T-Mobile G1 and CoPilot Live 8

Wiggo · Lifetime Member Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 80

I know it's only been out for a week, but the CoPilot safety camera database, while free, does not contain mobiles so it's a bit pants. Does anyone have any install instructions for the database from here? I tried following the CoPilot 7 instructions, but no joy - there's no AO*.* files.

It does have a structure of MOBILE_DEVICE\EU\UK\save\user_places\safetycam but all the files there are poi.*

Wiggo · Lifetime Member Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 80

OK, answered my own question, partly at least. Removing all the poi.* files removes safety cameras (obviously) and dropping the .csv files into the EU\UK\save directory forces the new cameras from PGPSW to be imported.

I managed to miss out the first step, so I now have a merged database which will probably be full of dupes, so I'll have to redo all of later, but the CoPilot system says it has free monthly updates. Anyone know if these download automatically?

scarymonkey · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 1:51 pm Post subject:

If you redo it and can do a tutorial I am sure the team will host it for others to follow as well.
It sounds very much like the windows mobile version - just the files you delete are different.

Wiggo · Lifetime Member Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 80

Seems more confusing than that. I'm now getting multiple audio warnings for a single camera and that's after I deleted the CoPilot speedcams directory. It seems that you can also upload .csv, .ov2 and .ezp files via the CoPilot Central desktop client and this also lets you add your own icons as .png files (no specs available that I can find).

I will investigate...

MaFt · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 2:26 pm Post subject:

cheers wiggo

none of us have CP8 yet so any tips/guides you can provide would be much appreciated!

MaFt

Wiggo · Lifetime Member Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 80

OK, so I'm totally new to CoPilot. If there's anything here that seems to be a carry over from CP7 and you have info that's relevant, please let me know.

I deleted the standard speed camera POI data by removing the \copilot\EU\UK\save\user_places\speedcams directory and that removes all cameras from the mapping.

Using CoPilot Central (which seems a little 'beta release') I installed a .csv file. This writes the .csv and .png (if you have one) to copilot\save.

Restarting CoPilot causes the app to go through its 'Integrating POIs' routine (which can seem to take forever - the 'Cancel' dialog on a blank screen looks like a crashed app, but it does come back eventually). This results in a bunch of files called poi.* (17 files, different extensions) being created in copilot\EU\UK\save\user_places\whatever_your_csv_was_called

whatever_your_csv_was_called now shows as a POI set which you can apparently edit, but selecting it only gives you the option to delete.

The full set of PGPSW speedcams now show on the map. Interestingly, they do not show as a POI set that you can choose to display or not from the POI Display menu, so somehow the thing is working out that this POI database is speed cameras. Anyone know how that works?

Wiggo · Lifetime Member Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 80

Well, it definitely manages to interpret the PGPSW database as speed cameras, because disabling 'Safety Cameras' in 'Currently Displayed POIs' removes them from the display... I can't get it to recognise the .png file I added in, however, nor can I find where it moved it to.

Darren · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 3:44 pm Post subject:

And FWIW, ALK chose to use someone else for their data because it was free (free=rubbish).

It looks great in the specs though and in the ads but you quickly realise you get what you pay for.
_________________
Darren Griffin

MaFt · Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 3:53 pm Post subject:

the fact that O2 demands that CoPilot comes with our database on any O2 phones/PDAs that come bundled with the software speaks for itself really about the accuracy!

MaFt

Wiggo · Lifetime Member Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 80

OK, so there's some good info in the CP7 forum on this. I will try some more experimenting later, but it would appear that...

Importing a single or multiple .csv files will result in updates to the safety camera database only.

Once ingested, the .csv files are deleted and the POI.* files created

CoPilot ignores icons even if you upload them.

If you want to import other POI databases, import as .ov2 files, otherwise they will be added to the camera database

I will do some more playing later and report back. Particularly, CP7 seemed to have some problems with heading data on some cameras, so we'll see if this has been fixed.

