Creating Icons for Tomtoms's "embedded" POI's

[dgarvey981]

Hi all,

I have a theory that I want someone to shoot down for me so I can stop trying to perfect my TT 720 and just live with it and enjoy it for what it CAN do....not what it can't!

So I found out that one can change the icons for the "embedded" POI's that came with your TT, or at least you can with the BRANDED poi's.....for instance all the icons listed in the "brands" folder of your NA map. Pretty simple really....replace the any .bmp with one you want to use and that's it. I've done that with a bunch of the brands since I was able to find much "cleaner/better" icons online.

Now on to my theory... I've learned that the poi.dat breaks down the built in poi's into number categories...for instance, gas stations are category #7311. So if you look in your BRAND folder, you'll see 7311_1.bmp (76 Stations), 7311_2.bmp (Chevron Stations), 7311_3.bmp (Conoco Stations), etc, etc, etc.

You'll notice that there is only 7 brands for Gas Stations. The last one being 7311_7.bmp (Texaco).

My theory is that the poi.dat file continues on keeping the same naming method for the rest of the gas stations...therefore if I created an icon with the file name 7311_8.bmp (The next number in the series), somewhere in the hundreds of thousands of gas stations poi's will be one with the icon I just created. The key would be to know which gas station correlated with 7311_8, which is nearly impossible without seeing the poi.dat file from the inside.

The idea behind this theory is to be able to change the "generic" icons (such as the fork and knife for a restaurant) into something useful for when you're driving.

Any ideas? Thoughts?

Thanks,
Darren

 

[Birdman]

I've thought this theory as well, and as you state, it will be impossible to know what specific POI that new *.bmp you create correlates to.

For future reference, the generic code lists for the categories is as follows:
Airport 7383
Amusement Park 9902
Beach 9357
Camping Ground 7360
Car Dealer 9910
Car Repair Facility 7310
Cash Dispenser 7397
Casino 7341
Church 9906
Cinema 7342
City Center 7379
College/University 7377
Company 9352
Concert Hall 9367
Convention Centre 9377
Courthouse 9363
Cultural Center 7319
Dentist 9374
Doctor 9373
Embassy 7365
Exhibition Center 7385
Ferry Terminal 7352
Frontier Crossing 7366
Golf Course 9911
Government Office 7367
Hospital Polyclinic 7321
Hotel/Motel 7314
Ice Skating Ring 9360
Leisure Centre 9378
Library 9913
Mountain Pass 9935
Mountain Peak 9364
Museum 7317
Nightlife 9379
Open Parking 7369
Opera 9365
Park and Recreation Area 9362
Parking Garage 7313
Petrol Station 7311
Pharmacy 7326
Place of Worship 7339
Police Station 7322
Post Office 7324
Railway Station 7380
Rental Car Facility 7312
Rental Car Parking 9930
Rest Area 7395
Restaurant 7315
Scenic/Panoramic View 7337
Shop 9361
Shopping Center 7373
Sports Centre 7320
Stadium 7374
Swimming Pool 7338
Tennis Court 9369
Theatre 7318
Tourist Attraction 7376
Tourist Information Office 7316
Veterinarian 9375
Water Sport 9371
Winery 7349
Yacht Basi 9380
Zoo 9927

 

[LarryF]

POI Icons?

This is an interesting thread - I'm interested in changing - rather than adding - icons for the embedded poi's.

Have you tried changing the poi.dat file?? Did it work?

In any case, how did you access the data? I can't find any utility or program that will allow me to view the data - much less change the data - in the poi.dat file. If I could see the data in some meaningful form, I have the ability to change it even at the Hexidecimal level.

Any success with any of this??
Anybody have a clew?

LarryF

 

[dgarvey981]

This is an interesting thread - I'm interested in changing - rather than adding - icons for the embedded poi's.

Have you tried changing the poi.dat file?? Did it work?

In any case, how did you access the data? I can't find any utility or program that will allow me to view the data - much less change the data - in the poi.dat file. If I could see the data in some meaningful form, I have the ability to change it even at the Hexidecimal level.

