"Official" POI Lists?

Only One I Heard of is Sheetz they have all there locations in a poi file

I agree. Only Sheetz so far. They have certainly shown they are ahead of the curve.

I am very suprised other companies haven't jumped on this yet.

Why should they? They'll wait for us to make the POI's - and it won't cost them a dime either!

ML

I thought you were joking with that name, but sure enough, it is actually a restaurant chain. None located in the New England states yet.

As mentioned, their marketing & sales dept. is smart to provide the locations in gps friendly format. I'm sure one or two of them owns a Garmin or other gps.

http://www.sheetz.com/main/locations/gps.cfm

Thanks a lot! I could use that information...

Many corporate sites are adding GPS coordinates such as Flying J, Loves, Bass Pro Shops and Cabelas. Theoretically, this makes putting together a database a snap. However, I have found that many corporate products are not accurate because they are not verified. (Indeed, I have found that many sole proprietorships post erroneous GPS coordinates!) The most accurate that I have found is Cabelas. Verify a a random sample before you use invest confidence in a corporate site.

awesome. I worked for sheetz about ten years ago. I just got my garmin this week, so that will be my first attempt at loading a poi file.

thanks

I know it is happening internally in places....

Worked a firm that had an interest in thousands of real estate sites. Was part of a project to integrate the address, convert to lat and long, and integrate Yahoo maps & directions into the firm's applications... a POI-type file was also discussed but I left before that was started. But that was being published for employee use. The retail guys will be catching on since the accuracy of a list compiled socially, while good, will always be a little off.

They are beginning to understand the value.

That said, used the AAA Poi's in my Magellan to find a Macy's last week--LOL

Anyone out there have a Piccadilly POI file or access to one?

Jeff

I'm surprised the state and national park systems haven't put out files.

Am I missing something? I bought my gas at "Sheetz"
Chuck

I've noticed that many of the POI files on this site are incomplete or have bad data. They're the best I've found and they're useful, but they're not all perfect. For instance, the PA state parks file is missing many of the parks I frequent. I'm going to use and add to the file but I don't know how the coordinates were determined? Do they represent the parks mailing address or the actual park headquarters location?

It would be so easy for the state to publish the coordinates of all their park headquarters w/ a phone number. Then their official list could be verified and kept up to date with very little effort. Don't get me wrong. I appreciate the independent work that's being done. It's just that you never know what you've got with these unofficial lists. Some are extremely well done while others are incomplete and contain errors.

I have found (for my files) that using the coordinates of the "entrance" to the locations works best for me. You can get the coordinates by finding the location on Google Earth or Yahoo. You can get approx. location by inputting address into GPSVisualizer or other Geocoding programs. Once I find the approx. coords I fine tune by "looking" for the entrance with Google Earth.
Just how I do it ! Good Luck

For example, in Yellowstone NP or Glacier you could go hours out of your way with just one entrance. Someday, every point of interest w/i the parks will be in a NPS poi file. I say the sooner the better.

Nope. go to www.sheetz.com for their official POI files.

Sheetz created this file so that the drivers of their trucks wouldnt get lost.

I tried that, and can see its potential: I opened a gpx file in MapSource, viewed it in Google Earth, and moved the icon from the approx location to the correct location. A question, though: once you've moved the icons to their final positions in Google Earth, is there a way to "save" those changes to the original gpx file? Only way I could do it was to transcribe the new coordinates to the gpx file manually. I couldn't find any reference to this in the Google Earth user guide.

I did a quick search and found this old post. Jeff, if you are interested in helping, I have a list of 122 different Piccadilly locations. Should not take too long to complete. I also am working on Gander Mountain. Should be ready to post early nest week.

I have a file sitting in the moderation queue for Gander Mountain Outdoor store that scottsdale05 contributed. You may want to talk to him about the project, I know that he has all the data it just needs to be geocoded.

Miss POI

They are not keeping the file up to date. They have opened two new stores in the Raleigh area in the last year and these are not in the file. They are listed in their store locator.

Umm, you may want to hold off on the Gander Mtn. POI. I just submitted one yesterday, Jan. 9. Haven't heard back about it yet, though. I'm assuming Miss POI is still vetting it.

Miss POI,you may want to consider some way for the group to know what POI's are currently being worked on or have been recently submitted. From what I've seen tonight, a POI file for Gander Mtn. might be getting worked on by several people who aren't aware that there are others who are working on the same thing.
Maybe a "POI's Currently Inflight" list or a sign-up sheet where we can see who's working on what.

wow cant wait til that gander mountain poi comes out because i want it badly.

http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=104536

I was actually looking for a sheetz poi list as a random thought out of the blue and it's convenient that they have an official list already compiled

I had never heard of sheetz until tonight, thanks for the info.

Sheetz has an official POI file available at www.sheetz.com

Coldwell Banker incorporated listings in GPS technology however they have an agreement with Dash only. But I'm sure it won't be that way for long.

Thanks for including the website!

Job