Adding icons for built in POI?

Joined
Nov 29, 2007
Messages
42
Is it possible to assign an brand icon image (bmp) to a built in POI like lets say all Mobile gas or all Burger Kings without having to load a custom POI file which usually duplicates POI and most of time they are off by a block or two anyway.
I don't understand why they have a brand icon for McDonald's but yet BK still uses a generic restaurant icon.
 
Generating or changing icons for existing POI's already supplied with tom tom

OK, this is down right ridiculous. If you can't make this type of adjustment to the device, then it lacks serious value to me.

I have finally gotten fed up with this, and no one seems to know the answer. I called Tom Tom today, and went up through the levels of support to the Specialist Support area.

According to "Ashley" at Tom Tom, (after 45 minutes in discussions), there is:

NO WAY TO ALTER THE EXISTING .BMP's FOR THE DEFAULT CATAGORIES,

nor CAN YOU ALTER THE BMP FOR AN EXISTING POI THAT IS ALREADY PART OF THE TOM TOM DATABASE.

Further,

IF YOU MOVE AN EXISTING "BRANDED" POI THAT WAS ALREADY PART OF THE TOM TOM DATABASE, IT WILL LOOSE IT'S "BRANDED" .BMP ICON, AND IT CANNOT BE CORRECTED.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Folks, is it me, or are these failuires in design? I mean honestly, These are HUGE limitations.

Another thing, if you try to manage POI's, and then ADD POI, it lists the catagories, but only so many of them. It is limited. Like on mine, If I wanted to add a Restaurant, I cannot, because the Restaurant catagory doesn't show up. I know I could add it on it's own, but whats the point! I want it in the restaurant catagory. Ashley acknowledged this bug, too, and said they were working on it. WHATEVER!

These limits to the device and it's software are a deal breaker.

Anyone serious about a GPS should avoid the 920 IMHO.
 
Last edited:
OK, this is down right ridiculous. If you can't make this type of adjustment to the device, then it lacks serious value to me.

I have finally gotten fed up with this, and no one seems to know the answer. I called Tom Tom today, and went up through the levels of support to the Specialist Support area.

According to "Ashley" at Tom Tom, (after 45 minutes in discussions), there is:

NO WAY TO ALTER THE EXISTING .BMP's FOR THE DEFAULT CATAGORIES,

nor CAN YOU ALTER THE BMP FOR AN EXISTING POI THAT IS ALREADY PART OF THE TOM TOM DATABASE.

Further,

IF YOU MOVE AN EXISTING "BRANDED" POI THAT WAS ALREADY PART OF THE TOM TOM DATABASE, IT WILL LOOSE IT'S "BRANDED" .BMP ICON, AND IT CANNOT BE CORRECTED.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Folks, is it me, or are these failuires in design? I mean honestly, I am seriously thinking about marching my 920T right back to the store. These are HUGE limitations.

Another thing, if you try to manage POI's, and then ADD POI, it lists the catagories, but only so many of them. It is limited. Like on mine, If I wanted to add a Restaurant, I cannot, because the Restaurant catagory doesn't show up. I know I could add it on it's own, but whats the point! I want it in the restaurant catagory. Ashley acknowledged this bug, too, and said they were working on it. WHATEVER!

These limits to the device and it's software are a deal breaker.

Anyone serious about a GPS should avoid the 920 IMHO.

Wow, I had no idea I can't even modify an existing icon. I was a bit upset at the fact that the fire department and police department are both blue in color so I figured I can just edit the icon and change fire department to red color but now from what you say , this is not even possible. This is a failure on their part to allow user customization. I'm going back to Berger King , where I can have it my way!
 
there is:
1)NO WAY TO ALTER THE EXISTING .BMP's FOR THE DEFAULT CATAGORIES, nor CAN YOU ALTER THE BMP FOR AN EXISTING POI THAT IS ALREADY PART OF THE TOM TOM DATABASE.

2)IF YOU MOVE AN EXISTING "BRANDED" POI THAT WAS ALREADY PART OF THE TOM TOM DATABASE, IT WILL LOOSE IT'S "BRANDED" .BMP ICON, AND IT CANNOT BE CORRECTED.

