Coordinates don't match location

 

I'm new to this and I'm probably missing something simple but I can't get my coordinates to show up in the right location. I have a Garmin 200W and I was playing with POI's speed files. The 200W will give coordinates if you tap on the car while driving. I saved these and made my POI file for "speed" and entered the info. After I loaded the map it showed the location about 14 miles Southeast from where it should be.

I then tested using the disneyland coordinates from google earth and Sam Penrod's example from POI loader.

Sam's coordinates are -117.91914,33.80909,Disneyland

Google Earth's are -117.55758 33.483920

With earth I'm about 40 miles Southeast of Disneyland.

With Sam's I'm dead on.

Google Earth and my Garmon seem to error in the same direction Southeast.

Is there a map to get the correct coordinates or I'm I doing something wrong.

Thanks for any info...

--
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Finger trouble?

Have you been transferring these coordinates manually, i.e. typing them in? (or mis-typing them in wink

Sam Penrod's coordinates entered into Google Earth look right to me - splat in the middle of some open area in Disneyland - ( it looks like there's some huge letters there, that say "California").

--
------------------------ Phil Hornby, Stockport, England ----------------------               http://GeePeeEx.com - Garmin POI Creation made easy           »      

coordinates dont match

During a recent trip I tried to use my nuvi 360 to get the coordinates where I was and put them on my data storm map.
I did this in Indiana and in S.C.
both times it put me miles away from where I acdtually was.
In fact in SC where I was staying it put me off the coast and in the Atlantic.
and I didnt mistype in the numbers.
I am sitting at my home right now and the coordinates nuvi gives me are way off.

--
bill&linda

coordinates...

what are "SAM'S" coordinates and where can I obtain them.

--
bill&linda

Sams USA

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/4980

I believe these are the US locations.
I have the Canadian (all 6 in Toronto Ontario) somewhere. I will try to find and upload them if they are not already on this site.

--
Garmin Nüvi 855 & 760, iPhone, Magellan RM860T

format?

jurzbill wrote:

...and I didnt mistype in the numbers.
I am sitting at my home right now and the coordinates nuvi gives me are way off.

If you're looking at the coordinates on-screen, maybe they're not being displayed in decimal format? On the Nüvi 310/360 you change the display format in a rather unlikely place: "Where to? | Coordinates | Format "

I'm assuming that if you Save your location as a Favourite, and then recall it and do "Show Map", that it's correct?

The Nuvi stores a copy of all the Favourites you have logged in \gpx\current.gpx. This can be input directly to POI Loader or another program for further editing.

This way you definitely avoid typos / or format problems.

--
------------------------ Phil Hornby, Stockport, England ----------------------               http://GeePeeEx.com - Garmin POI Creation made easy           »      

Google Earth does not always

Google Earth does not always give you the exact coordinates (I believe this has been covered in other thread by RT). It will give you its best estimates.

Google Earth uses their own Map API to retrieve the coordinates and the API returns the precision of the result. They are:

0 Unknown location. (Since 2.59)
1 Country level accuracy. (Since 2.59)
2 Region (state, province, prefecture, etc.) level accuracy. (Since 2.59)
3 Sub-region (county, municipality, etc.) level accuracy. (Since 2.59)
4 Town (city, village) level accuracy. (Since 2.59)
5 Post code (zip code) level accuracy. (Since 2.59)
6 Street level accuracy. (Since 2.59)
7 Intersection level accuracy. (Since 2.59)
8 Address level accuracy. (Since 2.59)

So any result code other than 8 means it is not the exact location. Worst case scenario is that the coordinate is middle of the country. Unfortunately, Google Earth does not give you the result code it receives from the API. However, you can tell from the description the location is associated with it when it displays it on the map to determine the accurary...

--
Garmin nüvi® 660, iPhone 8gb (Technology is not the solution. It's only a tool to help you achieve it.)

Geocoding API

theTraveler wrote:

Google Earth does not always give you the exact coordinates ...Google Earth uses their own Map API to retrieve the coordinates and the API returns the precision of the result.

I'd been looking at the Google Geocoding API for use in GeePeeEx Editor, but it's fairly wild - I think I'll be going with Yahoo!'s version.

But I don't think this should be the OP's problem - I just tried typing "Disneyland" into Google Earth (half expecting to get Disneyland Paris) - it put me 232yards north of Sam Penrod's coordinates at the first attempt.

