POI ( English point of interest ) - a point of interest or other object marked with a point on the map.
According to the person who created this point, information about it can be interesting or useful. For example, it can be hotels, gas stations, shops, museums, temples, parking lots, train stations, fresh water sources, good places for photography, monuments, etc. [1] The term POI is widely used in cartography , especially in electronic, including GIS and GPS navigation software.
A full-fledged POI contains information on coordinates (latitude and longitude), name, description and other parameters, including altitude, phone number. In navigation applications, POIs are usually displayed as thematic icons.
Content
POI Structure
POIs must have certain geographical coordinates (latitude and longitude) that determine the position of a given point on the map. In addition, POIs may contain additional information, for example:
- title
- category
- address
- opening hours
- site
Typically, POIs are grouped by object type (for example, "accommodation", "food", "culture", etc.) and displayed on the map using the appropriate icons.
Using POIs
Navigation programs support the search for POIs by type, name and / or address, so the POI database can be used as a guide during travel. In addition, in some programs, the nearest POIs are displayed on the map while moving along the route.
POI Collections
Digital maps for modern GPS devices most often contain a basic collection of POIs for the region of this map.
There are also sites created for storing, searching and distributing POIs, thanks to which the user can download new POIs to his device or replace existing ones [2] . Some of these sites are common, others specialize in certain categories of objects (for example, springs, caches [3] , places of rest) or GPS devices (for example, TomTom / Garmin ). Device owners can also create their own collections.