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Originally Posted by georgelesley
Hey guys a new to forum guy here, but a long time RV'er, now in a class B MH. Question is thanks to this thread I have discovered the POI Factory of info for the gps. Not at all sure my garmin will accept it. When we travel in Canada we will not have internet. Can I download it to my laptop and then access it on the fly without internet, or at least small sections of it? I realize it will not be completely current but oh well......
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Here's the combined Encyclopedia Britannica and Coles Notes versions.****
POI Factory files are only as current as the person maintaining them wants them to be. It varies.
You can pick and choose which POI files (and available MP3 alert sounds, and map icons) you want, download them to your laptop, and then add the files to your Garmin when you have time. You'll also need a copy of the POI Loader application from the Garmin website to create the poi.gpi file that needs to be copied to your nuvi.
For each poi file you want on your nuvi, save it on your laptop somewhere, like in a My Garmin folder. Include any associated icon.bmp files, and any sound.mp3 files, and make sure all 3 files have the same file name. Like this
RestAreas.csv <<<<< Lat/Lon map coordinates
RestAreas.mp3 <<<< Audible alert warning when near the poi
RestAreas.bmp <<<<< visible icon that appears on your nuvi's screen
You can have as many 3 part poi file groups, in the same folder, as you desire.
Once you have all the poi files you want downloaded to your laptop, and they are named correctly and located in a file folder, fire up the POI Loader application. I use an older, more forgiving, version that doesn't complain as much about minor syntax errors in some of the files. Some of the .csv files from POI Factory are pretty poorly vetted for that sort of thing. The version I use is V254. The newer ones from Garmin are probably fine, too. I usually create a poi.gpi file on my laptop first, and then copy it to the nuvi SD card afterwards.
When the loader starts it will ask you where you want to put the .gpi file. I select "Custom Folder" and click "Next" then specify the "My Garmin" folder as the place to put it. Click "next" and then specify the location of the input files "My Garmin", and then select the units for distance and speed, and I use "Manual" mode for setting proximity distances, because I like to choose my own distances to trigger the audible poi alerts.
Then you'll have to add proximity distances to each poi file group, to tell the Garmin when to trigger the audible alert. When your files have all been processed, it will tell you it finished, and created ####### points of interest. The filename created will be poi.gpi and should be in your "My Garmin" folder.
Use the USB cable to connect your nuvi to your laptop. Once it finds the "N" drive, and the "S" drive if you have an installed SD card, copy the poi.gpi file onto the "S" drive into the folder named Garmin/POI as poi.gpi . Then safely remove your nuvi, and do a cold restart, by holding the power button in the "off" position for 30 seconds. When the nuvi reboots it should find the poi data on the SD card and will ask you if you want to copy it to your "N" (nuvi) drive. Reply "yes" or whatever to initiate the file copy. It will tell you if it worked or not.
Once all this is done, navigate to your EXTRAS folder on the nuvi under "Where To". Open it and you should see "Custom POIs". Touch that icon and you should see all of your newly added custom poi files. You can open them individually and check that your proximity distances look correct. You can test play the audibles, too.
Sorry for the length. It's hard to cook book this, but I think this should be accurate and might help.
Questions? Fire away.
Good Luck.
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