What every GPS needs

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Re: What every GPS needs

Postby kirkmallory » Wed Feb 02, 2011 12:27 am

This was working great. But someone was asking me how to do this, saying they were getting an error message. So I downloaded the most recent version of POI Loader (2.6) like they just did, and now I'm also getting this error message when I try to load Colorado, for example. The only peak that loads is Mt. Elbert. Same thing for New Mexico, except the error occurs on line 13, so the first twelve peaks download. Unfortunately, now all my Custom POI's are gone except for these. Did something change with the new version of POI Loader? Every state seems to have a different line where the error occurs.
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Re: What every GPS needs

Postby DSunwall » Wed Feb 02, 2011 7:33 am

thanks for the warning, I'll be sure not to upgrade. I'm guessing you will need to contact Garmin on this one. Although Mr. Kirk the :wiz: may know right off.

One thing you might try is looking at the file with Xcel to see what is different about the lines that create the errors. Maybe the new POI loader has different character length restrictions.
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Re: What every GPS needs

Postby John Kirk » Wed Feb 02, 2011 12:02 pm

Here is the old version (2.54)... 2.6 has some issues with character parsing in the name and is not a stable release (delete 2.6 and install 2.54):

POILoaderforWindows_254.exe
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Re: What every GPS needs

Postby kirkmallory » Wed Feb 02, 2011 11:36 pm

Thanks John - it's working great again.
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Re: What every GPS needs

Postby John Kirk » Thu Mar 17, 2011 5:52 pm

Just learned last night that you can put in custom POI icons (256 color bitmaps no larger than 24 x 24pixels) in the same directory and name the same as your POI files, and they will be the POI icons used on your GPS (if Garmin and supported model). So if you ever wanted a different color/shape icon for unranked, p1k, p2k etc, elevation ranges, there is an easy way to do it. Magenta is the color to use for transparency rgb value of "255, 0, 255".

For example,
1) Download all peaks up to a maximum prominence first (i.e. 0' min and 299' max) and name 1.poi, then create a bitmap and name 1.bmp in the same folder
2) Download the higher prominence peaks next (i.e. min 300', blank max), then name 2.poi, then create a bitmap 2.bmp and put in the same folder.
3) Load as usual to your GPS with POI loader
Voila - different icons for prominence thresholds...
I'll post my LoJ custom bmp later.

BTW I changed some links mentioned in this thread:
http://listsofjohn.com/board/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=332&start=15#p4080
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Re: What every GPS needs

Postby John Kirk » Thu Mar 17, 2011 9:35 pm

Some more info and bmps...
Image

Here, orange icons represent peaks with less than 300' prominence, and black are greater than or equal to 300'.

The bmp files used:
COrankedpoi.bmp
COrankedpoi.bmp (1.62 KiB) Viewed 37333 times

COunrankedpoi.bmp
COunrankedpoi.bmp (1.62 KiB) Viewed 37333 times


The setup for the POI directory prior to loading:
Image
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Re: What every GPS needs

Postby Steve Knapp » Fri Mar 18, 2011 9:11 pm

Cool, I'll have to check that out sometime. Looks like you have a new toy, looks distinctively like an Oregon or Dakota.
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Re: What every GPS needs

Postby wayfarer » Fri Jul 08, 2011 1:39 pm

John,

I just bought a Garmin GPSMAP 76CSx to replace my much more basic and limited GPSMAP 76 and am excited to finally be able to load lots of maps (loading at this very moment!) and start using custom POIs, among many other long anticipated abilities. Anyway, I have been thinking about the custom symbols thing for some time now and would love to be able to use your two .bmp images for ranked and unranked. Are they available for members to use? It looks like the post has a link to them for downloading but it doesn't work, unless I am missing something. I was considering using the green dots for small city and medium or large city to differentiate them but your icons with the LOJ logo is much better!

Also, one other problem so far. When I download the POIs or gpx for all the peaks in a state, at least the eastern ones, if I select 0-299 prominence, I still get all the ranked peaks as well. If I select ranked only, then that is indeed all I get.

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Re: What every GPS needs

Postby John Kirk » Fri Jul 08, 2011 4:56 pm

You can right-click the images and save them to your desktop (in internet explorer it is 'save picture as' and 'save image as' in firefox.

The max prom parameter was only applying when a member was selected - fixed that to apply in either case.
Thanks
John
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Re: What every GPS needs

Postby wayfarer » Fri Jul 08, 2011 8:57 pm

Wow, thanks John. This is freakin' awesome! In my very first experience with POIs, I just loaded over 20,000 summits for all the Southeastern states in the LOJ database with your two icons to differentiate ranked from unranked. Might as well throw in all the Northeast stuff too when I have a bit more time. Got to test this stuff out in the hills tomorrow!

