TomTom OV2

OV2 is the binary format of custom points of interest for TomTom navigators. The file has neither a header nor a trailing structure: it is simply a chain of records, each holding coordinates and a name. Hence its compactness and instant reading on the device.

The export is needed to load your own set of points into a navigator: customer addresses, pickup points, fuel stations across a region, service sites. The device will show them on the map and can navigate to them like to ordinary points of interest.

We write OV2 directly, without third-party utilities: coordinates are encoded as integers (degrees × 100,000), the name is taken from the name tag, and if there is none — from name:en, name:ru, title or ref. The records are preceded by a service record with a bounding box of all the points, by which the device quickly discards whatever is far from the current position.

There is no category inside the file: for TomTom the category is the file itself. Whatever you name the .ov2, that is how the group will be called in the device menu, and the icon is set by a .bmp of the same name next to it. That is why points are exported one topic per file.