HOW TO: Add US Speedcams W/Warnings

[gjas18]

1. The quote below will tell how to enable the warning for cameras.

 

Disclaimer: Obey all laws, do not speed, do not run red lights.

 

Now the fun part. By the looks of HackZ' screen, he imported POIs with red light cameras. This is nice, but does not give you warnings or anything, as those are just another bunch of POIs.

 

Now, to enable real speed camera functionality, we need two things:

 

1. List of speed camera settings.

2. Code that enables them.

 

Code is easy: I've posted my scripts in this thread: http://www.avic411.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17820

 

Getting cameras in: you need a specially formatted text file that has camera coordinates, type (fixed, mobile, speed limit, type, etc). I've had good luck getting the file from http://www.gps-data-team.com/poi/united_states/safety/

 

Make sure you download the file in iGO format.

 

Reading one of the INI files, you should be able to save the file on your storage card:

\Storage Card\poi\speedcam\

 

and that should work. I've just copied the file to the unit's memory in ...APL2\IGO\Content\SpeedCam directory. It is recommended to delete file already there.

 

Unit will think for some time and slowly convert the text file into an internal database format (.spdb and .spud for manual updates).

 

Now, the cameras should show on screen. If you use my script files, you can go to Warnings section of system settings and specify how you want to be notified of them. Default sound is rather weak, but apparently can be changed and nicely configured... Still working on that.

 

To add a new camera: Place a cursor on the map in the position where camera is at. Press Map Info button. Press Save As. There is a new option: Save as Camera. Select camera type, speed limit, and save.

 

Similarly, if you put the cursor on an existing cameras, the button changes to Edit Camera.

 

Have fun.

 

Since the free database of speedcams quoted above seems to be of questionable quality the logical solution is to get the database somewhere else. The problem with this is the other databases (like the one I use in this example from poifactory.com) are in .csv format which is nothing like the format iGo likes. After two days of searching I finally found a way to convert this filetype to something iGo does like, a .spud... hehe potato

 

2. Anyway... First thing to do is have a semi-recent version of Excel and grab the spreadsheet/VB Script at the bottom of this post.

 

Caution: This spreadsheet does not seem to work on the latest version of Excel for Macs (2008) doesn't error out just plain doesn't work. I would assume this is a VBScript issue since Microsoft really hates to port programs in their entirety

 

3. PAY the $5 for the speedcam database from POI Factory. It will look something like this if opened in notepad.

 

-122.31507,47.82117,Red Light Camera .020yt,WA Lynnwood poi-factory Sep10 08

-111.8052,33.40804,Red Light Camera .01vx1,AZ Mesa poi-factory Sep10 08

 

Looks nothing like the files iGo likes right? But it does give all the info you need lat, long, and type of cam

 

Open the file downloaded from POI Factory in Excel and each of the comma seperated values (look ma I know what CSV stands for now!) should be in columns latitude in one longtitude in the other and text in the next two. What you will want is in the first two columns.

 

4. Open up the spreadsheet from the bottom of this post and copy the first column from the POI Factory CSV file and paste it into the longitude column in Speedcam Updates. Copy the second column out of the POI Factory CSV file and paste into the latitude column in Speedcam Updates.

 

All instructions from here on are for Speedcam Updates only! The CSV file from POI Factory can now be closed!

 

5. Click the first box in the Flag column and select new. Click on the box that says new and copy it. Select all of the boxes in the column by draging a box around them then paste. All the boxes should now say New.

 

6. Do the same as above with the Limit, Type, Angle, and Direction Columns. but the values to copy and paste are as follows:

Limit = 0

Type = Red Light Cam

Angle = 0

Direction = All Directions

 

7. In the cam number box you will have to number all of the cams by hand (all 2229 of them) unless someone more skilled with Excel than me can tell us how to have Excel do it for us.

 

8. Once this all done hit the check button. It will pop up with a few warnings.

 

9. Hit export and be sure to select the mio .spud format.

 

10. Take the file created and put it in /ap2/igo/content/speedcam. Also be sure to delete any other files in this directory.

 

Now congratulate yourself you should now have warnings for US redlight cameras.

SpeedcamUpdates 0.99.xls

[BorisM]

Good job.

 

Does the file from POI Factory contain speed cameras as well? If it does, it should not be too difficult to do an excel macro to replace camera types with iGO's numerical equivalents...

