Official POI from "COMPANY"

 

Hello,

With the increasing use of GPS I believe that corporate america should take notice of this.

In particular food chains, services, dept stores, etc. because who would give us more accurate information than the company itself and better yet ALL of their locations.

These POI from POI Factory are wonderful but some are probably outdated and whatnot and who would want to keep track of these? All this is done voluntarily right?

If ANY OF YOU work for say IHOP or In-N-Out or Macy's please please try to find a contact and make this possible!!!! There is huge benefits for the consumer and corporates.

So please give it a shot!!! I would love to go to a companies' website and download their POI files

grin

w00t

Or coordinates

Or at the very least coordinates? I think what ever is requested is going to be hit or miss depending on who maintains the web site company info. Usually thats a marketing person. If they're technically inclined they might decide to offer POIs or coordinates. If not, they'll just expect the address to be enough. Can't hurt to ask though.

--
Chuck - Nuvi 200, Nuvi 255W

Coordinates....

I recently contacted Woodall's Campground Directory and asked them to consider putting the lat/lon on for the campgrounds in their book.
I was told they were looking into it.

I notice www.always.com has all the exit numbers on interstates and sent them an email asking the same thing. No reply yet.

I agree in that I think it would behoove the businesses to make it convenient for customers to find their locations.

I am really surprised that many of them has not contacted Garmin and other GPSrs about being put into their poi database. Personally, I think that's the route I would go if I had a business.

coordinates

I agree I shall contact some of the chains

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Woodall's

Wondered why Woodall's hasn't done this already... Many of the campgrounds have it on their Web sites already. And I have noted them in my own records for the campgrounds I have visited.

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John - with a Garmin 650 and a 750

Great Idea

With the growing popularity of GPS use, it seems like a great marketing opportunity for companies to become GPS friendly. They could provide a download of all of their locations that could be used to build a POI file. That would free up some time for POI-Factory members to build additional interesting POI files.

--
Jim Garmin nuvi 660

ADDING POI TO GARMIN 660

This comment has been moved here.

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SAM

Yep

I've often thought/said this with varying responses from various companies. I just don't see why any business wouldn't want to make it as easy as possible for customers to find them.

Sheetz POI Undated 11/6/07

I just noticed that Sheetz updated their POI file.

Sheetz added Redlight to the filename to activate the GPSr alert feature. Just rename the file if you don't want Sheetz alerts.

The number of POIs in the file has not changed, so maybe they just added the alert and BMP.

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><> Glenn <>< Garmin nüvi 2598

No

l050606 wrote:

With the growing popularity of GPS use, it seems like a great marketing opportunity for companies to become GPS friendly. They could provide a download of all of their locations that could be used to build a POI file. That would free up some time for POI-Factory members to build additional interesting POI files.

And you'd get bashed/flamed by some here that you "stole" the info. Apparently, some feel you have to reinvent the wheel by either physically driving to every location to get the lat/longs or geocode the addresses yourself because if you don't, you'd be stealing someone else's "credit". That's what happened to me when I combined a bunch of restaurant and gas/truckstop POIs from here and tried to make it available to everyone here after SAYING where the individual POI files came from...POI Factory. :roll eyes:

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Newest to oldest... Nüvi 660, Street Pilot 2720, Magellan SporTrak Pro, Lowrance Global Map 100

If you let everyone know that it is combined and give credit

I am a newbie here, and am just getting into the GPS world. I am wondering why you would get flamed for combining codes from one file to another if you give credit for the work to the ones that originated the file. Is there a rule against this? Is there a reason one can not do this. Is there a code of honor that one can not take codes that someone has worked on, add to it maybe inhance the file with alerts? I did not know that you could not change these files to work the way I would want them to assist me.

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Nuvi 660

Apparently so...who knows.

Apparently so...who knows. But, hey, if someone wants to spin their wheels, waste their time creating a POI file from scratch instead of using already available data and want a "rah, rah atta boy" pat on the back, then go for it.

