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Guest ChrisB

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I have received a very nice Garmin 1490T SatNav for Christmas and am currently struggling to install POIs.

I have updated Maps and Software from the website with little problem.

I have downloaded Archie's 2012 Camping Cheques, ACSI, and French campsites in "Garmin friendly" .csv format with icons onto my laptop and have used Garmin's POI Loader to install the CC POIs. According to the program all went well and the POI should now be available.

The Garmin POIs appear to be categorised (Food and Drink, Fuel etc) but where has the CampingCheque POI gone? Have tried the obvious POI categories (Recreation, Lodging - which does seem to have some stored campsites under "Campsite or Caravan Site") but no sign of CampingCheques2012 (the name I gave to the POI). I can see a file called "CampingCheques2012.gpi" in a POI folder on the satnv.

And I haven't even started on POIedit for Aires, Parking etc yet.

Any help/advice appreciated.

Chris

Edit

I should have added that I have had a TomTom satnav for the past 4 years so it may well be that I need to take a completely different approach with the Garmin.

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I have a Garmin and have had the same problems as you are experiencing. Each time you save a file as the POI file it overwrites the previous one, instead of adding to it.

 

Its hard to explain but make up a folder on your computer with sub-folders and including all the POI's you want on the Garmin. This is the folder which you will transfer over.

 

This is taken from A N Other forum:-

 

"If there is a problem loading POIs using POIloader I'm wondering if you should do what I have been doing. I never actually load my POIs to the Nuvi using POIloader. I start POIloader and instead of saving to the Garmin Device I save them to "Custom Folder (Advanced)" and send them to a folder on my Desktop called POI (really doesn't matter what the folder name is). Now POIloader will do it's thing and you'll end up with the poi.gpi file in the desktop folder. Now attach the Nuvi to your PC and copy the saved file to the POI folder on the Nuvi's internal drive. The Nuvi will now have the Extras icon and your Custom POIs will be there without having to go through all the hassle doing the reset.

 

Note you could also copy those files to an MicroSD card instead of the Nuvi's internal storage.

 

There is another advantage to installing Custom POIs this way. As you probably know, every time you run POIloader it creates a new poi.gpi file which overwrites the old one. What I wanted was a separate POI file for Hotels, another one for Gas Stations, and about 5 other categories. This is really easy using the approach detailed above. I run POIloader and have it create a poi.gpi file which contains only my Hotel custom POIs. Once it's in the desktop folder I rename the file Hotels.gpi. I then repeat the process for each of the different categories so my desktop POI folder ends up with 7 .gpi files each named for the category of the POIs in that file. Since each run of POIloader will create a new poi.gpi file, it's important that you do the rename before you run POIloader for your next category. I can now transfer all 7 files to the Nuvi and they appear a 7 separate categories in under Extras - Custom POIs."

 

On my Garmin, the POI's appear as "Extras" not in the POI folder which exists when you first switch on the device.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Regards,

Steve.


 

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Thanks to all for the suggestions - will copy POI files directly as suggested (which is what I did with the TomTom into the Maps folder).

Will let you know if I succeed!

Chris

PS

Is it possible to mark a set of POIs so that they appear on the maps as I did with the TomTom? There was a check box to show/hide the icons.

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arthur49 - 2011-12-29 4:48 PM

 

Chris

By default if you have the icon with exactly the same file name next to the POI file on the .csv spreadsheet then the icon will appear on the screen. If you don't want the icon showing on screen delete (or mis-name?) it ...........I think!

Arthur

 

With my tomtom there was a poi.ov2 data file and a poi.bmp icon file.

The Garmin POIloader program appears to produce a single poi.gpi file from the doenloaded data (.csv) file and the icon (.bmp) stored in the directory awaiting conversion.

Should I copy both the poi.gpi and poi.bmp files to the Garmin POI folder?

 

I need an "Idiot's Gude"!

 

Chris

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Chris

 

I think the answer is 'Yes'............its difficult without seeing what you're dealing with! I have a folder which I call Waypoints - I'll try and attach to this message - and you'll see that there's a BMP file and csv file. Provided the names are identical then when loaded on to satnav the icon appears on screen

 

Arthur

 

 

ChrisB - 2011-12-29 6:28 PM

 

With my tomtom there was a poi.ov2 data file and a poi.bmp icon file.

The Garmin POIloader program appears to produce a single poi.gpi file from the doenloaded data (.csv) file and the icon (.bmp) stored in the directory awaiting conversion.

Should I copy both the poi.gpi and poi.bmp files to the Garmin POI folder?

 

I need an "Idiot's Gude"!

 

Chris

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Chris

 

I think the answer is 'Yes'............its difficult without seeing what you're dealing with! I have a folder which I call Waypoints. In that folder I have csv files and identical name bmp files. Using POI Loader I upload the files within my Waypoints folder Provided the names are identical then when loaded on to satnav the icon appears on screen

 

Arthur

 

 

ChrisB - 2011-12-29 6:28 PM

 

With my tomtom there was a poi.ov2 data file and a poi.bmp icon file.