Wiggo · Lifetime Member Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 80

OK, so there's maybe an undocumented feature in CP8 for Android. I installed two .csv's - the full UK database and the pmobile database (approx 10k and 1k entries respectively).

When you start CP8 it announces it is integrating POIs and counts up through the 10k entries, then just displays a 'Cancel' dialog box. This appears to sit there for ever more. Pressing the 'back' button on the G1 gets back to the main CP screen with cameras showing. Quitting and restarting now says it is integrating another 1000 POIs (so I infer it did the main database first but did not terminate on its own) and again I needed to hit the 'Back' button to clear the 'Cancel' box.

I now have two new directories each with 17 POI.* files and a Version.dat file:

\copilot\EU\UK\save\user_places\pocketgps_uk_sc
\copilot\EU\UK\save\user_places\pocketgps_uk_pmobile

I can easily test the 'real' cameras, and I'm failry confident these all work, but checking the pmobiles will be more challenging. I may try to add my own to the .csv to check later...

Wiggo · Lifetime Member Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 80

OK, so here's my recommendation.

Delete the 'copilot\EU\UK\save\user_places\safetycam' directory
Download the complete PGPSW database in OV2 format
Use CoPilot Central to install it, or save it in \copilot\save

When CoPilot starts it will integrate the database, then ask you if you are adding safety cameras. Simply say yes.

For all other POIs, import as OV2's and it will then ask what category you want to import as (you can create your own) as well as which icon to use.

Fairly straightforward after all that...

I'll comment on the pmobiles later.

Wiggo · Lifetime Member Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 80

A couple of quirks spotted so far.

There is a cluster of mobiles that I pass regularly near Winnersh (A329) - no fewer than 8 Gatsos and 2 red light cameras within a mile and a half. Two of the Gatsos don't show up, although I do get an audible warning. As I pass Gatso 535 (from the PGPSW database) it doesn't show but I get a warning. As I pass Gatso 16029, again it doesn't show but I get four audio warnings in succession.

Mobile 6380 (A308, Maidenhead) also does not show but gives an audible warning.

This intermittent display seems to have been documented in CP7, but I'm not aware of any solution. Does anyone know if it is anything like the old TomTom Navigator issue of only being able to manage a certain number of POIs at any one time? Is it worth turning off some of the other POIs?

I also wonder if the repeated audio warnings is anything to do with the proximity of the cameras. Even set to the minimum warniong distance you can be in range of three or four cameras at a time. Is it just trying to warn about all of them and not having time to do it properly?

Wiggo · Lifetime Member Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 80

Just did a restart and all three 'missing' cameras have reappeared. This is a tad frustrating...

I have also failed to get any new icons to load up so far...

And then disappeared again (or at least two of them did.) I passed a camera on the A4 earlier and got no fewer than 9 warnings for it. I only got 4 when I went past it in the other direction, though, so that's an improvement...

More:
I followed some advice from the CP7 forum and merged the camera files to a single csv using this utility from LandRocket: http://www.landrocket.co.uk/cammerge.zip

I haven't tested the multiple warnings thing, but I will do later and report. The missing cameras is definitely a bug, as if I switch to the 2D view they're all there, but the y vanish again as soon as I go back to the 3D view.

Wiggo · Lifetime Member Joined: Mar 02, 2006 Posts: 80

Just had a chat with ALK support.

Right now, you can't import custom icons for POIs, on account of a rather half-baked story about CoPilot needing to use .bmp files and Android not supporting them as it's not a Windoze platform. Codespeak: it's a bug and we'll try to patch it later.

Ref the missing speed cameras/multiple warnings he suggested the POI file was somehow corrupt and will email instructions on how to regenerate the original. I pointed out that I got the same problem with the PGPSW data and he agreed that was strange. We'll try with a vanilla CP8 set first and take it from there.

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