I even tried to give back by uploading my POI files to POI Factory, but the mods wouldn't make them available. Instead I've been emailing them to the dozens of people that have asked for it and it's getting to be a pain in the ass. Especially, when it is so easy to just list them here and make them freely available. Something about them not wanting custom "groupings" or some other BS. After all, what's a custom POI file? A CUSTOM GROUPING!!! Like tourist attractions in a certain area. Or Starbucks POIs of various states combined into ONE file...

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Newest to oldest... Nüvi 660, Street Pilot 2720, Magellan SporTrak Pro, Lowrance Global Map 100

I know that there is alot of work that goes into these files

Just looking at the amount of work that goes into these is amazing. Now if the original file is combined by lets say a national phone index would I have to give credit to the company that compiled a phone number or address. Or if I am using a mapping software and using that to get gps coordinates do I need to give credit to the maping software.....Or should I not use a mapping software at all?

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Nuvi 660

Some here would have you

Some here would have you believe you need to go all the way back to the US Gov't and thank them for putting the satellites up in the first place. And then list each and every business for having an address, too. :roll eyes:

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Newest to oldest... Nüvi 660, Street Pilot 2720, Magellan SporTrak Pro, Lowrance Global Map 100

You don't get it, do you?

buffettck wrote:

And you'd get bashed/flamed by some here that you "stole" the info. Apparently, some feel you have to reinvent the wheel by either physically driving to every location to get the lat/longs or geocode the addresses yourself because if you don't, you'd be stealing someone else's "credit". That's what happened to me when I combined a bunch of restaurant and gas/truckstop POIs from here and tried to make it available to everyone here after SAYING where the individual POI files came from...POI Factory. :roll eyes:

Your poi loader will combine all those files without your help. Just put them all in one directory, run the poi loader and Boom, all into one file "POI.gpi" There was no real reason to physically combine them. It would only take up more room on the server, that could be free for more files. And creating a new one isn't that hard, just go to a website of a company that isn't listed. Look up the locations and copy the addresses down in excel (that is the program I use) ones the address are on one line each. Go to http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/ and then to the easy batch geocoder and past the addresses in. Run the geocoder in (tab) format and cut-n-paste it into excel. Not hard, I have done a few.

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Rodney.. oditius.htc@gmail.com BMW Zumo 550 HTC Touch Pro - Garmin XT

Wrong

Oditius wrote:

Your poi loader will combine all those files without your help. Just put them all in one directory, run the poi loader and Boom, all into one file "POI.gpi" There was no real reason to physically combine them.

Apparently you don't understand the POI loading process at all. The loader does NOT combine the CATEGORIES. It simply loads all the individual POI listings into one file, but they are not COMBINED.

I didn't want 500 different restaurant chain listings on my GPS. I wanted them ALL in ONE POI file as it's MUCH easier to do a single search of what's near my current position. And to do a single search by name, rather than having to page down through many, many restaurants to get to one near the end of the alphapet. Which do you think most people would rather have? 50 different listings for McDonald's (or whatever) by state or ONE listing for all the McDonald's in the country? The latter is much more streamlined and, after all, that's how the smart folks at Garmin do it from the get go. Besides, who wants to waste the time downloading all your recent Quiznos state files one by one? Why not put them ALL in a single file? It takes NO extra server space than 50 individual state files would.

And don't whip out the "well that's your preference" argument that some have said before as I've had DOZENS of people personally request my files since the mods refuse to list them here.

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Newest to oldest... Nüvi 660, Street Pilot 2720, Magellan SporTrak Pro, Lowrance Global Map 100

Interesting...

I guess I am still learning. But on my 660 I just hit Where To>Extras>Custom POI>All categories. Then I hit spell, and start typing the name of the restaurant or whatever I am looking for and it pops up. I personally have different .CSV files in different directories on my computer, so when loaded I can can go straight to "Restaurant", or "retail stores" and find what I want. But that is a personal preference for me. I was going to make sub directories for different types of restaurants, ie.. Italian, polish, Mexican, etc.. But I am a Motorcycle riding geek, love to ride, and love to work on computers. I have almost 600,000 poi's loaded so far. I hope to find more interesting places to go to once the riding season begins.

