NAV 'target' icon (GPS POI?)

On my BMW Z4 NAV map screen there are static icons that look like a shooting target: a gray circle with a gray dot in it – just like the Target store logo except for the color. See the screen shot in a post below. I have not seen anything similar on any GPS display anywhere.

As far as I can tell they are not affected by:
- clearing of the POI icons via menu (they are always there)
- active/inactive state of navigation
- addresses that are stored in the GPS
- system resets (like disconnecting the battery)

I found some posts that claim that these are "center of towns" (whatever that means) but that does not seem to be it (although one is located exactly where the Town Hall is in my little town) because often they are located in:
- completely empty places on a straight road between towns
- multiple places within the same town

Anybody knows what value they are suppose to provide for the driver? My local BMW service has no clue.

this post (although a previous NAV version) suggests they are places where you can make Uturns

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...highlight=icon

TeeZee - that does not sound too convincing because whenever I take the wrong turn the system say's to make a U turn at the earliest covenience without showing that icon. That leads me to believe that this icon is trying to communicate something else - so the mystery continues

Originally Posted by mizius1

On my BMW Z4 NAV map screen there are static icons that look like a shooting target: a gray circle with a gray dot in it – just like the Target store logo except for the color. I have not seen anything similar on any GPS display anywhere. As far as I can tell they are not affected by:
- clearing of the POI icons via menu (they are always there)
- active/inactive state of navigation
- addresses that are stored in the GPS
- system resets (like disconnecting the battery)

I found some posts that claim that these are “center of towns” (whatever that means) but that does not seem to be it (although one is located exactly where the Town Hall is in my little town) because often they are located in:
- completely empty places on a straight road between towns
- multiple places within the same town

Anybody knows what value they are suppose to provide for the driver? My local BMW dealer has no clue.

I have a "target" on both my nav systems and they indicate your location on the map
cheers
vern

vern - I'm pretty much sure that you are talking about the location cursor that moves while the car moves. The "target" icons that I'm talking about are in fixed locations on the map. I'll try to take a picture of it and post it here.

OK, so here is a screen shot that shows two of these "target" icons - what the heck do they signify?

OK, OK - here is the jpeg

On the UK maps, these indicate the 'geographic centre' of a town/city/suburb/village - I believe this is what you get directed to if you don't specify a road/address but just a town.

They are not POI's in the true sense of the word, and cannot be cleared from the map (unless the map data is modified).

HTH.

rotty –that sort of makes sense because some of these icons do in fact fall in centers of towns. But others don't, and often fall in the middle of literally nowhere, for example neither of the icons in the shot above fall close to any town centers whosoever. I inquired with BMW corporate in the US, they confirmed the existence of the icons and their inability to determine what they actually do stand for . But they did promise to get back to me once they figure it out. So hopefully we will find out sooner or later.

Thanks to the investigation by our friendly BMW customer support rep (big thanks to Nick @ BMW support in the US) we have a definitive answer. These icons indeed show locations that GPS will direct you to if you do not specify an exact address (rotty above was right!). Depending on the way an inexact target is specified, GPS will lead you to one of the following:

- center of the town (typically a town/city hall)
- geographical center of the county, or
- geographical center of the zip code

The last two items explain why sometimes these icons appear in the middle of nowhere. It is not clear how the location of a "geographical center" is fixed on the map in the first place but at least now we know what these are. Nick also confirmed that this is not documented anywhere and that it took him some effort to dig this info up.

So the mystery is solved at last