[gjas18]

Yes for the $5 they give you one month of updates for their redlight cams and speed cams. But the speed cams will be ridiculously more difficult to put into this spreadsheet since this is what they look like.

 

-82.6492,36.5471,"Speed Camera 55 MPH .024zp","TN Mount Carmel poi-factory Sep10 08"

-90.0757,29.9508,"Speed Camera .024zj","LA New Orleans poi-factory Sep10 08"

 

They don't give a direction at all, some don't have speed data. Basically POI Factories speed camera's are not very good. Not a big deal though since there are not very many of them (236)

 

If someone could find a good source of speed cameras putting them into this script would be easy.

[gjas18]

Now if the stupid warning sounds volume would adjust with speed everything would work fine

[BorisM]

I see. I guess $5 isn't too bad, but without correct speed and direction it is not quite as useful as it could be...

 

Although if the whole file looks like these lines you should be able to import it into Excel anyway, then default the type to fixed speed camera (0 I think), and then parse the name column for MPH. I'll try to get around to writing a macro that can extract at least speed if it is in there...

 

Speed camera databases are much more of a European things where there's a good business centered around them. In the US there are far fewer providers, although GPS Passion forum has a few collections.

[gjas18]

They do actually have a few different kinds. Looking through the file some of cameras are labeled mobile and school zone. So the type of camera seems to be right just inconsistent speed data and no direction.

[VBLUE42]

You guys do realize I posted that file that I paid five dollars for so you could have it for free right?

 

http://www.avic411.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17592

[VBLUE42]

Boris, with your mod I added a few redlight cams today in my area just for testing. The visual alerts worked but audio alerts did not. Any way to look into this?

[VBLUE42]

Boris, with your mod I added a few redlight cams today in my area just for testing. The visual alerts worked but audio alerts did not. Any way to look into this?

 

Nevermind, got it working.

 

http://avic411.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17592

[VBLUE42]

Since the free database of speedcams quoted above seems to be of questionable quality the logical solution is to get the database somewhere else.

 

Actually I have looked over both file sets and they seem to match fairly well for location. I believe it is actually a good idea to use both Boris's mod and the poifactory kml file on your SD card. Boris's mod alerts you that you are approaching a cam but it doesn't allow you to search an area of your planed route for cameras to be aware of them before you go on your trip. Having the kml file on your SD card allows you to do a search as a POI along your route so you will be aware that there are safety cameras along your destination.

[cali007]

i've had vblue's camera file working as poi's. how can i use that list with boris's alert hack? i tried editing my data file with the scrips but had problems. could someone post their data file that has this mod? i'm using skicraves blue box fix data file. since i already have the vblue cameras working off my sd card, would i just need to then copy the new data file over and i'm good?

[BorisM]

Boris, with your mod I added a few redlight cams today in my area just for testing. The visual alerts worked but audio alerts did not. Any way to look into this?

 

Nevermind, got it working.

 

http://avic411.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17592

 

I believe I've read that there is a logn-standing bug in iGO (or was, anyway) where "simple" audio warning would not work, but "when approaching" does.

[bwolfe]

I noticed something today. If you start your vehicle and drive and listen to XM, Sirius, or iPod the device will not warn you of a speed camera, but if you switch to map, click the EULA ok and then go back to XM, Sirius or iPod it will now warn you of the camera.

 

So clicking the EULA must load the other features of the navigation. I wish it would work all the time since the computer loads everything anyway.

[BorisM]

OK, I can parse these KML files (they are not _quite_ standard) into something reasonable now. When I have time (gotta do some work, you know...) I'm have a program that goes through camera descriptions and extracts as much зща a camera type and speed limit as possible, then writes it out to an iGO compatible file...

[BorisM]

VBLUE et al:

 

OK, I had a few minutes here and there so here's an application that will

take a KML file in POI-Factory format, and spit out a TXT file in (I think ) correct iGO format.

 

I haven't had time to add any graphic niuceties, so there is one big button. Click on a button, sleect file, and it will spit out a TXT file with the same name in the same folder.

 

In does look at speed limits, if POI-Factory included them, and can at least distinguish between red light cameras, fixed cameras, mobile, and speed zone ones.

 

I haven't had a chance to actually test resulting files yet, so make sure that everything is backed up...

 

(Requires .NET 2)

KML2iGO.zip