Sorry if this offends anyone here, but have a Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.

--
Rodney.. oditius.htc@gmail.com BMW Zumo 550 HTC Touch Pro - Garmin XT

Limited method

Oditius wrote:

I guess I am still learning. But on my 660 I just hit Where To>Extras>Custom POI>All categories. Then I hit spell, and start typing the name of the restaurant or whatever I am looking for and it pops up.

Sorry if this offends anyone here, but have a Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.

And your method limits you. I just tried it with my 660. Under "all categories", I get 13 pages with 4 entries per page until I can't page down anymore. That's only 52 entries and not many restaurants show up because they're bumped out by other POIs since EVERYTHING is being listed. And, with your way, you already have to know the name of the restaurant (or whatever) beforehand. I like my combined restaurant file because all of those 52 entries will be restaurants and I can find an "Oh, I didn't know there was one of those nearby" type restaurants. My wife and I do that all the time on road trips with the Garmin POI list and we find some great local places as there was NO way we could have previously known the name.

Oditius wrote:

I personally have different .CSV files in different directories on my computer, so when loaded I can can go straight to "Restaurant", or "retail stores" and find what I want. But that is a personal preference for me.

This sounds contradictory to what you posted above as this is exactly what I do. All of my restaurant listings are in one combined "Food" file. I select that category and can search the entire thing in one fell swoop as I mentioned earlier. Same with my "shopping" all in one file. I don't want to have to page down all the way through dozens of alphabetically listed stores say, from ABC Liquors to get to Zale's Jewelers. Just have to search once by spelling Zale and, boom, straight to the closest one.

And for the last part of your post, not offended here! Right back at ya, too, and may you and yours have a good one. smile

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Newest to oldest... Nüvi 660, Street Pilot 2720, Magellan SporTrak Pro, Lowrance Global Map 100

Never thought of that.

buffettck wrote:

And your method limits you. I just tried it with my 660. Under "all categories", I get 13 pages with 4 entries per page until I can't page down anymore. That's only 52 entries and not many restaurants show up because they're bumped out by other POIs since EVERYTHING is being listed. And, with your way, you already have to know the name of the restaurant before hand. I like my combined restaurant file because all of those 52 entries will be restaurants and I can find a "Oh, I didn't know there was one of those nearby" type restaurants. My wife and I do that all the time on road trips with the Garmin POI list and we find some great local places as there was NO way we could have known the name.

Hmmm have to look deeper into that.

buffettck wrote:

This sounds contradictory to what you posted above as this is exactly what I do. All of my restaurant listings are in one combined "Food" file. I select that category and can search the entire thing in one fell swoop as I mentioned earlier.

I guess, I started off with loading everything into one directory and just loading it up like that. But alas, it was too much info and not enough spaces. So someone here suggested to sort them out by categories, and great new sub-folders named by those categories. And then move the .csv files into the categories. So when I need to search for a store, restaurant, and such, all I do is tap on the category in my 660 and there are all the sites that I put in those sub-folders. I am just wondering if I create a sub-folder in those folders, will the Nuvi be able to read those folders?

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Rodney.. oditius.htc@gmail.com BMW Zumo 550 HTC Touch Pro - Garmin XT

I wondered that myself about

I wondered that myself about the subcategories like how Garmin breaks "Food" into American, Asian...Mexican, Italian, etc. Haven't seen a way to do that yet. Apparently, all we get is "master" categories as in "all food", "all shopping", etc. And, regarding my "Zale's" analogy above, yes, I realize I can to straight to it by spelling it under "all categories", but my "I wonder what's around me since I don't know the area" defense still applies. smile Not so much with shopping since I usually have a destination in mind, but finding random restaurants to try out is fun. But, it is still useful for "shopping" because I travel all over the country and don't always know the regional chains of grocery stores, drug stores, etc... For example, when I first moved to CT, I'd never heard of the Stop and Shop, Big Y, Price Chopper, etc grocery chains (VERY different from FL, where I came from as Food Lion and Publix reigned supreme) and it was nice to be able to search a single "all grocery" listing and see everything available in the database.

