I have just taken delivery of my Skoda Superb and am very pleased so far. I do have a problem with the Columbus Sat Nav though, in that in the handbook (pg 38) it states that destinations can be "stored on the SD card in the form of visiting cards or illustrations including GPS coordinates". Unfortunately that is all the guidance given. I have literally hundreds of locations for my work which I have loaded on my Tom Tom which I would like to transfer to use on the Columbus system. Does anyone know how this can be achieved? It seems to be such a shame to have to either manually transfer the data (no chance) or carry the Tom Tom around as well. As a starting point I have either the OV2 Tom Tom file or I can easily produce a CSV file with adresses and or GPS locations.

Edited 16 January, 201115 yr by Ian N

If you have a search on vwnavi then you can see how its done. Might be time consuming for multiple places though.

Edit: Oops wrong link but I see Brimma has sorted you out.

Edited 16 January, 201115 yr by john999boy

If you have a search on vwnavi then you can see how its done. Might be time consuming for multiple places though.

Thanks for the response - I'll check it out and see if I can make use of info

Ian

Go to this website, and register for free

http://vwlabs.com/

(nb - you'll need a possibly blank SD card attached to your PC)

When signed in, click on the star next to Nav Companion

Then click on Search for destinations

Next enter the postcode of your destination in the box under the map, and click on search

Underneath the map there is a box which allows you to save the destination off into a category on the left

Then hit the sync button to load them onto your SD card

With a bit of luck that should work

I have just taken delivery of my Skoda Superb and am very pleased so far. I do have a problem with the Columbus Sat Nav though, in that in the handbook (pg 38) it states that destinations can be "stored on the SD card in the form of visiting cards or illustrations including GPS coordinates". Unfortunately that is all the guidance given. I have literally hundreds of locations for my work which I have loaded on my Tom Tom which I would like to transfer to use on the Columbus system. Does anyone know how this can be achieved? It seems to be such a shame to have to either manually transfer the data (no chance) or carry the Tom Tom around as well.

If you are able to extract the destinations as POI from your Tom Tom, you can use Poinspect0r I just used it to get speedcams into my Columbus. However, this does not use SD card, you need the columbus DVD, the files you want to add (exported from Tom tom) and a blank DVD.

Brimma's way is how you add destinations via SD card. This method does away with the need to enter destinations via the headunit, and you can do it all in your living room.

You may come across a small bug, where the option to import is missing on the columbus. To get over this simply place a single .mp3 file on the root of the SD card.

Go to this website, and register for free

http://vwlabs.com/

(nb - you'll need a possibly blank SD card attached to your PC)

When signed in, click on the star next to Nav Companion

Then click on Search for destinations

Next enter the postcode of your destination in the box under the map, and click on search

Underneath the map there is a box which allows you to save the destination off into a category on the left

Then hit the sync button to load them onto your SD card

With a bit of luck that should work

That sounds relaively easy if a little long winded. Should be able to get through them all in an hour or two though while watching the goggle box! Many thanks for the help

Ian

Brimma's way is how you add destinations via SD card

Whoops, my mistake, I read it as destinations for some reason, and not POIs

I find that the POIs on the MFD3 are pretty good anyway

If you are able to extract the destinations as POI from your Tom Tom, you can use Poinspect0r I just used it to get speedcams into my Columbus. However, this does not use SD card, you need the columbus DVD, the files you want to add (exported from Tom tom) and a blank DVD.

Hey guys, isn't the internet a wonderful place when used correctly.

I should now have got enough replies to be able to resolve my problem in a number of different ways and all within a couple of hours of asking the question. I will also be able to add the speed camera files by the sounds of it which is great. I wonder if you can get the audible warning for the cameras working as you do with Tom Tom - still that is another question! Many thanks to you all for your rapid assistance.

By the way, I wrote my front nearside tyre off on a massive pothole on the night of the first day of ownership with only 38 miles on the clock - what a bu**er! About half a mile further on two other cars were also changinging their wheels. I noticed that the council filled it in though the following day ( I reported it the following morning along with a request for a claim form!). Many thanks again.

