GSAK and TomTom question

[+beerbrewer737]

Now that I gone paperless (which was a pain but worth it) I have another question...I noticed on GSAK I can export to TomTom as a POI. As anyone done this?

[+Curious Technology]

I have done this, not with GSAK, but with gpsbabel which is what GSAK is using 'under the hood'.

It works perfectly.

 

It should create a .gs file, which is the TomTom POI format. You'll want to place this in the same directory as your Map data. There should be a folder wherever you installed the Maps.

 

Once you have it in there, start up TomTom and go to preferences, and i beleve manage POIs (maybe enable POIs). You'll see a list of POI categories. Scroll down the list and you should see your filename listed. Put a check mark beside it and go back to the map, and you should see your POIs pop up now. You can also see them from the "Browse Map" option, just in case your current position isn't near a POI.

[+DocDiTTo]

I too use TomTom on my PDA. One thing I've noticed is that TomTom 5 on a Windows-based PDA only seems to recognize the first 99 (or so) caches in a custom POI file. GSAK/GPSBabel will allow you to create a POI file with more though. I don't know whether TomTom hardware units have this same limitation. Just be aware that it exists. If it's a limiting factor on your TomTom unit you can create multiple POI files, and limit each to about 99 caches. TomTom will recognize multiple POI files, so you can get around this limit if it exists.

[+renruts]

I too use TomTom on my PDA. One thing I've noticed is that TomTom 5 on a Windows-based PDA only seems to recognize the first 99 (or so) caches in a custom POI file. GSAK/GPSBabel will allow you to create a POI file with more though. I don't know whether TomTom hardware units have this same limitation. Just be aware that it exists. If it's a limiting factor on your TomTom unit you can create multiple POI files, and limit each to about 99 caches. TomTom will recognize multiple POI files, so you can get around this limit if it exists.

 

it is a .ov2 file not a .gs. The .gs is the explorist format

 

Doc, Interesting... I too use TomTom navigator 5 on my Dell Axim for quite a while, and have not seen any limitation such as this. I have over 8000 caches loaded in my TOMTOM on different maps. I create a single caches.ov2 and found.ov2 and populate those into my maps. TomTom has no issues seeing the 8000+ or the close to 900 finds all on one map. Can you give more details....

 

Could it be that you are seeing more of the radius limitation for goto's? Ie if I choose "navigate to" then choose "caches" (could be any name that you give the poi group) then I have a list of caches in a limited radius. Now if you click on the keyboard icon on the lower left you can search for caches outside that current radius by name.

[+DocDiTTo]

 

Doc, Interesting... I too use TomTom navigator 5 on my Dell Axim for quite a while, and have not seen any limitation such as this. I have over 8000 caches loaded in my TOMTOM on different maps. I create a single caches.ov2 and found.ov2 and populate those into my maps. TomTom has no issues seeing the 8000+ or the close to 900 finds all on one map. Can you give more details....

 

Could it be that you are seeing more of the radius limitation for goto's? Ie if I choose "navigate to" then choose "caches" (could be any name that you give the poi group) then I have a list of caches in a limited radius. Now if you click on the keyboard icon on the lower left you can search for caches outside that current radius by name.

 

Hmmm... could be! I typically do a "Navigate to" then "POI" then scroll thru the list that pops up. I'll have to try it your way, that might make all the difference.

[+forman]

I got a tomtom 910 a few months ago. Here is what Marky sent me to get me going. I did it awhile ago and all is well. Vista is another story:-(

 

There are a few steps to get PQ's working with a tomtom.

1) You need to create a POI category for them.

A) Change Preferences->Manage POIs->Add POI Category

Enter something like Geocache. Pick an marker (icon) for it. Now, there is a file that is created for you called Geocache.ov2 on your tomtom. That is what you need to write to from GSAK or gpsbabel. I don't know of any other software that writes to tomtom format.

Connect your tomtom to your computer and turn it on. Answer YES to if you want to connect to your computer. This should mount the tomtom as a drive. I don't know what drive letter it will use on your system, you'll have to figure that out. Let's assume that it uses drive E.

C) From GSAK, you need to select File->Export->TomTom POI File...

You'll need to browse to your Geocache.ov2 file. It will probably be in E:\North_America\Geocache.ov2

D) If you want Tomtom to show Geocaches on the map, you'll have to enable them (Change Preferences->Enable/Disable POIs).