scottandginny

That's a shame for all deaf people out there.

Lately, if I need a laugh I come here and read this thread. Then, I laugh at MYSELF, because I am a sheltered suburbanite, who would NOT like to be routed through the slums, and I realize how silly that sounds ;-)

I don;t think your close to the max of maps upnder c:\garmin,as I have a ton more. I have all of City select, city navigator, topo uS and Canada, Nationap Parks Topo, Some blue charts, and some custom maps. All loaded to the hard drive and all under c:\garmin with no problem. Have you tried updating/reinstalling just the mapsource software?

Thanks gang, have plenty of offers for the first round of testing. I will be in toiuch down the road. Scott

I am putting together a community developed set of Garmin MapSource compatible & Garmin compatible GPSr trail maps. The maps are transparent trail maps that can be viewed in your existing MapSource installation and then loaded onto your GPSr. The plan is for them to be used in conjuction with your existing Garmin maps. They are not meant to be professional maps to replace your existing maps. Rather, the goal of them is to be the most up to date set of trail maps for use by Garmin and eventually Magellan GPSr users. I need a couple of volunteers to test the install package and the maps themselves. If you are interested, please email me at comaps@gmail.com I will be in touch in a few days with the instructions for downloading the maps. Thank you. Scott

yes, 24K topo does have routable trails. Sorry, can;t help on Delorme, as I have been away from them since v4. But, check out GPSBabel or GPSU, to see what formats they support that Delorme can export.

I used ArcView to manipulate the the shapefile. Then GPSMapedit to modify the map settings. I then used cgpsmapper to create the actual .img map file and the necessary preview files to have the map appear in mapsource (only time I used command line "cgpsmapper pv AT.txt"). What I was actually thinking about was creating a master map set of trails contributed by the general public. You want the map, donate your track logs, type agreement. Then, I just keep updating the map files, and it keeps growing and growing. I realize there are plenty of sites where people contribute various track logs and trips. but, I haven;t seen a group effort for a Garmin Map to be used in Mapsource and loaded on Garmin Mapping GPSr. In due time, and with enough money, the trails even be routable (routable version of commercial cGPSMapper costs $2500 euro). I'm going to do some more testing of the map and tuning of an install/update script to see if it is doable. Look for a post in the next few days about the project. Then, if there is enough interest, I'll get it off the ground.

OK, no problem creating simple transparent map of Appalachian Trail based upon Centerline Data Shapefile from AT site.

lol, you beat me too it, I was going to suggest you go to that version next, as that is what i am using to get it to work. Good luck:-)

What version of gpsbabel are you using? Run gpsbabel -V from command line to find out

Correct, the gui does not handle tpo files, due mainly to the lack of support for the required state flag. Generally, to use the command line software, simply open a command prompt wherever you have gpsbable.exe located. Here is a step by step, give it a try. 1. Copy all gpsbabel files to c:\gpsbabel 1.5 Download PCTCalifornia1.tpo file from NG site, and save to c:\gpsbabel 2. Click start, run, and type cmd, and click OK 3. At the commnad window that opens, type (without the quotes) "cd c:\gpsbabel" 4. At the new command locacation, c:\gpsbabel, type "gpsbabel -t -i tpo,state=CA -f PCTCalifornia1.tpo -o gdb -F PCTCalifornia1.tpo.gdb", and hit enter What that command translates too, for your own future use, is gpsbabel -t(process tracks) -i tpo,state=CA (input type is tpo, and the state location of file is California) -f PCTCalifornia1.tpo (input file is PCTCalifornia1.tpo) -o gdb (output format is Garmin gdb) -F PCTCalifornia1.tpo.gdb (output file is PCTCalifornia1.tpo.gdb) You will now see a new file in c:\gpsbabel called, PCTCalifornia1.tpo.gdb 5. Open Garmin MapSource, and select File-Open, and navigate to c:\gpsbabel, and select PCTCalifornia1.tpo.gdb 6. Now, you will see all the track segments listed in the tracks section of Garmin MapSource

Cisco, what was the command line and flags you were using?

Well, no GPSr can directly take the NG Topo maps currently. What was the exact area you think you saw the missing quad? if you can give me an approximate lat and long, I will check the 24K product on my system. I have used Magellan's MapSend 3D Topo USA. It is easy to add trail info too, as is discussed earlier in this thread. But, I started with Magellan, and based upon my trail needs, I am currently with Garmin. As far as the unlocking goes, the Garmin 24K Topo maps are not a locked map product. So, no dealing with unlock codes. If it wasn't for Garmins pesky copyright......yada, yada, yada If I look at my needs strictly from a "get trail info into map" perspective, here is how I see things: 1. Magellan maps can easily have line/area info embedded in them via AddMagMap. But, to create a custom Magellan Map is much more difficult. And, only 1 magellan map can be in use at a time on the GPSr 2. Garmin maps can have anything embedded into them, and the sky is the limit as far as custom maps. And, it is easier than custom Magellan maps. And, Garmin maps can have multiple maps loaded, and with transparency, they can be seen on top of each other. The Trimble/BackpackerMag effort is heading in the right direction. If more and more people chip in, that site could be awesome one day. If I had to rank things right now as far as trail featured maps/info, I would do it this way: 1. garmin 24K Topo product. highlights, coverage and routable trails, easy to use 2. trimble/backpackermag site. highlights, for the hikes they have the detail is great. lowlights, lack of coverage 3. Custom maps. hightlights, the sky is the limit lowlights, time and source data availablity

Not sure if anyone has created the entire AT as a custom map yet. But, I have the Garmin 24K Topo East, and good news, yes it does have the entire AT. I'll play around tonight and see if it would be doable to transfer the entire shapefile from the AT site into 1 custom transparent map. I'll let you know more late tonight.