Any success with any of this??
Anybody have a clew?

LarryF

I've searched and searched on info about the poi.dat file. It seems that there was/is programs that your supposed to be able to use to view it, and edit it such as Gest.poi.dat (software). But it seems that either these programs are old, or that TOMTOM finally encrypted the poi.dat file (or both) and therefore the programs don't really work. But my guess is that someone one here has the ability to get into the poi.dat file and help us all out.

But I agree with you, that even if we could VIEW the data, we might be able to figure out what store names correlate to what numbers and figure out how to change the default icons.

 

[RedBaron]

I just tried to replace one of the images for the Car rental facility 7312
I copied the image 8 times to see if any change would be made. The image won't change no mater how high I seem to go with the images too. This stinks major. I wonder if the other catagories are locked too.

 

[Malouff]

Has anyone made any progress with adding Brand Icons?

I have notice that the Brand Folder changes icons with different map versions having only 800 and 815
7315_40.bmp

was in the 800.1727 Map but not in 815.2019

I tried searching for Tj cinnamons in Albuquerque NM and found two using a SD Card with 8.00 Maps
1. 3326 CENTRAL AVE SE
2. 1416 MERCANTILE AVE NE

I then tried using the internal device that has 8.15 maps and could not find it so that is probably why the icon was removed as TomTom removed T.J. Cinnamons

9361_3.bmp

and 9361_4.bmp

were added in the 815.2019 map

I tried searching for Circuit City using the 800 map to see if it was there and only needed an icon.
It wasn't by default but if you download the Shop POI from Home it is and lot's of stores Icons

I wanted to examine Shop.ov2 but it is binary
This is a cool download as the Cab included just Shop.bmp but somehow I got
shop_2.bmp to shop_11.bmp maybe they are embedded in the ov2 or something and get extracted.
The ov2 file however remains the same size (very strange)
I know the shop_#.bmp are used by this ov2 as shop_3.bmp is a Circuit City Icon and I was able to find it with the Shop POI added.

Yea, I know Circuit City is going out of business but wanted to help test the Brand Icons

I also know that POI.dat is compressed or encrypted but it looks like a ov2 can also be such as Shop.ov2

 

[dhn]

Malouf, I don't know whether knowing the numbers used by TT for the different categories helps you or not, but a link to a thread containing the info can be found here

 

[Malouff]

Malouff, I don't know whether knowing the numbers used by TT for the different categories helps you or not, but a link to a thread containing the info can be found here

So far knowing the category numbers only helps me if I were merging a ov2 file.
It will come in handy though

The only posts that I have been able to find for a starting place to finding out anything is a few POI.dat tools that don't seem to work and this interesting post

When you extract the poi's from poi.dat you will get files with extensions ov2, asc and poi as well as a couple of others. I deleted everything except the poi files.
Lines in poi.lst such as
7315=restaurant.asc
7315=macdonalds.ov2
7315=takeaway.ov2
will work as will a single line
7315=restaurant.poi
but you can't mix poi's with asc or ov2 files.

I am thinking/hoping that maybe in that poi.lst that Scoop is talking about McDonalds was the 19th or 20th entry in the 7315 category and it would explain for the McDonalds Icon being 7315_20.bmp in the Brand folder.

As for the tools that no longer work here they are
extract_ttpoi.pl that uses perl - More info can be found here
Whatever ray also from SatNav created or wrote a tutorial for
TomTom's ov2tools
GestPoi.Dat

I was most excited about the DUMPOV2 in the TomTom ov2tools as I thought it could convert from the binary to ascii.
It does but not for any of what must be TomTom created and shared POI's such as Shops.ov2 , Schools.ov2 , Retail_Stores.ov2 , etc

I say that these POI and the POI.dat are created with a newer MAKEOV2

I also like how the readme says for an updated version to visit
http://www.palmtop.nl/ce/support/nav_poi.html
It goes to a Page not found on TomTom.com

I think TomTom needs to release updated ov2tools

I also found all of the tools found here Programs
As far as I can tell they are a GUI using some of the DOS ov2tools provided by TomTom