3)3Folks, is it me, or are these failuires in design? I mean honestly, I am seriously thinking about marching my 920T right back to the store. These are HUGE limitations.

4)Another thing, if you try to manage POI's, and then ADD POI, it lists the catagories, but only so many of them. It is limited. Like on mine, If I wanted to add a Restaurant, I cannot, because the Restaurant catagory doesn't show up. I know I could add it on it's own, but whats the point! I want it in the restaurant catagory.

1)Sorry to say but this is not possible. Excuse my ignorance with other GPS units, but I don't know any other GPS out there that let you modify it's POI icon.

2)This is a great disappointed on TomTom's part. I hope they get this fix soon with a future firmware update. I also hate to see the original category icon when it first had the branded icon.

3)I can see how this disappoint can be with the branded icons. If you can point out a gps unit that lets you modify it's current POI icons, that would be great.

4)If you want to add a missing poi, do not use the Manage POI method. You have to use map share to add missing POIs. The manage POI method only works with custom POIs.
 
OK, this is down right ridiculous. If you can't make this type of adjustment to the device, then it lacks serious value to me.

I have finally gotten fed up with this, and no one seems to know the answer. I called Tom Tom today, and went up through the levels of support to the Specialist Support area.

According to "Ashley" at Tom Tom, (after 45 minutes in discussions), there is:

NO WAY TO ALTER THE EXISTING .BMP's FOR THE DEFAULT CATAGORIES,

nor CAN YOU ALTER THE BMP FOR AN EXISTING POI THAT IS ALREADY PART OF THE TOM TOM DATABASE.

Further,

IF YOU MOVE AN EXISTING "BRANDED" POI THAT WAS ALREADY PART OF THE TOM TOM DATABASE, IT WILL LOOSE IT'S "BRANDED" .BMP ICON, AND IT CANNOT BE CORRECTED.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Folks, is it me, or are these failuires in design? I mean honestly, I am seriously thinking about marching my 920T right back to the store. These are HUGE limitations.

Another thing, if you try to manage POI's, and then ADD POI, it lists the catagories, but only so many of them. It is limited. Like on mine, If I wanted to add a Restaurant, I cannot, because the Restaurant catagory doesn't show up. I know I could add it on it's own, but whats the point! I want it in the restaurant catagory. Ashley acknowledged this bug, too, and said they were working on it. WHATEVER!

These limits to the device and it's software are a deal breaker.

Anyone serious about a GPS should avoid the 920 IMHO.

TomTom units are more customizable than any other GPS unit you will be able to find on the market. No company can cater to everyone all the time. I'm happy that I'm able to change my splash screen to whatever image I want. I'm glad that I can create new car icons and use them. I'm happy that there are so many customizations and options available on my 720.

Last time I checked a GPS should get you from point A to point B. Whether point B has a "custom" icon next to it shouldn't really matter IMHO.

Which GPS will you switch to that provides this ability?
 
It's a matter of preference.

Look Will,

Last time I "checked", the splash screen was of NO VALUE. A GPS is supposed to get you from point a to point b, who cares about the splash screen, right?

Aha! Now you may see things in a different light. My point is, that we all have certain needs and desires. To me, the splash screen is silly and irrelevant, but the Icons representing POI's is very relevant as I travel. It's nice to know what is at the approaching exit, before I arrive.

Now, to further clarify my issue...... Let's use McDonald's for example. Out of the box, the TT has McDonalds as a Branded POI, with the correct BMP. Now, what if you found a McDonald's that showed up on your TT, as a POI, and had the address and phone # record, etc. BUT DID NOT have the correct icon; only the default icon. This is unusual. You would expect ALL the McDonald's to be using the same icon, wouldn't you? I mean, if YOU hadn't added it, this would be strange, no?
That is what I'm talking about. I want to be able to go and correct that ICON, and with the TT, you can't, and this is a flaw in design. Whether you can or cannot do it with another unit is irrelevant.

Different people have different needs. Keep that in mind.
 
McDonalds Branded, BK Not.

