POI's Success with Nav III

[Hilton]

Some may have read of my frustration at downloading Poi's from MyPoiWorld.
We ( Company & I ) tried everything ( yes, I mean everything ) but to no avail. I knew the Nav III had issues, but had proved that it would accept Poi's if in the correct file format .csv (also .gsx but at the moment just working with the first )
I had been after camping grounds in Europe and just stumbled across this site.
Archiescampings What a GEM
Well it gets better. I downloaded PoiLoader for Mac from Garmin not expecting too much. But it found my device and even uploaded the camping ground files I wanted. Wow.
Couple of tweeks to the files as loaded, ( mainly removed every thing not related to Garmin and finally tossed out the .gpx file to prevent multiple loads ) but very easy. Macs rock !!
The interface from garmin doesn't seem to support removing Poi's from the unit but thats easy using the unit itself.
Just one question
Can you load multiple POI data bases or as I suspect each new install just over writes the last.

[davidr]

Hi Hilton,

I am by no means an expert with this, but POIs can be (or may automatically be converted ) to gpi file format and I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to store multiple gpi files in the garmin/poi directory of your Nav III.

If it boots up the same way as a 2820 there should be an option to switch the unit into USB mode when it starts and is plugged into a computer, I would think that if you do this, then copy out the content of your poi directory, then reload the unit with the second set of POIs, then I would think you can rename the first set and set them back again afterwards?

David

[davidr]

P.S. Archie's Camping, what a find!!

Looks very useful!

If only it had campsites for the Baltic states, it would be the answer to all my problems!

Many thanks for posting in any case.

David

[davidr]

Hi again Hilton,

I'm now busy playing with the GPX files from Archie's site and the best way that I've found to send them to the unit is to add them all to one MapSource session then send all the data from that (if you want to be be sure that you don't lose any existing pois from the unit, simply receive them all from the unit via MapSource first then make that session the basis for all the new points)

So, for example:

Open MapSource and select "Receive from Device" then select what you want to have, then save this session as something like my_bkup_points_date (just to be sure that you can retrieve them later)

Now open another MapSource session and load one of the Archie Camping files into it. Then select all the points you want from it (all, if your unit can store them but I advise you just select the ones you want from the appropriate region on the map using the selection tool), let's say that you select all Norway in this example.

Now you've selected all those points, I think it's a good idea to categorise them, so select them and click properties, then assign them a category and icon symbol that can identifiy them uniquely later (so that you don't mess up all the points together) then copy them to the clipboard and go back to the first MapSource session and paste them in there.

There's no reason why you can't add as many as you like then and send them back to the unit (if you hit the upper limit of waypoints, you may have to delete some from the unit) but you don't need to worry about deleting them now, as they are safely backed up on your pc. I'm not sure about the exact procedure for doing this on a NavIII, but on a Zumo you would delete the current.gpx file and the temp.gpx file from the Garmin/GPX folder on the unit.

HTH,

David

[Hilton]

Hi David, thanks for the tips. Now that I can work all this out from within the Mac OS, it's a breeze. For example from the site above I download the file eu12000, remove every thing except the Garmin file, then from within that remove the .gpx file. I can rename the data file but keep the .csv I also rename the .bmp file the same name, but not sure if that's required. As I build up more data bases, eg coffee shops Europe, same procedure, until I have what I want in the one folder. Open PoiLoader in Mac and transfer. Don't need to use Mapsource at all which is good as I've read it's messy to do the Xload from Windows to Mac. Multiple categories load within Extras and show up as your new name data sets. Wow, how cool is that. And very happy with that functionality as you just choose the data set you need.
Hope all is good up north, a great time to you both. Cheers H & R.

ps Try this link The flags on the left include the Baltics
Campinglinks Europa

[davidr]

Sounds like you're really getting the hang of this now Hilton!

And thanks for the fab tip about Baltic camping, that's just what I was looking for

Now need to stop chatting and go and load up the bike!

All the best to you both

David