Hi Everyone
I ran into an issue with customised POI icon for IGO8. I have some icons and I added them to an existing branding.zip file. It works great for 5" Chinese GPS (480_272 resolution). When I tried it on my 7" unit (800_480), it only works when running on "not high resolution". When it runs on high resolution, it does not work. None of the new icons i added shows up. The branding.zip files I downloaded works great even with high resolution and there are a couple of them which I tried. It is only when I added extra icons that I started to have problem. I used ULEAD Photoimpact for creating bitmap icon and UPOI editor for creating the icon strip. I later tried by starting with a working branding.zip, removed all the branded icons (bmp and spr files from inside the common and icon/poi folders and added a small icon strip and spr file in the common folder and corresponding poi.icons file in the ICON/POI folder. When I tested it, not only that none of the icons showed up but most of the built in default icons also disappeared.

Instead of adding extra icons, I also tried editing the BMP strip files of a working branding.zip file without unzipping but through WINRAR and ULEAD Photoimpact for image editing. In all cases, it eventually failed saying things like - " could not open ....bmp file. exiting application". It is clear that zipping/unzipping is not a problem. It was done through WINRAR without unzipping and similar operation works well at lower resolution. Can the image editor be an issue?

However, there must be a way to do it. The fact that the branding.zip files I downloaded works well indicates that there might be something I am missing. I will be grateful if someone can guide me through this. What software do I use to make icons? What software do I use to make icon strips? Is there any other issuess that I am not aware of? Why is it so sensiive at high resolution?

Thanks so much fro your help.

Instead of just trying to create icons, just download this branding.zip that has well over 2000 icons. I'm sure you'll find what you need.

[Please Register or Login to download file]

Thanks a lot Chas521. I downloaded the branding.zip file but it did not help much. Apparently it does not have 800_480 folder and so does not support 800x480 high resolution and so I was getting messages like "Could not / failed to open ....spr file..exiting application". My difficulties were only with 800x480 highres. I will very grateful if you could help me with one which will support 800x480 resolution.

Also, I will appreciate very much if you can advise on what program to use to create individual icons. This will help me to create extra icons in future at leisure time as a fun practice. I was using image editing program 'Photoimpact' but the BMP files worked only for low resolution. They either did not show up or gave error messages at 800x480 highres.

Thanks again and looking forward to your help and suggestions.

You should have looked at the thread below this one.
post131557.html#p131557 post #2.

Resolved it.

Some experiences I wanted to share.

1. When creating icon from image files, save the bitmap files in 24 bit format, 24 bit color depth (8 bit RGB) and 96 pixel/inch resolution. 32 bit bmp files often fails to show up in 800x480 resolution (it does not give any error message, however) though it shows up perfectly in 400x272 resolution.

2. In-situ editing inside WINRAR or replacing / adding file into branding.zip inside WINRAR may not necessarily ensure a working branding.zip and it may not maintain the same compression format of the original branding.zip file. It will depend on the setting inside WINRAR. Default compression level can be checked / set by OPTIONS-SETTING-CREATE DEFAULT-COMPRESSION METHOD. Different compression level should be checked. It appears that FASTEST (low compression in general) compression works without issues. However, BEST (high compression in general) tend to give error message “failed to open **.spr file….exiting application”. That is what I experienced. Compression level can also be set when the file in question is dragged and dropped inside WINRAR.

3. It was noticed that in the .icons file, entry like the following:

[Accomodation.Hotel_or_Motel.Ameri_Host_Inn]
$poi_mapdistant.bmp
$poi_brand_Hotels.spr 1
poi_brand_Hotels.spr 1

worked well in 480x272 resolution though there was nothing in the 480x272 folder. The reason for it to work without error is not understood. When used at 800x480, it gave error message like “could not open file poi_brand_Hotels.spr...exiting application”. This is understandably because poi_brand_Hotels.spr and poi_brand_Hotels.bmp was not available in the 800x480 folder as would be expected. It worked for all resolutions without problem when revised as:

[Accomodation.Hotel_or_Motel.Ameri_Host_Inn]
$poi_mapdistant.bmp
$poi_brand_Hotels.spr 1
$poi_brand_Hotels.spr 1

4. Icon names like ‘business’, ‘museum’, ‘camping’ etc generally resulted in icons different from what is in the actual bmp file or icons not shown at all. Changing the icon names resolved the issue. Apparently these names were in conflict with names built in the original branding.zip file which was used as a base for modifications. This issue, however, may not always be there.

Glad to see that you worked it out. I'm not criticizing anything you've done but most of the time errors happen because the individual used the wrong version of Winrar. Pretty much any version after 4.00 will cause errors with compression. In conclusion, just use Winrar 4.00 or earlier!

The issue related to WINRAR version could be there. However, I was actually using WINRAR 3.80. Still I had issues when the compression setting was high (BEST). It appeared that most of the issues were at high resolution, particularly at 800x480 which I tried.