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Newest to oldest... Nüvi 660, Street Pilot 2720, Magellan SporTrak Pro, Lowrance Global Map 100

No sub-subfolders

Well I created subfolders in my folders for Chinese, Mexican, etc.. And moved my stuff in there and loaded it. Doesn't work, would not find any of them. So I guess it is limited to only one subfolder. I can sort by folders:

My GPS POI>Restaurant
My GPS POI>Retail Stores
My GPS POI>Auto Stores
My GPS POI>Repair shops

and such, but no deeper. Oh well, thought I would try.

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Rodney.. oditius.htc@gmail.com BMW Zumo 550 HTC Touch Pro - Garmin XT

POI question

I haven't loaded any POI's on my 680 yet, but this thread is very interesting. I guess the first question I have is does the file from Garmin list all the restaurants around your location? Since everyone submits different POI's for different restaurants, is there an additional benefit to using "outide" POI's instead of what was included on the GPS unit? Other than the possibility of the POI being newer and having updated locations?

--
Nuvi 2597 / Nuvi 2595 / Nuvi 680 / Nuvi 650 "Good judgment comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgment."

Good question..

wegasque wrote:

I haven't loaded any POI's on my 680 yet, but this thread is very interesting. I guess the first question I have is does the file from Garmin list all the restaurants around your location? Since everyone submits different POI's for different restaurants, is there an additional benefit to using "outside" POI's instead of what was included on the GPS unit? Other than the possibility of the POI being newer and having updated locations?

But I wish I had an answer. I have Fodors loaded into my 660 and the Savers Guide package, (the Savers Guide cost like $49, but I have already saved that in the discounts I have used so far and mine doesn't expire till 12/2008) But even they may not have ALL the stores and everything else, so the added POI's you download, may be overkill? Or may be what is missing? There is enough room on the 660's HD drive for a few million custom poi's, and if I run out of room, I always got the 4gb SD card to fill. wink

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Rodney.. oditius.htc@gmail.com BMW Zumo 550 HTC Touch Pro - Garmin XT

About a month ago I tried to

About a month ago I tried to contact Popeye's corporate folks about this very thing.... Asking for addresses and co-ordinates of all their locations...

You'd think I'd asked for the combination of their safe!!!

SILENCE!!!

In my opinion, that's counter-productive!!!

--
A 2689LMT in both our cars that we love... and a Nuvi 660 with Lifetime Maps that we have had literally forever.... And a 2011 Ford Escape with Nav System that is totally ignored!

Makes no sense but......

I'm sure some pin heads don't want the competition to have an easy source to know where all their locations are.
Most probaly have no understanding of POI files and what good they could do for their company. Just a guess but contacting someone in the PR department would be at least a contact with someone who understands public relations.

At least one company

At least one company, Best Buy, now lists the co-ordinates for their stores on the webpage for each location. For example:

http://stores.bestbuy.com/1441/

Could have something to do with the fact that they may sell a few GPS units now and then smile

--
Nuvi 350, 760, 1695LM, 3790LMT, 2460LMT, 3597LMTHD, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, DriveSmart 61, Garmin Drive 52, Garmin Backup Camera 40 and TomTom XXL540s.

I made another try at

I made another try at contacting Popeye's....
Got No-Where!

How incredibly short-sighted!

--
A 2689LMT in both our cars that we love... and a Nuvi 660 with Lifetime Maps that we have had literally forever.... And a 2011 Ford Escape with Nav System that is totally ignored!

not easily done, unfortuantely...

Seems like companies would want to do this, because it should help drive customers to their different locations. But the tools don't really exist to make this easy, and the technology is just foreign enough to make companies question the value. One could also argue that only a limited set of people would be able to take advantage of the POI lists.

Now, if an entity like Google (or Yahoo, Apple, Microsoft, etc.) could make generating lists of POIs as easy as a click of a button, such that they could be imported into any GPS, that might get us somewhere...

