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'{{for|the point of interest symbol ⌘|Looped square}} {{Refimprove|date=January 2008}} [[File:Poifile.jpg|right|thumb|Viewing POI points on a [[Garmin]] GPS]] A '''point of interest''', or '''POI''', is a specific point location that someone may find useful or interesting. An example is a point on the [[Earth]] representing the location of the [[Space Needle]], or a point on [[Mars]] representing the location of the [[mountain]], [[Olympus Mons]]. Most consumers use the term when referring to hotels, campsites, fuel stations or any other categories used in modern [[Automotive navigation system|(automotive) navigation systems]]. Users of a [[mobile device]]s can be provided with geolocation and time aware POI service<ref>Yuan, Q., Cong, G., Ma, Z., Sun, A., & Thalmann, N. M. (2013, July). Time-aware point-of-interest recommendation. In Proceedings of the 36th international ACM SIGIR conference on Research and development in information retrieval (pp. 363-372). ACM.</ref>, that recommends geolocations nearby and with a temporal relevance (e.g. POI to special services in a ski resort are available only in winter). In medical fields such as [[histology]]/[[pathology]]/[[histopathology]], points of interest are selected from the general background in a [[field of view]]; for example, among hundreds of normal [[Cell (biology)|cell]]s, the pathologist may find 3 or 4 [[neoplastic]] cells that stand out from the others upon [[staining]]. A [[region of interest]] (ROI) and a volume of interest (VOI) are similar in concept, denoting a region or a volume (which may contain various individual POIs). The term is widely used in [[cartography]], especially in electronic variants including [[GIS]], and [[GPS navigation software]]. In this context the synonym [[waypoint]] is common. A GPS point of interest specifies, at minimum, the [[latitude]] and [[longitude]] of the POI, assuming a certain [[map datum]]. A name or description for the POI is usually included, and other information such as altitude or a telephone number may also be attached. GPS applications typically use [[computer icon|icons]] to represent different categories of POI on a map graphically.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www8.garmin.com/products/poiloader/|title=Garmin POI Loader|publisher=[[Garmin]]|accessdate=2008-01-17}}</ref> ==POI collections== [[File:BMWPoiMap.jpg|right|thumb|Custom [[speed camera]] POI overlaid on a [[BMW]] navigation map]] Digital maps for modern GPS devices typically include a basic selection of POI for the map area.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.poi66.com/tomtom|archive-url=https://archive.is/20130616100017/http://www.poi66.com/tomtom|dead-url=yes|archive-date=2013-06-16|publisher=POI66|title=TomTom Points of Interest}}</ref> However websites exist that specialize in the collection, verification, management and distribution of POI which [[end-user]]s can load onto their devices to replace or supplement the existing POI.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://waypointer.info|publisher=Waypointer|title=Waypointer - online POI manager|deadurl=yes|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20141219233045/http://waypointer.info/|archivedate=2014-12-19|df=}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://pintica.com|publisher=Pintica|title=Pintica - online POI manager}}</ref> While some of these websites are generic, and will collect and categorize POI for any interest, others are more specialized in a particular category (such as speed cameras) or [[GPS]] device (e.g. [[TomTom]]/[[Garmin]]). End-users also have the ability to create their own custom collections. Commercial POI collections, especially those that ship with digital maps, or that are sold on a [[subscription]] basis are usually protected by [[copyright]]. However, there are also many websites from which [[royalty-free]] POI collections can be obtained, e.g. [https://web.archive.org/web/20160506072606/http://gis.zcu.cz/spoi/ SPOI - Smart Points of Interest], which is distributed under [[ODbL]] license.