--
------------------------ Phil Hornby, Stockport, England ----------------------               http://GeePeeEx.com - Garmin POI Creation made easy           »      

I have both...

Phil,

My app calls both, but I found out Google Earth coordinates (when they do give you precise coordinates) tends to be closer to the MapSource calibration so even when both Yahoo and GE give me exact values, when I load them into MapSource, Yahoo is slighty off...

My observation

--
Garmin nüvi® 660, iPhone 8gb (Technology is not the solution. It's only a tool to help you achieve it.)

Sam's coordinates are from Garmins POI Loader v2.3.2

The title is "What is Garmin's POI Loader and what can it do for you?" Release 4 November 18, 2006
By: Sam Penrod. Here is the link.

http://www.gpsinformation.org/penrod/poiloader/poiloader.htm...

A little over halfway down the article he has the following example.

"Here are examples of a basic POI you want to route to."

-117.91914,33.80909,Disneyland
-77.03648,38.89868,White House

The article is a good example of how to make POI's and his examples are spot on. But when I use Google Earths coordinates for
Disneyland -117.55758,33.483920,Disneyland My Garmin puts me way off by about 40 miles to the southeast.

I guess I need to know where did Sam get his coordinates.

--
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

?

DieGuy wrote:

-117.91914,33.80909,Disneyland
-77.03648,38.89868,White House

But when I use Google Earths coordinates for
Disneyland -117.55758,33.483920

But how did you get those coordinates from Google Earth?

If I type "Disneyland" into the Search box,it returns "Disneyland,Garden Grove,CA".

The coordinates for this point are -117.919,33.8109 (from right-click properties)

--
------------------------ Phil Hornby, Stockport, England ----------------------               http://GeePeeEx.com - Garmin POI Creation made easy           »      

.

theTraveler wrote:

so even when both Yahoo and GE give me exact values, when I load them into MapSource, Yahoo is slighty off

You may well be right in that. What I meant was that Google seems more likely to give me "Address not found". Maybe the answer is to use Yahoo! first, and feed its output into Google to refine it smile

--
------------------------ Phil Hornby, Stockport, England ----------------------               http://GeePeeEx.com - Garmin POI Creation made easy           »      

DieGuy wrote: I'm new to

DieGuy wrote:

I'm new to this and I'm probably missing something simple but I can't get my coordinates to show up in the right location. I have a Garmin 200W and I was playing with POI's speed files. The 200W will give coordinates if you tap on the car while driving. I saved these and made my POI file for "speed" and entered the info. After I loaded the map it showed the location about 14 miles Southeast from where it should be.

I then tested using the disneyland coordinates from google earth and Sam Penrod's example from POI loader.

Sam's coordinates are -117.91914,33.80909,Disneyland

Google Earth's are -117.55758 33.483920

With earth I'm about 40 miles Southeast of Disneyland.

With Sam's I'm dead on.

Google Earth and my Garmon seem to error in the same direction Southeast.

Here,s a website that gives pretty accurate coordinates.[http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/convert?form=address]. I have been using Qoogle Earths coordinates until recently I noticed that they have been off about 2000 feet, and I copy and past the coordinates.

--
Richie

Disney

In your original post you said:

DieGuy wrote:

The 200W will give coordinates if you tap on the car while driving. I saved these and made my POI file for "speed" and entered the info. After I loaded the map it showed the location about 14 miles Southeast from where it should be.

I then tested using the disneyland coordinates from google earth and Sam Penrod's example from POI loader.

I wonder how much of an affect tapping while driving has on actual location. I wouldn't think 14 miles. And, what map did you load?

Anyway, I type Disneyland in Google Earth, and I'm about .13miles south and slightly west of the Penrod coords.

I put in the coords you gave and indeed went about 40miles SE.
I type in disneyland in google earth and get 33.810890,-117918772

What exactly are you entering in google earth?

Are you using the coords from your nuvi?

You have to be careful with google earth, should you move the cursor over the map, the coords will be at the cursor. Is it possible, that after finding Disneyland, you were zoomed out far enough and moved the cursor to the SE location and wrote those coords down? Exactly how did you get the coords of -117.55758,33.483920?

You can find a place with google earth, like disneyland, then use the yellow pushpin to the location you desire then copy/paste the coords from the resulting box without the coords "moving" on you. Perhaps this is a case of operator error.

I took the coords I got from "Disneyland" 33.810890,-117918772 put them into MapSource and displayed the same location.

