TomTom Navigator Custom POIs... nearly there!!

TomTomTim · Occasional Visitor Joined: Feb 10, 2005 Posts: 25

Has anyone made any further progress with a way of extracting and copying favourites between xxx.cfg.pdb files?

I tried using PAR but it is really hit and miss - not really a practical proposition if you are a heavy user...

All power to the programmatically gifted Smile

poshfrock · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 02, 2005 Posts: 2

lbendlin · Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2005 3:28 am Post subject:

I am able to compile a working POI.DAT file. What is holding us back is the legalese - effectively you have to COMPLETELY REPLACE the existing POI.DAT file to stay compliant with TomTom's licence small print. This does limit the usefulness of this approach quite a bit - basically we will have to prove for each single POI that we include that it is not copyrighted elsewhere.

It's about time for a POI Wiki !!!
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TomTomTim · Occasional Visitor Joined: Feb 10, 2005 Posts: 25

I'm wondering if I've got confused as this thread has progressed from Falkien's orignial post: To start with it looked as though we were talking about editing the [map-name].cfg.pdb file that is used to store favourites so that they could be copied from one [map-name].cfg.pdb to an overlapping map (for example: from GB_Navigator.cfg.pdb to Major_Roads_of_Europe.cfg.pdb).

In the openng posting, Falkien was using PAR to do this - which shows commendable dedication and patience but PAR can hardly be descibed as having a 'user-friendly interface'. I tried to replicate Falkien's work and found it was very time-comsuming and error-prone (though that could just be me Wink

) - either way, I feel I am unlikely to use PAR when I am about to hop on my bike to go to France - somehow other things seem to take precidence...

I was hoping that one of the talented coders reading this list might have been able to figure out how to make a GUI that would display the favourites stored in any given [map-name].cfg.pdb file and allow them to be edited or copied to another [map-name].cfg.pdb.

Could someone put me right on this - are there two ideas here or is POI.DAT another way of handling the favourites that are stored in map-specific files?

TTTim

lbendlin · Posted: Thu Mar 03, 2005 2:42 pm Post subject:

no, it's two separate "projects"
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TomTomTim · Occasional Visitor Joined: Feb 10, 2005 Posts: 25

Thanks for the clarification Lutz Smile

Has anyone made any headway on a GUI for the [mapname].cfg.pdb favourites issue? Perhaps due to the predominance of PocketPC versions there is less interest or fewer deveopers?

TTTim

poshfrock · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 02, 2005 Posts: 2

Thanks for the update, Lutz.

Are you able to share any of the coding (VBA) you have done so that I can make my own updates of POI.DAT (keeping within the legal boundaries as I understand them)?

lbendlin · Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:34 am Post subject:

Not exactly but if you send me your POI groups I can compile a sample POI.DAT for you.
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Marc_J · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 01, 2005 Posts: 1

Hmm.. bit of a shame this thread seemed to hit a dead-end in March. I only just found it but it's the closest I've come to an answer.

Having only just received my TomTom+iPAQ bundle yesterday, I've only scratched the surface with its use and features. But one thing that bugs me is the inability to add POI's to an existing category.

So my curious mind set about locating what must be the existing POI database; poi.dat. (Since going through these forums I've confirmed this to be the case). But what next? Is it editable?

I hope someone a little (or a lot) more programme-minded than I is able to offer a solution!!

lbendlin · Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2005 5:43 pm Post subject:

Read the fineprint in your TomTom contract. It prohibits tampering with the existing map data. The only legal way to do this is to completely replace the existing POI.DAT with your own creation.

That's also the reason why we don't give the code out for this part.
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TomTomTim · Occasional Visitor Joined: Feb 10, 2005 Posts: 25

Just before this thread grinds to a halt again, I’d like to point-out that it started with a discussion of the location and manipulation of the user-defined favourites that are stored on a 'map-by-map' basis. Surely this is not the original map data as it is user-defined?

I share the thread originator’s (Falkien) frustration that when I switch to the 'Major Roads of Western Europe' map, all my favourites from the specific country are unavailable and of course, any favourites recorded on the 'Major Roads of Western Europe' map are unavailable when I switch back to the country-specific map.

With POIEdit and the ability to create our own POI categories, I find I am less concerned about POIs but more so about favourites. My current strategy is to create custom POI categories to replace my favourites but this does seem like a bit of a kludge and has limitations. A POIEdit-type program for favourites would be very useful.

I have ordered but not yet received my upgrade to TTN5, so perhaps this issue will be sorted-out in that and we won't have to worry about it further. Until then, I'd be interested to learn whether anyone has been able to make any further headway on manipulation of <map_name>.cfg files - or indeed if these are also subject to copyright restrictions that preclude management of the user-defined favourites stored within.

TTT

Hockeyfreak · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 02, 2005 Posts: 1

Anyone mind if I revive this topic for an idea that I have? I have TT5, and I've been trying to look for a way to create POI's from lat/long coordinates, due to the limitations of TT5 of only using addresses, and the poor USA coverage that doesn't seem to be worrying TomTom. My neighborhood was built over 5 years ago, but TT5 still shows it as an open, blank space. I've downloaded POI edit and converted addresses to lat/longs, and loaded it and it worked fine. My problem is, I'm thinking about trying out geocaching, and also when I'm at a location I want to make a POI for that is not on the map, I don't want to have to write down the lat/long, run to my desktop, add the POI, transfer it with card export, and then use it.

I've looked at other programs that simply show coordinates and other data to see if any let you create and save POIs as ov2 files, but none exist. Several are very close, such as Compass, http://www.gpspilot.com/products/compass.shtml, or http://www.cetusgps.dk/, but none have a save feature. PPC TT5 users have a very good option at http://www.navigating.de/TomTom_en/POI/Index.htm, but no Palm based solutions.

What would be great would be a program like "Compass", with an option to open existing .ov2 files stored on the SD card in the map directory, and save the existing location as a POI, or create a new ov2 file. Any Palm programmers out there want to try to tackle this one?? I'm a good beta tester, but have never had the time to learn programming.

Hope someone thinks this is possible. I think cetus is an open source program, but I may be mistaken.

Thanks

lbendlin · Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2005 3:54 am Post subject:

I can lend you a hand with the decoding/encoding algorithm of (non-optimized) OV2 files. But I am not (yet) a Palm programmer.
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wilburforce · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 04, 2006 Posts: 43

Having major difficulty in running extract_ttpoi

in the command prompt i type: start extract_ttpoi -f poi.dat c:

nothing happens mind you i dont know perl
all files are in the c: drive any ideas what to type may be a start thanks...

This is a very interesting subject...me thinks

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