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Čerba|first1=Otakar|title=SPOI|url=http://gis.zcu.cz/spoi/doc/SPOI.pdf|publisher=SDI4Apps|accessdate=28 March 2016|pages=4|format=PDF|date=23 February 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160701141304/http://gis.zcu.cz/spoi/doc/SPOI.pdf|archive-date=2016-07-01|dead-url=yes|df=}}</ref> ==Applications== The applications for POI are extensive. As GPS-enabled devices as well as software applications that use digital maps become more available, so too the applications for POI are also expanding. Newer [[digital camera]]s for example can automatically [[geocoded photograph|tag]] a photograph using [[Exif]] with the GPS location where a picture was taken; these pictures can then be overlaid as POI on a digital map or [[satellite imagery|satellite image]] such as [[Google Earth]]. [[Geocaching]] applications are built around POI collections. In [[Vehicle tracking system]]s POIs are used to mark destination points and/or offices to that users of [[GPS tracking software]] would easily monitor position of vehicles according to POIs. ==File formats== Many different [[file format]]s, including [[proprietary format]]s, are used to store point of interest data, even where the same underlying [[WGS84]] system is used. Reasons for variations to store the same data include: * A lack of [[Technical standard|standards]] in this area ([[GPS eXchange Format|GPX]] is a notable attempt to address this). * Attempts by some software vendors to protect their data through [[security through obscurity|obfuscation]]. * [[Licensing]] issues that prevent companies from using competitor's file specifications. * [[Computer storage|Memory]] saving, for example, by converting [[floating point]] latitude and longitude co-ordinates into smaller [[integer]] values. * Speed and battery life (operations using [[integer]] latitude and longitude values are less [[Central processing unit|CPU]]-intensive than those that use [[floating point]] values). * Requirements to add custom fields to the data. * Use of older reference systems that predate [[GPS]] (for example [[Universal Transverse Mercator coordinate system|UTM]] or the [[British national grid reference system]]) * Readability/possibility to edit (plain text files are human-readable and may be edited) The following are some of the file formats used by different vendors and devices to exchange POI (and in some cases, also [[track (navigation)|navigation tracks]]): * [[ASCII]] Text (.asc .txt .csv .plt) * Topografix [[GPS eXchange Format|GPX]] (.gpx) * [[Garmin]] Mapsource (.gdb) * [[Google Earth]] [[Keyhole Markup Language]] (.kml .kmz) * Pocket Street Pushpins (.psp) * Maptech Marks (.msf) * Maptech Waypoint (.mxf) * [[Microsoft MapPoint]] Pushpin (.csv) * [[OziExplorer]] (.wpt) * [[TomTom]] Overlay (.ov2) and TomTom plain text format (.asc) * [[OpenStreetMap]] data (.osm) [[Third-party developer|Third party]] and vendor-supplied utilities are available to convert point of interest data<ref>{{cite web|author=CamperVanNZ|url=http://www.gps-data-team.com/convert.php|title=Convert POI (Online)}}</ref> between different formats to allow them to be exchanged between otherwise incompatible GPS devices or systems.<ref>{{cite web|author=RJ Davies|url=http://rjdavies.users.btopenworld.com/html/poiconverter.html|title=POIConverter|accessdate=2008-01-18|deadurl=yes|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071229233124/http://rjdavies.users.btopenworld.com/html/poiconverter.html|archivedate=2007-12-29|df=}}</ref> Furthermore, many applications will support the generic [[ASCII]] text file format, although this format is more prone to error due to its loose structure as well as the many ways in which GPS co-ordinates can be represented (e.g. decimal vs degree/minute/second). POI format converters are often named after the POI file format they convert and convert to, such as KML2GPX (converts KML to GPX) and KML2OV2 (converts KML to OV2). ==See also== *[[Automotive navigation system]] *[[Geocoded photograph]] *[[Map database management]] *[[OpenLR]] *[[Tourist attraction]] *[[World Geodetic System]] (Used to represent GPS co-ordinates) ==References== {{Reflist|2}} ==External links== <!--===========================({{NoMoreLinks}})===============================--> <!--| DO NOT ADD MORE LINKS TO THIS ARTICLE. WIKIPEDIA IS NOT A COLLECTION OF |--> <!--| LINKS. 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