Users manual

- All the information (POI-data, coordinates, etc.) can be used for non commercial use.

- If you add or upload any information to gps-waypoints.net you give permission to show and use that information in any way the administration likes to. (Make sure you have the rights to give this permission.)

- Copying all or parts of this site’s information to any website or including the information in any free or commercial product is prohibited. (If you like to include parts of this site’s information somewhere, please contact us.)

Gps-waypoints is meant to be a site where anybody can add GPS-coordinates for other to use. On every page the user can browse and search for coordinates and transfer them eg. directly to their navigator. In this way, beautiful views and the closest shops are available to everybody. While on trip one does not have to waste time to search for supermarkets or amusement parks when the coordinates are fetched from here on beforehand.

All the users can do the following:

1. Search for waypoints with different search criteria.
2. Browse information about waypoints and also look POI’s detailed information.
3. Download POI’s in different file formats so they can easily transferred into your GPS device.

Registered users can do the following:

1. Add your own POI’s into this service.
2. Add several POI’s directly from POI files.
3. Edit your own POI’s and suggest changes to other users POI’s.

You can collect POI’s into Cart that can be downloaded in one POI file.

Cart is usually helpful if you want to transfer only few POI’s into your GPS device. If you want to download all POI’s in category you can use the “fast download” feature.

In registration form type your username into “username” field. You can select your username freely just like in any other site. (Please don’t use special characters in your username.)

Fill your E-mail address into registration form. It is NOT mandatory to give this information, but it’s usually a good idea to provide it can be used to send new password to you if you happened to forget it.

E-Mail address is also used if you decide to subscribe to our mailing list(s).

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Type your password into “password” field.

You can login into this site by specifying your username and password into login fields at the main page.

When you login your settings are loaded.

In Country dropdown list please select the country where the POI is located.

In location field type the town or village where POI is located. Location fields could be “New York”, “London” , “Bangkok”.

If you don’t know the location please leave the location-field blank. (In this case the service makes intelligent guess and tries to fill the location to match the closest known location.)

POI’s type field specifies the type that describes the POI. Type could be “Cafeteria” , “Sport center”, “swimming pool”.

Name field briefly describes the POI. Name could be something like “Lisa’s Cafeteria”, “Central Park”.

You can describe POI in detail in Extra information -field. You can for example add your own experience about the POI. (It could be like “This cafeteria got great pies”.)

In Latitude field type the “LAT” field from your GPS device. The latitude field is in WGS84 coordinate system that is usually available in all GPS devices.

Latitude field is divided into 3 fields: Degress, Minutes, Seconds.

If you want to type the Latitude value in decimal format ( format dd,ddddddd ), just type the value into “Degrees” -field.( Leave the “Minutes” and “Seconds” fields blank.) Example: “60,23323”

If you want to type the Latitude value in Degrees and Minutes, type the values into “Degrees” and “Minutes” fields (Format dd mm,mmmmm). (Leave the “Seconds” field blank.) Example: “60 40,4324”

If you want to type in Degrees, Minutes and Seconds ( Format dd mm ss,ssss ), so type the values into “Degrees”, “Minutes” and “Seconds” fields. Examples: “60 40 34,24”

In Longitude field type the “LON” field from your GPS device. The Longitude field is in WGS84 coordinate system just like the “Latitude” field.

You can add optional extra fields into waypoint the specify values like “speed limit” , “Depth/Height”.

Extrafields: Speedlimit - Used in speed camera POI’s Bearing - Usually used in speed cameras to indicate the direction where the camera is pointing. Address - Street address to this POI Phone number - Phone number to for example to Hotel or Cafeteria.

New kind of extrafields can be added into this system easilly if users find some other information useful to them.

You can search POI’s with different search criterias.

In Basic search you can search POI’s with simple words like “Cafeteria”. The search word is searched from the POI’s information and if it’s found the POI is provided in result list.

In Advanced search you can use more specific search criterias. You can for example search Cafeterias in “Germany” or all “Mountains” in US.