Nice to see someone who "Gets It"!

t923347 wrote:

At least one company, Best Buy, now lists the co-ordinates for their stores on the webpage for each location. For example:

http://stores.bestbuy.com/1441/

Could have something to do with the fact that they may sell a few GPS units now and then smile

Best Buy not only have coordinates in their Store Finder, they are ACCURATE coordinates, not just geocoded to their address. At least, the nearest location to me is that way. Their posted coordinates are right to the store itself in the shopping center, not the nearest street address.

Campground Issues

xnman wrote:

I recently contacted Woodall's Campground Directory and asked them to consider putting the lat/lon on for the campgrounds in their book.
I was told they were looking into it.

I notice www.always.com has all the exit numbers on interstates and sent them an email asking the same thing. No reply yet.

I agree in that I think it would behoove the businesses to make it convenient for customers to find their locations.

I am really surprised that many of them has not contacted Garmin and other GPSrs about being put into their poi database. Personally, I think that's the route I would go if I had a business.

I went through a similar exercise with Ontario Private Campground Association. First, I got ZERO cooperation from them, but I don't want to tar Woodalls with the same brush.

The main problem was the fact that almost all campgrounds are on rural roads and the address is very poorly defined. They often just had Post Office Box numbers or rural routes numbers. As a result, allowing any program to just automatically geocode is of little use.

I had to check out the campsites own website and interpret their often terrible directions, or their map that was often too small or unclear. Once I did figure out where they were with reasonable certainty, I had to go to satellite view and hone in on the location. If the satellite resolution was low, even that was of little use.

Unless Woodalls, went to each site with a GPS, they would not likely get any real accuracy.

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DriveSmart 65, NUVI2555LMT, (NUVI350 is Now Retired)

Contact Company

P38nut wrote:

I've often thought/said this with varying responses from various companies. I just don't see why any business wouldn't want to make it as easy as possible for customers to find them.

Many companies are not overly helpful, but occasionally you get someone like KIA Canada that was superb. When I wanted to create a file for KIA dealers in Canada, I contacted customer support and asked for a spreadsheet with Name, Address, City, etc. all in separate columns. I had a response in less than a week, exactly as requested.

It did take a fair amount of work to Geocode after, since some addressing was done poorly by the dealers, themselves, but most of the data was good.

It's always worth asking any company to respond in that same way. The worst they can do is say NO!

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DriveSmart 65, NUVI2555LMT, (NUVI350 is Now Retired)

I did find a POI file on the

I did find a POI file on the Culver's website today. I can't vouch for the accuracy quite yet, but at least they have one up.

www.culvers.com

I just downloaded the file

miller2401 wrote:

I did find a POI file on the Culver's website today. I can't vouch for the accuracy quite yet, but at least they have one up.

www.culvers.com

I just downloaded the file to have a look and it's not real friendly to GPS. While it has the basic parts, lat/lon, poi name, and an address it lacks city, state, zip and phone numbers. It is a good start that wouldn't take as nearly as much effort to turn it into a great fie as some others.

--
ɐ‾nsǝɹ Just one click away from the end of the Internet

Then there's POI F

miller2401 wrote:

I did find a POI file on the Culver's website today. I can't vouch for the accuracy quite yet, but at least they have one up.

www.culvers.com

If youn don't like that one, try the one here, complete with a Culver's bmp icon:

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/8152

By the way, where's the POI file at the Culver's site? I can't find it.

Culver's poi

Here is the file:

http://culvers.know-where.com/culvers/ (find: download our POI)

Direct link: http://www.culvers.com/locator/CulversRestaurants.csv

I did send an email to Culver's and know-where.com to see if they would add the city, st zip and phone number to the file.

--
Garmin Nüvi 650, 255WT

ExxonMobil

has all of their stations in the US and Canada in a file that is updated on their website. They even have several different file layout versions.

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___________________ Garmin 2455, 855, Oregon 550t

Hey Xnman

I think you better check your link you have there..