LOJ Peaks map.bmp
Screenshot of ranked and unranked LOJ peaks on my new Garmin 76CSx.
LOJ Peaks map.bmp (38.55 KiB) Viewed 37220 times
Sand Mountain POI.bmp
A screenshot of the data on the POI.
Sand Mountain POI.bmp (38.55 KiB) Viewed 37220 times


Very cool!
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Re: What every GPS needs

Postby John Kirk » Fri Jul 08, 2011 9:30 pm

Cool - glad you like it. Once you have used this setup, it's hard to imagine being without it...
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Re: What every GPS needs

Postby wayfarer » Wed Jul 13, 2011 9:11 pm

I made some more progress with my POI learning experience.

For my own personal use, I made your images a smaller 16X16 pixel size, simplifying them slightly in the process. I also added red fill to the LOJ letters on the ranked peak icon to distinguish peaks at least P1K for a total of three different peak files - LOJ unranked, LOJ ranked, and LOJ Prom Peaks. I tried naming the latter "P1K" but this was apparently interpreted by the gps or poi loader to be a proximity alarm and the info fields for those peaks only had info about the distance at which a proximity alarm would respond. I renamed it "LOJ Prom Peaks". reloaded it, and it was fine, so maybe no numbers in the file name? It took some time to download and compile all the files ( I used Extra POI Editor for this :http://turboccc.wikispaces.com/Extra_POI_Editor ), but I now have nearly 36,000 Eastern peaks, subpeaks, and high points in the gps! And it's only 2.96 mb.

Since the gps only holds 1,000 waypoints, I decided this also was a great way to put my personally set 2,500 or so waypoints that I have taken over the years on various summits, viewpoints, at waterfalls, obscure junctions, etc., etc. I liked that one screenshot you had of an Oregon(?) with a pin as a marker so I made my own little red pin to mark all my personal POIs which also works great to show me LOJ peaks I've already climbed without cluttering the screen too much. Of course, they don't always hit dead on since sometimes the highest point as determined on the ground isn't in the middle of a large contour. This personal list is easily updated and reloaded anytime I like. A long term project will be to add pertinent info to many of them. One caveat - I have had some issues with my converted gpx files losing their tracks and the elevation information being tripled, apparently being converted from meters to feet - though it was already in feet. Fortunately, I had the file stored in Dropbox and was able to recover a previous version with all my data intact. Playing around with duplicate files would be prudent!

Another neat trick I learned is that I can go into mass storage mode and rename the POI files to whatever I like and they will still show up just fine but not be overwritten next time I load POIs. Why upload 39,000 POIs when I only want to modify one small file or add a new category? Here is the article I learned this from: http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=140808

Here are a couple screenshots and the icon files I used:

small LOJ icons.bmp
small LOJ icons.bmp (38.55 KiB) Viewed 37202 times
custom POIs menu.bmp
custom POIs menu.bmp (38.55 KiB) Viewed 37202 times
LOJ Prom Peaks.bmp
LOJ Prom Peaks.bmp (1.3 KiB) Viewed 37202 times
LOJ ranked.bmp
LOJ ranked.bmp (1.3 KiB) Viewed 37202 times
LOJ unranked.bmp
LOJ unranked.bmp (1.3 KiB) Viewed 37202 times
My POIs.bmp
My POIs.bmp (1.3 KiB) Viewed 37202 times


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Re: What every GPS needs

Postby DSunwall » Thu Jul 14, 2011 6:57 am

I recognize a nerd at work. :-D Looks interesting I may have to try a few of those tricks. thanks.
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Re: What every GPS needs

Postby wayfarer » Thu Jul 14, 2011 7:37 am

A peakbagging nerd!

Rick :shock:
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Re: What every GPS needs

Postby RyanSchilling » Fri Jun 07, 2013 9:07 pm

Just got a new GPS, an Oregon 600 -- irritatingly my old 60CSx can't talk to computers with Windows 7 and beyond (thanks for the support, Garmin!) -- and I'm having some trouble with POIs.

They're showing up a little off-kilter. I'm guessing this is a map datum issue? Which datum should I be selecting on the unit?

The other thing I can't seem to figure out is that the unit is showing BOTH the default grey dot and the custom BMP I loaded. Strangely it's only doing so for some of the points. I don't see the rhyme or reason behind it.

Your input is appreciated!
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