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A gripe and a question


GeoBobC

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I find it interesting to read how many individuals find the 1000 waypoint limitation inadequate. I, on the other hand, am really constrained by the limit of 20 saved tracks with 500 waypoints each. I have logged over 50 trails (some with more than 1000 points each) in my area that I wish to have loaded. Obviously, I can't. That's the gripe.

 

Now the questions: (a) does anyone hold any hope that Garmin will ultimately provide the ability to upload and view tracks on the micro SD card, (:tired: is there a Pocket PC app that would allow me to upload tracks to a 60x while in the field?

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The "active track" log holds 10,000 track points. Separate from the active track, there is the capability of storing 20 "saved" tracks, each of which can hold up to 500 points.

 

Splitting up a large track into multiple tracks of less than 500 each works, but the problem is that you soon run into the 20 track limit.

 

To me it's like having a GPS that holds 20 waypoints. You can manipulate them but you still come up frustrated.

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does anyone hold any hope that Garmin will ultimately provide the ability to upload and view tracks on the micro SD card

 

I agree there is NO reason that you can't fully utilize the storage card. yes with the latest firmware I can load tracks to the card but why not add the ability use them off the card, giving me no limits? Yes it's great that garmin finally added a storage card for maps but EVERY other handheld gpsr that has a card for maps can also use it for waypoints, tracks, routes, & more.

I do truly hope garmin will add more of these features(they did add track logging to the card, right?) though I am starting to wonder if this will happen.

 

I actually hope for a text document reader/writer in the 60cx, I could have full cache descriptions and logs loaded easily. (I can dream, though It will probably never happen)

Edited by hogrod
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I find it interesting to read how many individuals find the 1000 waypoint limitation inadequate.

 

I find it more than adequate for all my needs

 

I, on the other hand, am really constrained by the limit of 20 saved tracks with 500 waypoints each. I have logged over 50 trails (some with more than 1000 points each) in my area that I wish to have loaded.

 

Do you need all of them every day? If not download them to your PC and use when needed.

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Did you play with the idea to use your tracklogs as input data for rolling your own, custom maps?

 

A track to be displayed over a map could be reduced to a polyline. Doesn't need much code to extract that from a GPX file and write the polish format read by cGPSmapper. I've not used track data yet, but I have successfully created several "transparent" TOPO maps with cGPSmapper, which display like an overlay (over for example CitySelect) on the unit itself.

 

One drawback could be that one cannot use it for routing. But then again, I would have to play around with different object types than elevation contour lines, like trail objects (RGN40 type 0x16), to verify that.

 

Jan

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I would have to agree that rolling your own maps is the way to go. You could make topo maps transparent with your trails on them or you could simply make a transparent map that simply has your trails on it which would be simple and quick. I just started to play with this stuff and it isn't to bad. Making your own topo maps is a little time comsuming but if you simply made transparent trails I think it would be quick and easy.

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Making your own topo maps is a little time comsuming but if you simply made transparent trails I think it would be quick and easy.

Time consuming doesn't quite fit it.

 

I started by grouping the 56000+ USGS quadrangles into groups of 4x4 that match the grid shown by MapSource with no map at all, resulting in some 3500 segments. I then download all HY and HP related STDS files from the USGS server. Where the elevation DLG's are missing (the stuff in the hypsography subdirectory), I get the DEM from the ATDI server and convert it manually into a .mp file using 3DEM and DEM2TOPO. After all those downloads and preparations, a few scripts combine it all into one .mp file using sdts2mp and several selfmade Tcl programs, then stuff it all into cGPSmapper. Voila, a 2.4 GHz P4 only needs about 2 hours to compile one segment into a map. Almost enough time to download and prepare the next segment.

 

I am done with 4 of them so far. Not entirely happy since 3DEM fills in 44m height into the missing pixels at the border, what causes DEM2TOPO to create bogus contour lines where the single quadrangles meet. I probably have to write my own code for generating elevation contours out of the SDTS DEM's ... which I'm not really in the mood for today. Tomorrow doesn't look good either ;-)

 

Yes, once I am happy with the outcome I will upload the maps to the MapCenter.

 

Jan

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"Do you need all of them every day? If not download them to your PC and use when needed."

 

No, but there are times when I am out of town, away from a PC, and have a need for more than 20. That's why I asked about a Pocket PC solution. The same logic could be applied to waypoints: why does a user need a GPS that holds more than 20 waypoints? Just download the ones you need that day. Of course, that's not an acceptable solution either.

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No need to wait for perfection. If you get the map better, you can select edit and then upload the new version. I have done this on several maps. Some maps I have uploaded several improved maps. I was just out riding my bike and found some errors on one map, so I went home fixed it and up loaded the corrected map.

 

Making your own topo maps is a little time comsuming but if you simply made transparent trails I think it would be quick and easy.

Time consuming doesn't quite fit it.

 

I started by grouping the 56000+ USGS quadrangles into groups of 4x4 that match the grid shown by MapSource with no map at all, resulting in some 3500 segments. I then download all HY and HP related STDS files from the USGS server. Where the elevation DLG's are missing (the stuff in the hypsography subdirectory), I get the DEM from the ATDI server and convert it manually into a .mp file using 3DEM and DEM2TOPO. After all those downloads and preparations, a few scripts combine it all into one .mp file using sdts2mp and several selfmade Tcl programs, then stuff it all into cGPSmapper. Voila, a 2.4 GHz P4 only needs about 2 hours to compile one segment into a map. Almost enough time to download and prepare the next segment.

 

I am done with 4 of them so far. Not entirely happy since 3DEM fills in 44m height into the missing pixels at the border, what causes DEM2TOPO to create bogus contour lines where the single quadrangles meet. I probably have to write my own code for generating elevation contours out of the SDTS DEM's ... which I'm not really in the mood for today. Tomorrow doesn't look good either ;-)

 

Yes, once I am happy with the outcome I will upload the maps to the MapCenter.

 

Jan

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