Ian

Hi lads can TomTom be loaded and used on the Columbus unit or use from an SD card ?? i have it on my Iphone and its great latest maps but most of all the speed camera part of it

Hi lads can TomTom be loaded and used on the Columbus unit or use from an SD card ?? i have it on my Iphone and its great latest maps but most of all the speed camera part of it

I like you wanted to move my Speed cameras and the very large number of locations(1000 +) I use for work from Tom Tom to the Columbus Sat Nav. I am stilltrying to find the time to do this but take a look at the other postings on the forum relating to this. The way to achieve the transfer is to create a new Sat Nav disk (not use the SD card method). You need either POInspector software (http://poinspect0r.go.to/ for software download and http://www.raygirling.co.uk/skodapoi.htm for guidance) or Pimp My Nav software (http://pimp-my-nav.com/installation.htm). As far as I can see the easier (but more expensive - £25) solution is the Pimp my Nav software which appears to require less steps and manipulation but both will take the Tom Tom OV2 files directly and prepare them for adding to a new disk. The POInspector software costs (£8), though you can use it without payment, but it is tedious as it places a time delay in each time you wish to add files / folders, but you can download it and get a feel for using it before paying. You also need software to write the new DVD and will need to change the volume number of the disk. Once I have found the time to carry out the process I will add an item to the forum if I find any of the instructions in previous posts need further instruction or changing. Hope this helps.

Not quite what the original question asked for but...

I was looking for a way to import destinations via SD card into my Columbus unit. The manual is particularly un-helpful. After much searching, I decided to try and do it myself and have written a simple web site that does part of the job for you.

It works like this: 1) Search Google maps for postcode / business / etc. 2) The web site generates some text that you then have to copy and paste into a text editor (like Notepad on Windows). 3) Save the file from your text editor to the SD Card. 4) Stick the SD card in the Sat Nav and import your destination.

Ultimately, I'd like the web site to create the file for the user to download straight to SD card (to avoid all the copying and pasting). But that's a bit beyond my IT skills at the moment! The process above is actually fairly quick once you've done it a few times.

If you think that might be useful, the web site is here: http://www.schaffer.talktalk.net/SDNav

It seems to work for me - but I haven't tested it extensively yet, so any problems let me know and I'll see if I can fix them.

Hope it's useful.

If you think that might be useful, the web site is here: http://www.schaffer.talktalk.net/SDNav

Anything to make life easier is good in my opinion!

I've updated the SDNav web site (post #14 above) to make it easier to use and improve its functionallity. The web site will now

• let you search Google maps and save the resulting location as a destination directly to an SD card ready to import into the sat nav

If you use Google Maps' My Maps feature and save your maps containing multiple locations as a 'kml' file, you can

• import 'kml' files and save some, or all, of the locations as destinations to the SD card ready to import into the sat nav
• import 'kml' files and save all the locations as a POI 'csv' file (This needs to be converted to the correct format using VW's German web site before it can be imported into the sat nav - but that's easy enough to do.)

As above, I haven't tested it extensively, but it seems to work for me. Any problems, let me know and I'll see if I can fix them...

This topic shows the easiest way of putting in multiple POI's such as speed cameras. I use this system and it works fine.

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/246805-guide-to-vw-poi-collections-loader-site/

Yes Hozz, your guide is very good: I've used it and would definitely recommend it.

I think the link in your guide is broken by the way. Until VW change the url again(!), the site can be accessed here: http://www.volkswagen.de/de/navigation/rns-510.html - then click the POI link at the bottom.

But I wanted to get my many saved Google My Maps into my sat nav. Google only lets you export these as .kml files. The VW site is great if you've got TomTom, Garmin, etc files: but it won't read .kml files. My web site will convert them to a format the VW site will read. If you've already got POIs in a file format the VW site will read, you don't need my site.

I would change my guide to update the URL in the first post, but I can't now amend it, so I've added the latest URL at the bottom just now (as I did previously, about halfway down the thread when the new URL came to light).

 

Glad you found it useful anyway

Edited 24 July, 201312 yr by Yearofthegoat

Yes Hozz, your guide is very good: I've used it and would definitely recommend it.

I think the link in your guide is broken by the way. Until VW change the url again(!), the site can be accessed here: http://www.volkswagen.de/de/navigation/rns-510.html - then click the POI link at the bottom.

But I wanted to get my many saved Google My Maps into my sat nav. Google only lets you export these as .kml files. The VW site is great if you've got TomTom, Garmin, etc files: but it won't read .kml files. My web site will convert them to a format the VW site will read. If you've already got POIs in a file format the VW site will read, you don't need my site.

Good work sir!  Do you have to load the destinations one at a time or can you save multiple ones into the SD Card root file and upload them all at once?

 

Thanks

Yes, you can save multiple 'destination' files to the SD card. You don't even need to copy them to the sat nav, just pop in the SD card and select 'SD card' when entering your destination on the touch screen.

With regard to 'POI', a single POI file contains multiple locations already. And I don't know whether you can import multiple POI files at once - I've never tried. POI files must be copied to the sat nav before they are available.

Note: Where you save the files on the SD card is critical, or the sat nav won't see them.

destinations (.vcf) in:   \destinations\

POI (.db3) in:   \PersonalPOI\