Is it possible to assign an brand icon image (bmp) to a built in POI like lets say all Mobile gas or all Burger Kings without having to load a custom POI file which usually duplicates POI and most of time they are off by a block or two anyway.
I don't understand why they have a brand icon for McDonald's but yet BK still uses a generic restaurant icon.

According to TomTom Support, this is because McDonalds PAYS THEM to Brand it.
 
Look Will,

Last time I "checked", the splash screen was of NO VALUE. A GPS is supposed to get you from point a to point b, who cares about the splash screen, right?

Aha! Now you may see things in a different light. My point is, that we all have certain needs and desires. To me, the splash screen is silly and irrelevant, but the Icons representing POI's is very relevant as I travel. It's nice to know what is at the approaching exit, before I arrive.

Now, to further clarify my issue...... Let's use McDonald's for example. Out of the box, the TT has McDonalds as a Branded POI, with the correct BMP. Now, what if you found a McDonald's that showed up on your TT, as a POI, and had the address and phone # record, etc. BUT DID NOT have the correct icon; only the default icon. This is unusual. You would expect ALL the McDonald's to be using the same icon, wouldn't you? I mean, if YOU hadn't added it, this would be strange, no?
That is what I'm talking about. I want to be able to go and correct that ICON, and with the TT, you can't, and this is a flaw in design. Whether you can or cannot do it with another unit is irrelevant.

Different people have different needs. Keep that in mind.

And back to the question: what other GPS brand overcomes this "flaw?"
 
I tend to agree with Kberry. While certain features of the TT are nice, cute and even helpful. It is missing some features. It would be nice to be able to deal easier with poi files and additions. From the speed with which my 920 recalculates routes, there should be enough horsepower for additional processing. Since they have created a TTHome application, some more power could be added to that which would allow better editing functions.
 
I'm really surprised that some of the built in POI don't always have a phone number to call. I never had this issue with my Garmin.
Yet the Garmin didn't even show POI on the main display map so it lost points there. Its like you trade one perk for another. I just wish one device would have best of both worlds as far as features and customizations.
 
The branding information is contained in the "brand" folder. The file name is the category_brandID.bmp where category is the category number and brandID is the brand id within that category.

Now the issue is this. Does every POI in a given category have a brandID or only those that have brand icons. If they all have brandID's then you could add the brand icons. If not my bet is that you can't.
 
The branding information is contained in the "brand" folder. The file name is the category_brandID.bmp where category is the category number and brandID is the brand id within that category.

Now the issue is this. Does every POI in a given category have a brandID or only those that have brand icons. If they all have brandID's then you could add the brand icons. If not my bet is that you can't.

Has any one here try changing an icon in brand folder with same name icon to see what happens? Were are the icons located for other default catagories like fire station and such?
 
Has any one here try changing an icon in brand folder with same name icon to see what happens? Were are the icons located for other default catagories like fire station and such?

I have gone into the "Brand" folder and overwritten some bmp's with the one's I wanted to use....but I've only "updated" them, for instance, the default Starbucks icon looks like a recycle bin, so I went to poifactory.com and got a new starbucks icon, and overwrote the old starbucks bmp in the brand folder. Works like a charm.

I've done this with a number of default icons that just don't look as good as ones you can find online.

But the purpose of me doing all of this was to try to find out how to assign a "custom icon" to a specific restaurant for instance (instead of the default fork and knife). I'm sure this is possible, but I think one would have to mess around with the POI.dat file, which looks like a pain in the ass from what I've read.
 
I would love to find a way to assign new icons to generic icons. Like how about being able to see an actual Burger King logo rather then generic restaurant logo for all BK's . Also seeing other logos for know restaurants would be nice.

On side note , how can I change the icon of the fire department to red rather then the standard blue since that makes it look like a police dept?
 
I would love to find a way to assign new icons to generic icons. Like how about being able to see an actual Burger King logo rather then generic restaurant logo for all BK's . Also seeing other logos for know restaurants would be nice.

On side note , how can I change the icon of the fire department to red rather then the standard blue since that makes it look like a police dept?

I used Paintshop to substitute colors and changed Fire to RED.
 

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