Beginner’s Guide

Privateer · Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:24 am Post subject: Beginner’s Guide

Introduction

This is not intended as an instruction on how to use the PocketGPSWorld (PGPSW) camera database with your SatNav set-up. It is purely an explanation of the camera database, how it’s spilt up into camera types (categories) and subcategories, and the files that make up the database.

Camera types in the database

There are currently five main categories in the PGPSW camera database; some of the main categories are also subdivided into speed related sites. The main categories are:

Gatso: Fixed camera locations. I.e. mainly Gatso, Truvelo, Monitron and RedSpeed speed cameras.

Mobile: Locations where Safety Partnership camera vans and police regularly check your speed.

pMobile: Mobile locations (see above) that have been submitted but not confirmed as valid.

Redlight: Traffic light cameras

SPECS: Also called Section cameras. This uses digital cameras that photograph your vehicle and number plate as you pass each camera. The system then automatically calculates your average speed over the section (distance divided by time).

Continental: Locations on the continent, i.e. mainland Europe.

There is another category, which contains all of the above categories, except for the Continental one. It is for UK users who have SatNav systems that can only use a limited number of POI categories at time. The category is:

Single File Version

Up until October 2008, there was an additional category called Temp for temporary camera installations, e.g. Road works. The Temp category was never divided into sub-categories for speed zones and was originally designed for fixed cameras such as Gatsos. However as other types of categories (e.g. SPECS) also were being used as temporary camera installations on Road works it was decided to incorporate the temporary cameras into their category type and prefix those camera sites with a "T". This allows all Temporary sites to now be speed zoned.

Subcategories: speed-zoned

The categories Gatso, Mobile, and SPECS are also available as being further split into speed-zoned subcategories.

The main categories hold the full list of locations.

The subcategories have the same name as the main category but they have a suffix of the speed limit and only contain the locations that relate to a particular speed limit. NB if you want to use the subcategories then you need to load and activate all of them else you will not be warned!

Gatso: Full list of known fixed speed cameras. You can either use this or all of the following subcategories:

Gatso_20: Known fixed speed cameras in a 20 mph limit
Gatso_30: Known fixed speed cameras in a 30 mph limit
Gatso_40: Known fixed speed cameras in a 40 mph limit
Gatso_50: Known fixed speed cameras in a 40 mph limit
Gatso_60: Known fixed speed cameras in a 60 mph limit
Gatso_70: Known fixed speed cameras in a 70 mph limit
Gatso_tba: Known fixed speed cameras without a recorded speed limit.
Gatso_var: Known fixed speed cameras with a variable speed limit.

The Mobile and SPECS categories can also be split into subcategories, like the Gatso ones above. However neither Mobile nor SPECS yet has a "var" subcategory.

Which SatNav packages can use the camera database?

An updated list of compatible devices can be found here complete with linked installation guides and in some cases installation videos.

Makeup of the camera database files

Each category or subcategory of the PGPSW camera database is an independent POI (Point of Interest) and may be made up of two files:

1. The actual database (compulsory for all packages):
.OV2 for TomTom, .CSV or .XLS for non-TomTom

2. The icon (.BMP) to show the camera location on the screen.
Needed for TomTom, other packages may not require it.

If you wanted to load the PGPSW camera database of UK fixed cameras in a 30 mph speed limit, then you would need the following files:

For TomTom SatNav packages
pocketgps_uk_gatso_30.ov2
pocketgps_uk_gatso_30.bmp

For ALK CoPilot SatNav packages, up to version 5
pocketgps_uk_gatso_30.xls

For ALK CoPilot SatNav packages, version 6 onwards
pocketgps_uk_gatso_30.ov2

For Navman SmartST V3 SatNav packages
pocketgps_uk_gatso_30.csv

For Microsoft AutoRoute / MapPoint
pocketgps_uk_gatso_30.csv

For ease of reading, we'll no longer use the File extensions (i.e. .OV2, .CSV, or .BMP) in this documentation. Please remember that depending on your SatNav package, you will either need the .OV2 and .BMP files, or you will need the .CSV and .BMP files. Thus the above example of UK fixed cameras in a 30 mph speed limit will now be referred to as:
pocketgps_uk_gatso_30

What PGPSW camera database categories do I need?

Well it is down to personal choice and the limitations of your SatNav package. If you were to stay in the UK there are 3 levels of options:

Option 1 (single file POI)
As stated above, this category contains all of the above categories, except for the Continental one. It is for UK users who have SatNav systems that can only use a limited number of POI categories at time:

pocketgps_uk_sc

Option 2 (4 main categories)
This is just the main categories and none of the subcategories that show speed limits:

pocketgps_uk_gatso
pocketgps_uk_mobile
pocketgps_uk_redlight
pocketgps_uk_specs

Option 3 (23 files comprising of both main and sub categories)
If you want the above but with subcategories of the Gatso, Mobile, and SPECS databases to show speed related cameras:

pocketgps_uk_gatso_20
pocketgps_uk_gatso_30
pocketgps_uk_gatso_40
pocketgps_uk_gatso_50
pocketgps_uk_gatso_60
pocketgps_uk_gatso_70
pocketgps_uk_gatso_tba
pocketgps_uk_gatso_var
pocketgps_uk_mobile_20
pocketgps_uk_mobile_30
pocketgps_uk_mobile_40
pocketgps_uk_mobile_50
pocketgps_uk_mobile_60
pocketgps_uk_mobile_70
pocketgps_uk_mobile_tba
pocketgps_uk_redlight
pocketgps_uk_specs_20
pocketgps_uk_specs_30
pocketgps_uk_specs_40
pocketgps_uk_specs_50
pocketgps_uk_specs_60
pocketgps_uk_specs_70
pocketgps_uk_specs_tba

There are almost an endless amount of combinations of the above. Please don't forget that:

1. You can use a combination of speed-zoned sub-categories of one type with non-speed-zoned categories of another type, i.e. speed-zoned Gatso and Mobile with non-speed-zoned SPECS.