There are many ways of getting coordinates. There are as many discussions on pros/cons of each. I have found that in cases like Disneyland it might be best to find the proximate location with google earth, then move the pushpin to a more desirable location such as parking lot or intersection of parking lot and street.

Poi Loader has nothing to do with coordinates, it is simply a tool to get your csv or gpx file properly loaded into your gpsr.

--
........Garmin StreetPilot c550 / Nüvi 765...........

This is what I got from

This is what I got from properties.

Disneyland, Garden Grove, CA
33°48'39.20"N
117°55'7.58"W

I may have a different version of Earth
I have 4.0.2007 Jan 5 2007

I tried your "Where to? | Coordinates | Format " with the coordinates above saved and pulled it up in favorites on my Garmin and the map is DEAD ON.
That works!!!

I did it again using the loader with the same points and I'm WAY OFF as before. Here's a copy of my .csv -117.55758,33.483920,Disneyland

Got any ideas what's going on?

--
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Ah-ha...

DieGuy wrote:

This is what I got from properties.
33°48'39.20"N
117°55'7.58"W

Here's a copy of my .csv -117.55758,33.483920,Disneyland

You need to switch Google Earth to use Decimal format, rather than Degrees,Minutes,Seconds that it's giving by default.

(Tools | Options | 3D View | Show Lat/Long | Decimal Degrees)

--
------------------------ Phil Hornby, Stockport, England ----------------------               http://GeePeeEx.com - Garmin POI Creation made easy           »      

Thanks

I told you I was new...

I will reset and try this out.

Thanks to everyone for your help

--
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

I suggest

DieGuy wrote:

I told you I was new...

Then you should read the FAQ page. There are ton of useful information.

--
Garmin nüvi® 660, iPhone 8gb (Technology is not the solution. It's only a tool to help you achieve it.)

coordinates wont match

I too am having the same problem. When I type my home address in Google Earth it's not even accurate by .25 miles.

Google Earth is set to display decimal format.

When I enter the coordinates to verify them in the "where to" screen they're dead on, but when I enter THE EXACT SAME COORDINATES into a csv file and upload them, they're 2-40 miles off.

What the crap!?

- jeremy

Garmin Zumo 450 - Mac

--
Zumo 450, Mac user

got it!

I'm not sure what I did, maybe mis-typed every line but it's working now.

I also changed the format of coordinates in the GPS to match the csv - that being decimal. Seems to be ok!

--
Zumo 450, Mac user

Check your formatting

weigle wrote:

I too am having the same problem. When I type my home address in Google Earth it's not even accurate by .25 miles.

Google Earth is set to display decimal format.

When I enter the coordinates to verify them in the "where to" screen they're dead on, but when I enter THE EXACT SAME COORDINATES into a csv file and upload them, they're 2-40 miles off.

Did you set your GPS to also display decimal format? They all have to be on the same format for this stuff to work. My Nuvi defaulted to degrees and minutes, not decimal.

As for your home address being off, try this experiment: search your address using Google Maps as well as Mapquest. That will tell you if the map database is accurate. Both Navtec and TeleAtlas have been off with my home address for years.

One of the things I have noticed is that Google earth supports higher accuracy than my Nuvi 350. I can only enter coordinates with 5 digit accuracy in the Nuvi, but Google Earth pushpins typically only show 4 digits of accuracy but the cursor shows 6 digits of accuracy. These can be significant differences.

I did this

After reading the FAQ in POI Factory some time back...

I set my NUVI to format decimal.

I checked with Google Earth, and with
http://www.gorissen.info/Pierre/maps/googleMapLocationv3.php
and with Google Map.

My readings came up to be within .0005 agreement.

I have checked this also by putting it in a .csv file... and I was still within the accuracy given above.

If I am understanding all this right... then Google is pretty close to my NUVI.

I do think all the formats have to be the same.
I also think you have to be at the precise point on all the maps. It doesn't take much to be a long ways off.

I have ran some tests with Yahoo and GPSVisual.
For me anyway, I could not get the accuracy (with my NUVI) I got with Google. Maybe I did something wrong, I did run about 5 different tests with different points... but I could not get closer than about 1/2 mile or so with those. Yahoo was further off in the tests I did.

I figured that my NUVI is the standard so anything I use has to come close to the standard. I use the NUVI... right or wrong... and it leads me to where I want to go.
I have not found it to miss by very much... on any address I have given it --- so far.