The Garmin POIloader program appears to produce a single poi.gpi file from the doenloaded data (.csv) file and the icon (.bmp) stored in the directory awaiting conversion.

Should I copy both the poi.gpi and poi.bmp files to the Garmin POI folder?

 

I need an "Idiot's Gude"!

 

Chris

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Chris

 

I think the answer is 'Yes'............its difficult without seeing what you're dealing with! I have a folder which I call Waypoints. In that folder I have csv files and identical name bmp files. Using POI Loader I upload the files within my Waypoints folder Provided the names are identical then when loaded on to satnav the icon appears on screen

 

Arthur

 

 

ChrisB - 2011-12-29 6:28 PM

 

With my tomtom there was a poi.ov2 data file and a poi.bmp icon file.

The Garmin POIloader program appears to produce a single poi.gpi file from the doenloaded data (.csv) file and the icon (.bmp) stored in the directory awaiting conversion.

Should I copy both the poi.gpi and poi.bmp files to the Garmin POI folder?

 

I need an "Idiot's Gude"!

 

Chris

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  • 4 weeks later...

Just an update to thank everyone for help/advice - now pretty competent in "Garmin" speak. There are some additional functions I prefer over the old TomTom, other useful features which were on the TomTom are missing. Swings and Roundabouts (or Marmite?).

Anyway, now up to date with my camping/motorhome POIs.

Downloading in comma separated value (CSV) format was not an issue and using the Garmin POIloader generally went well.

However I was initially taken aback by a number of the extra POIs appearing on the Garmin in quotes. E.g.

“ASN TRÉVOUX (01) Aire CCI 549” (this is as it appeared in quotes)

After much trial and error I believe the cause is a result of the type of quotation mark used in the downloaded .csv file (quotation marks are needed if the text description includes a comma, so is normally included for safety in the description column).

Basically the quotation marks should be ASCII (I do meen ASCII and not ACSI) Hex22 (Dec34) but these had been replaced by another character that looked like ".

I won't bore you with the details and solution, but if anyone else has suffered this problem then I can include a fuller explanation and solution here, or via a PM.

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  • 1 year later...
Guest JudgeMental

John while my nuvi 775 works like in your example above, my new 2595 does not. I can load individual folders (containing bmp image and poi in CSV format) direct to garmin via POI loader . Folders are not overwritten or removed unless you choose to clear the lot. So now I just add the different folders one at a time. And they are all listed in custom poi which is under the garmin poi. There is no "extras"on new units.....or at least mine.

 

You can also load custom POI direct into base camp. They need to be in a GPX format , just press file then import, and POI populate map and are here when you restart unless you remove file from list on left..(no need to use poi loader)

 

So new units appear to work slightly differently.

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Guest JudgeMental
JohnP - 2013-02-28 8:35 AM

 

Eddie. Looks as though some improvements/changes have been made since

I purchased my unit 15 months ago. I hope they don't do away with the ability to plan routes on PC, which

I do like.

Does your new unit also accept GPX format files

 

they just dont support mapsource any more as it was hacked and available everywhere....with Basecamp its dependent on the sat nav to initially populate maps from its licence. (you dont need sat nav plugged in after initial set up) Yes base camp different but I am getting my head around it

 

I dont know re GPX as I just load all the files in CSV format to the sat nav, loads of free converters on net

 

Garmin actually told me over the phone that it is not possible to import custom POI into Basecamp... He even referred to second level support to confirm this.... clueless. As I have had Garmin since 2000 I have always had 2nd level support (intelligent guys) and very good it has been. But they have all moved on to better things, and I am now dealing with the front of house numpties again who are collectively clueless and reading of prompt sheets written by idiots :D

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JohnP - 2013-02-28 8:35 AM........ I hope they don't do away with the ability to plan routes on PC, which I do like.

Does your new unit also accept GPX format files

Hi John

You can still plan routes in MapSource, although in my experience they don't transfer to nuvis successfully. With BaseCamp, they apparently do, and you can plan routes in BaseCamp as well.

Mine is a 1495,which is similar to Eddie's but with a smaller screen, and I have all my POIs in .gdb and .gpx format. (.gdb is the default for MapSource, so take a .gdb file, open it, and "save as" .gpx. Open POI loader, select that .gpx file (or directory of files) as the source and they transfer to the nuvi. The main difference I have found is that to keep the POIs in categories (sites, aires etc) it is necessary to place the files in sub-directories under your main POI directory. So, you would have a directory called (for example) POI-GPX, and within that a series of sub-directories, for example aires, within which you would tuck all your aires type files. This is obviously not essential, but it makes finding the category of POI that you actually want, when you want it, wherever you are, that much easier. Hope this helps.

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