2. If you use speed-zoned sub categories use all of the sub categories (else you won’t get warnings for every site) and don't use the full category with the sub-categories (else you will get duplicate warnings).

Where do I find the PGPSW camera database?
(Edited by robbrady: Sorry, POIEdit is not currently supported - this may be just a temporary situation.)
The best way, if your set-up allows, is to use the PoiEdit program to use the PocketGPSWorld POI-Sync service. Once set up, you just connect your system to the computer and run the program to update all the categories of the camera database – and any other POIs that you use from the PocketGPSWorld POI download section.

Alternatively, you can download the zipped file and manually copy the required categories to you SatNav system. If you wish to use speed-zoned categories then you will need to look in different folders in the zip file, they are in the "speed zoned" folder and then the "gatso", "mobile", "specs" sub-folders depending on your requirements.

Miscellaneous information

The camera database was set up, in the beginning, only for fixed site cameras (e.g. Gatso, Truvelo, etc) and was originally called pocketgps_uk_sc, which is why you may see reference to the pocketgps_uk_sc file in some documentation on this website.

Some of the camera identification numbers are suffixed with the "@" sign and a number (e.g. 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, and 70). This indicates the speed limit for that camera. NB speed limits can change, so please let us know if you find that the recorded speed limit for any camera in the PocketGPSWorld database is wrong.

Links to guides for installing the PGPSW database

All models of TomTom Go.
PocketPC running TomTom Navigator 5 and 6.

This post is a "living document" and thus will be updated as and when necessary. Links to other guides will appear in the future, i.e. guides about installing the PGPSW camera database, and using it with specific SatNav packages.

Posts in this thread may be deleted, so as to keep the thread as short as possible. However relevant suggestions or questions (and their answers) will be added to this post.
_________________
Robert.
TomTom 730T, APP: 8.351, Map: W&C Europe 2GB V845.2645 (1758 MB)
TomTom 950 Live, APP: 9.054, Map: Europe V850.2802 (2134.6 Mb)

JackieD · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 30, 2004 Posts: 32

Hi

Could I ask a coupe of questions? You say here we can either downloads the full list or the speed zoned subcategories. Does the full list give you the exact same info as the speed zoned sub categories? I just wonder why I would choose one option of download over the other.

Also, as I run CoPilot Live 5 I need to download csv and bmp files but what about the xls files? What are these for? And do I also need to downloads all those wav files in the database?

I think I may have spent an hour downloading the wrong files!

Privateer · Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:17 pm Post subject:

JackieD · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 30, 2004 Posts: 32

Hi Robert

I am a bit confused now. The CoPilot instructions tell me to download the ov2 files but your own guide says ov2 is for Tom Tom only and that non Tom Tom should downloads csv & bmp.

I'm not sure what to do now. Can you advise?

Thanks

xda · Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:47 pm Post subject:

The files you need to import into CoPilot are the .XLS files.
_________________
Graham.
TT Go720, App:8.396(1914/100423) OS:52169
GPS: V1.20, Boot: 5.512, Home: V2.3.1.92 Map: Europe 2GB V855.2884, Kingston 4GB SD
O2 XDA Guide WM6.5 Memory Map V5 TT7 CP8

JackieD · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 30, 2004 Posts: 32

Thanks Graham. Thankfully, that's what I did.

Would you happen to know why CoPilot crashes when I try to open 'manage database?'

Hope you don't mind the supplementary Q.

Cheers

icsys · Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:21 pm Post subject:

JackieD · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 30, 2004 Posts: 32

Thanks Ian. I think I've finally managed to get them on to my PDA. I hope they work now!

Cheers

xda · Posted: Thu Mar 17, 2005 4:57 am Post subject:

JudyK · Occasional Visitor Joined: Feb 08, 2005 Posts: 2

I've been happily using the January release of the Speed Camera database to display and audio signal all types of camera including gatsos at the various speed limits on my Tom Tom 3 card/Palm Tungsten 3 Bluetooth set up. I just downloaded and installed the current version (Feb/Mar 05 dates) and first deleted the existing files on the TomTom card as per instructions. Now I find there is not room to install the gatso speed categories and matching bmp/wav files. I wonder if there are some files I can delete from the TomTom card (which is the one which came with the TomTom package) to make room for them. On my Great Britain-map subdirectory on the TomTom card, I can see CSV files which were part of the 31/01/05 database. Can I get rid of those? I've got the overall OV2 files for each category of camera, but so far only found room for the gatso_20 and gatso_40 speed subcategories. Anything else you can suggest I can get rid of to make room for the others? And I presume that I need to use the inbuilt TomTom warning beeps rather than the specific WAV files that come with the download, as there doesn't seem to be room on my card for those either.

Tim Buxton · Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 6:12 pm Post subject:

The .csv files aren't of any use to you, so you can safely delete them.
_________________
Tim

permutations · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 30, 2005 Posts: 1

All the speedtrap software and databases I've seen are for Great Britain. Is there anything like this for people in the US, or do we just have to get tickets?

Fucawi

Do the speed zoned mobile OV2 files cover the pocketgps_uk_mobile file, as per the Gatso speed zoned files? Or do I need to load the pocketgps_uk_mobile file as well?
_________________
Where the Fucawi??

Tim Buxton

panafax · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 05, 2005 Posts: 3

Hi,

Could you tell me what speed camera database I can use with my navigon mobile navigator 4/ transonic 3002 unit please.

Is it poi warner or one of the other ones, and can i use the camera datav=base on this site.

Many thanks