You can provide one or more search criterias that are used.

You can search POI’s from specific location by typing the location into location field.

You can browse POI by “Chattanooga, Tennessee” , “waterfalls” , “United States” etc.

You can browse POI’s by type in “Browse POI’s” page.

california

You can browse POI’s by it’s Province.

california

You can browse POI’s by it’s location.

Chattanooga, TN

Every POI added into this service is compared to already existing POI’s. If POI that matches this new POI is found, the POI is marked as “Double waypoint”. Sites Administrators can see these double waypoint notifications and frequently check those.

User is also notified about this possible double POI so user can update the already existing POI. (Double POI checking is NOT perfect and “false positives” occur. So double POI notification is only a suggestion to user to check the previous POI’s information.)

GPS devices usually use WGS84 coordinate system when presenting latitude and longitude coordinates. These lat/lon coordinates can be presented in different formats and those can sometimes quite confusing.

WGS84 lat/lon coordinates are usually presented in one the following formats: Decimal degrees: Lat and lon values are decimal numbers. Example:

Lat = 62.3434°

Lon = 65.45456°

Degrees and decimal minutes: Lat and Lon values are two numbers where the first number is the degree part and the second number is the minute part. Example:

Lat = 62° 32.345’ (62 degrees, 32.345 minutes)

Lon = 65° 34.356’ ( 65 degrees, 34.356 minutes)

Degrees, minutes and decimal seconds: Lat and Lon values are three numbers where the first number is the degree part, second number is the minute part and the third number is the second part. Example:

Lat = 62° 32’ 40.345” (62 degrees, 32 minutes, 40.345 seconds)

Lon = 65° 34’ 34.356” ( 65 degrees, 34 minutes, 34.356 seconds)

Check your GPS devices manual so you know which format your GPS is using.

You can change the way POI’s are listed in search page by changing the settings.

POI’s coordinates can be presented in different ways. User can select the format from Settings.

One of the following formats can be selected: WGS84 ( dd mm.mmmmm ) ( Example: 62° 34.3444’ ) WGS84 ( dd mm ss.ssss ) ( Example: 62° 34’ 54” ) WGS84 ( dd.dddddddd ) ( Example: 62.54° )

You can add POI’s directly from POI files.

This way you can collect and add all your POI’s and it’s fast.

You can download POI’s from this site in several file formats. You can download from search page, browse page or from the Cart.

Just select the file format and click the “Download” button and the result POI’s are provided to you in file.

If you want to see when new POI’s are added into database just subscribe to our RSS-feed from main page. You can use normal RSS-feed or Google RSS-feed.

You can also install RSS-feed reader into your mobile phone and use it to get notified when new POI’s are added. If you want to change the Coordinate format in RSS-feed just use one of the following URLs.

New POI’s in WGS84 (dd mm ss,s) format: http://www.gps-waypoints.net/gps/rss_feed.php?coordinateformat=wgs_ddmmss

New POI’s in WGS84 (dd mm,mmmm) format: http://www.gps-waypoints.net/gps/rss_feed.php?coordinateformat=wgs_ddmm

New POI’s in WGS84 (dd,ddddd) format: http://www.gps-waypoints.net/gps/rss_feed.php?coordinateformat=wgs_dd

- The coordinates are saved with 13 decimals accuracy. Consider the coordinates, LAN 60.000001 LON 40.0 LAN 60.000002 LON 40.0, the distance between these are about 0.0001km or in other words 10 centimeters, and this example differed already in the 6:th decimal. So the 13 decimal accuracy used by Gps-waypoints should be enough for anyone.

This site was initially implemented for personal use, but quite fast other users started to request information about this site and it’s features. That was the initial push that caused drastic changes and now this site is fully targeted for providing Community for sharing POI information.

Please post your request into Forum or e-mail us.

This service if free for non business use. This means that you can download POI’s here free of charge. YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO USE ANY DATA FROM THIS SITE FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES without our permission!!