Amsterdam Coffeeshop Directory Forums

Well I can't actually take all the credit for it because the idea (if I remember correctly) was first posted by Valo, and at the time the phone I had couldn't handle the size of the file and it didn't have a zoom option on the pictures either.

However, one upgrade later and hey presto

1person wrote:I just copied and pasted the street address in to the fly to bar. It wll put a place mark right there. I noticed some of the places were off of where they should be (like central and picasso) so I moved them to where they should be manually. There are probably some others that I dont know that they are in the wrong spots.

Actually, pretty much all of them would be off by at least a few buildings. Which would work for getting an idea of where in the city it is (like what block it's on), so it's still handy. But google earth uses a method called interpolation, where it finds the street on a roadmap, measures how long it is, and based on the first and last addresses of the street, guesses where on the street a point should be placed for a specific address, and makes a dot there.

This means that especially in a place like amsterdam (where odds and evens often change sides, roads change names halfway along them, plot width varies from 15 feet to a hundred, and canals cause big gaps between buildings) virtually all of the dots will be off place, be it by three blocks or three buildings. Here's an example of what, I mean:


I simply loaded the first 100 values of my csv into google earth, and you can instantly see that shops like central and rastababy were placed quite a distance from where they should be. And you can be certain the rest are off, too.

However, I must note that's it very good for relaying general information. For example, after look at this estimation, I immediately know that warmeostraat is the best place to look for a coffeeshop. =P

And finally, I'm not critiquing your map -which is very handy- merely expressing my own desire to create a perfect, all-inclusive map. FOr that, though, I'd need a plat, and the only place I've been able to find one is the aforementioned website, which only shows an area or like 30 square meters, so it takes weeks to use. I've sent many email to places like Amsterdam city hall and GVB asking for a plat, but nobody's really givne me any good news yet. (Still waiting on the city hall to reply though) I mean, I'm sure I could find a hard copy at some museum or something in dam, but man, is it hard to find one online.

Well you know a lot more about that stuff then I do. I would like to see a perfect all inclusive project myself. But im kind of lazy.

1person wrote:Well you know a lot more about that stuff then I do. I would like to see a perfect all inclusive project myself. But im kind of lazy.

I blame OCD.

Edit: And I must mention, Lemming's maps ARE perfect, and ARE the best resource I've ever seen on coffeeshops, they just aren't translatable to a google earth file.

I finally got around to installing Google Earth and trying this out. Cool!

A guy called Michael has sent me a set of files for GPS devices. I don’t have such a thing so I haven’t tried them. You can get them here:

http://cryptiksouls.co.uk/amsterdam/coffeeshops.zip

Please let us all know how you get on.

The link above which Lemming posted is for a set of files I compiled, I didnt realise this was being discussed here until Lemming sent me this link.

Anyway, included in the files is a google earth overlay (picture below) as well as POI files for tomtom and various GPS units. I only plotted the coffeshops which are on Lemmings map but I could expand it if someone has addresses for more.

I plotted it all using tomtom and grabbing the coordinates for each address before we went to Dam, having just returned I can say it navigated us succcessfully to every coffeeshop we visited and all the POIs seemed to be spot on where the shop was (maybe someone who knows Dam better can confirm/dispute this), I guess tomtom's address database is better than google earth.

I am interested in including more shops and building a comprehensive database, so if anyone can give me more coffeshops then let me know.

Again, like I said, Google Earth uses interpolation. =P It doesn't have a plat which is compares addresses to, it just kind of guesses where along a street a number goes, depending on how long the street is.

711 wrote:Again, like I said, Google Earth uses interpolation. =P It doesn't have a plat which is compares addresses to, it just kind of guesses where along a street a number goes, depending on how long the street is.

So like I said, I guess tomtom's address database is better than google earth - for the very reason you had already outlined.

Has anybody tried a tomtom or similar GPS around amsterdam? I expect with the narrow streets and tall buildings it would have a very intermittent signal at best.
I used to use a gps some years ago and it relied on "line of sight" to the satellite. Things may have come a long way since then but I'd expect they still work on the same principal. Although, if somebody has used one succesfully in 'Dam, it blows my theory to shit

John

bigjohn wrote:Has anybody tried a tomtom or similar GPS around amsterdam? I expect with the narrow streets and tall buildings it would have a very intermittent signal at best.
I used to use a gps some years ago and it relied on "line of sight" to the satellite. Things may have come a long way since then but I'd expect they still work on the same principal. Although, if somebody has used one succesfully in 'Dam, it blows my theory to shit

John

I don't know about using a standalone tomtom unit, but I had no problems using tomtom on my pda, with a bluetooth gps just slung in my rucksack. It took about a minute to get a signal when we went outside and then worked a treat all the way to all the coffeeshops we visited.

Having never been to Dam before tomtom was worth its weight in gold, we never would have found some of the more remote coffeeshops without it.

im really confused now, is this for download straight to a tomtom device please can someone help me as if it is i have no idea how to do it.
cheers pearly

One you have downloaded the file, unzip it and put the Amsterdam_coffeeshops.bmp file and Amsterdam_coffeeshops.ov2 file into the map folder of your tomtom device, then it should work fine.

miknik wrote:One you have downloaded the file, unzip it and put the Amsterdam_coffeeshops.bmp file and Amsterdam_coffeeshops.ov2 file into the map folder of your tomtom device, then it should work fine.

thanks alot mate i have now done it. thats the best thing ever

bigjohn wrote:Has anybody tried a tomtom or similar GPS around amsterdam? I expect with the narrow streets and tall buildings it would have a very intermittent signal at best.
I used to use a gps some years ago and it relied on "line of sight" to the satellite. Things may have come a long way since then but I'd expect they still work on the same principal. Although, if somebody has used one succesfully in 'Dam, it blows my theory to shit

John

YES..USED MY TOMTOM910 LAST YEAR..OTHER THEN BETWEEN SOME CLOSE TALL BUILDINGS WE HAD NO PROBLEMS...WE PROGRAMED IN ALL THE SHOPS IN AMSTERDAM AND HAARLEM..AND IT WORK WITHOUT A PROBLEM