Thanks embra:-) I'll return the favor, as you in turn know a good prgram when you see one. As far as I am concerned, AddMagMap was my favorite and most used program when I had an explorist. It was just so simple. Get files in a couple of readily available formats, and easily add it to the map. Also, Mikhail, the softwares creator, was great about helping out. That software was what actually motivated me to make my own maps when I switched to Garmin. Becasue I loved the idea of the trail being embedded in a map.

Being a total newbie to this stuff, which of the above formats can be read into the Garmin Topo program so I can map out some routes for hiking, ESRI, Arcview or MapInfo? Is it an easy import or do I need to use something else inbetween before it will work? Those formats cannot be directly opened in MapSource. And, since the ESRI, ArcView shape file, and MapInfo files they include are rather large, you run into another problem. if you try and run them through several different conversion programs, you hit track point limits. What you can do is use GPSMapEdit to import the file in shapefile format. Then, using GPSMapEdit, cGPSMapper, make your own custom map file. But, this is beyond the scope of the site. Check out cGPSMapper if your interested. Another option would be to use GPSTrackmaker to open the shapefile, save it in pieces, and then transfer those pieces to the GPS. Remember, the AT sites data is in NAD27 datum. So, you will need to change the datum when you open the file for it to import correctly. But, the shapefile from the AT site has 300,000+ points, so you will have to use it in small chunks.

Cisco, The AT website has the entire trail in various formats. http://www.appalachiantrail.org/site/c.jkL...nd_GPS_Data.htm But, only the shelter waypoints are in a format that can easily be loaded into your GPS. You could make a custom map from the shapefiles they offer of the trail centerline. But, unless your a big techie that is probably not your cup of tee. What I would suggest is that you think about picking up the Garmin 24K NP Topo disks. The east disk has the entire AT. I just checked Garmins site and they do not list the PCT on the the list. Another option would be to get the various sections of the AT from the National Geographic mapxchange site, then convert to gdb (Mapsource) as I describe below. As far as the PCT, you can use the National Geographic mapxchange .tpo file, and convert it to a .gdb file to be loaded into Mapsource. Once in Mapsource, you could load the individual tracks onto your GPS as needed. To convert .tpo files from the National Geogrpahic website in NG (.tpo) format, to gdb format for direct use in Mapsource, you will need GPSBabel. You will also have to run GPSBabel from the command line, so you can pass it the state flag, in this case CA.

It can be done (for the most part):-) So, here is what I do to accomplish something similiar 1. Clean up track log from hike 2. Convert track log to shapefile (usually using GPSU) 3. Create transparent map in GPSedit with tracklog shapefile as only content in polish format (after 1st time, add new tracklog shapefile to existing map file) 4. Convert polish format map to garmin img format using cgpsmapper. 5. Create preview file so that map can be added to mapsource using cgpsmapper This whole thing took me about week of playing around, but now the whole process takes 5 minutes to update it with each new trail. This gives me a transparent map with all my trails labeled and using the line type of a trail. When I want to see them, i just simply enable the map file on the GPSr. If i don;t want to see them, just diasble map. What this does not accomplish is that since the track is now a map, you can't use it to track back. You would have to still have the track file on the GPS. When i have the time, and desire, I will start making the trails in the map routable, so that the trails could be use in routes, similiar to Garmins 24k Topo series. Now, I am in the process of creating more detailed topo contour lines than the Garmin Topo USA produc, using freely available data t usgs.gov

What area/areas were you looking for with the 24K topo maps? I ask, because not all of Garmins map products are based upon 24K maps. The regular Garmin Topo USA are based upon 100K maps. They have a National Park product, which covers some areas outside of NP, that are based upon 24K maps.

As for you yelling, I don't think it's all that appropriate. I can't say that I yell at someone for trying to help me out, even if they misunderstand the topic. Yelling was not meant to offend you. Sorry if that is the way it came across.

Cisco, Thanks. Your approach is the one I will use until anotehr solution is found. I created a gpx file with one POI in it for my house. When I want to clear things out, I just load this gpx file on to the GPSr through the POI loader. Thus clearing them all out excpet for the "home" one. Thanks again

Indeed it does NO IT DOES NOT WORK FOR CUTOM POIs I'm yelling because you seem so stuck on the idea that it does work for waypoints so it must for for POIs. Custom POIs are NOT waypoints in the mind of the GPSr and are treated differently when it comes to storage and deletion. Sorry if this came across as sounding mean. I know we are all here to help each other.

Custom POIs, NNNNNOOOOTTTTT waypoints. But, thank you.

Nope, already tried. The delete option is not available when working with the Custom POI section. But, thank you for taking the time to suggest it.

OK, i'm stumped, how do I delete custom POIs directly from the GPSr once they are loaded on. I am trying to avoid having to do this by loading the card in a card reader. Had no problems loading them via POI loader. Just can't find way to delete them. Sorry if I am missing something obvious.