back then can help you out.
This is directional poi alerts in Gpi format for Garmin made with ExtraPoiEditor.
CircleList : https://sites.google.com/site/odingpsm/circles?authuser=0
BearingList : https://sites.google.com/site/odingpsm/circles/bearinglist?a...

Vestenfjell.

Hey! Thanks for coming back. Great to see you on this forum again!