High Res Maps for Garmin

[Grasscatcher]

New product? I can't find it on their home website.

 

http://abovethetimber.com/GPSmaps.htm

 

It might be a problem that they don't recommend it be used in conjunction with Garmin produced Mapping products. May not be able to have CN and it loaded together?

 

Sounds good and the screenshots look good.

Edited April 9, 2007 by Grasscatcher

[-Oz-]

Looks pretty good. i'm currently, at this second, working on a 24k topo for the grand canyon area.

 

I need access to the BLM and FS databases like him though because I definitely don't have any trails and its pissing me off.

 

Too bad they don't have a price.

 

I think with enough volunteers we could make the entire country in 24k in probably 6 months.

Edited April 9, 2007 by -Oz-

[+hogrod]

I think with enough volunteers we could make the entire country in 24k in probably 6 months.

 

That would be really cool, and even better when all the work is done release it for free as a downloadable ISO dvd package.

[John E Cache]

I don't get it. I thought when you make custom maps you can specify how many topo lines appear at each zoom level. Cramming more topo lines in a zoom level does not mean the map data is higher resolution. The same with roads. You can specify which roads are major roads so they appear higher resolution.

[-Oz-]

Its high resolution because the scale 1:24000 not the 1:100000 that garmin offers on their topo products.

 

The only 1:24k that Garmin offers is the US National Parks 24k Topos and those only cover national parks.

[John E Cache]

Its high resolution because the scale 1:24000 not the 1:100000 that garmin offers on their topo products.

 

The only 1:24k that Garmin offers is the US National Parks 24k Topos and those only cover national parks.

Are you talking about the PC map? The GPS maps change scale every time you zoom. I still don't get it. I thought the GPS maps come from digital data not paper maps.

[-Oz-]

They change resolution but they just spread out really.

 

For example:

1:100k contour intervals appear to be 164ft

1:24k contour intervals are 40ft.

 

This means that even if you zoom in the resolution of the 1:100k map still only has 164ft contours whereas the resolution of the 1:24k map will have 40ft contours.

 

That is the difference they are talking about.

 

Regarding paper vs digital data. Digital data really hasn't been significantly used until now. Many of the Topos (i think the 100k and 24k topos) had to be made from scanned paper maps. Now with DEM and NED data taken from space we're getting to a more digital age but no matter what the resolution of that data is limited by whatever took it. So if the shuttle can only get 1:100k resolution data then thats the limit of it.

[+Red90]

When they talk about 1:24000 and 1:100000, those are the paper maps that the data came from. All of the data was taken from the printed paper maps.

[GeoidPS]

Looks pretty good. i'm currently, at this second, working on a 24k topo for the grand canyon area.

 

I need access to the BLM and FS databases like him though because I definitely don't have any trails and its pissing me off.

 

Too bad they don't have a price.

 

I think with enough volunteers we could make the entire country in 24k in probably 6 months.

 

As a National Map Corp Volunteer, I've done an extensive survey of one map aready. This is now the most accurate map of this quandrangle in the world.

All we need is someone to start the forum. Guidlines would have to be set for zoom and levels, etc., but its possible. Sounds like this could start with at least 2 up to date maps.

[John E Cache]

When they talk about 1:24000 and 1:100000, those are the paper maps that the data came from. All of the data was taken from the printed paper maps.

What data are you talking about? If the maps are scanned, you get raster data. If that is the case when you zoom in the lines would get fatter. Is that what happens? I use a custom topo map and not Garmin topo so maybe that is why I am confused.

[+jotne]

This is rather old maps, released by Garmin in 2003 and 2004

Here is a link to it

http://www.garmin.com/cartography/ontheTrail/

 

Look at "U.S. TOPO 24K"

[QuigleyJones]

When they talk about 1:24000 and 1:100000, those are the paper maps that the data came from. All of the data was taken from the printed paper maps.

What data are you talking about? If the maps are scanned, you get raster data. If that is the case when you zoom in the lines would get fatter. Is that what happens? I use a custom topo map and not Garmin topo so maybe that is why I am confused.

I think Red90 is saying that the data used to make digital maps is taken from the data used to make paper maps. So you end up with vector stuff.

Edited April 11, 2007 by QuigleyJones

[-Oz-]

See, if i take a papermap in AutoCAD Raster I can convert all the lines into vectors so they don't get fat when you zoom in. The data is the same but its a vector now instead of a raster.

[John E Cache]

When they talk about 1:24000 and 1:100000, those are the paper maps that the data came from. All of the data was taken from the printed paper maps.

What data are you talking about? If the maps are scanned, you get raster data. If that is the case when you zoom in the lines would get fatter. Is that what happens? I use a custom topo map and not Garmin topo so maybe that is why I am confused.

I think Red90 is saying that the data used to make digital maps is taken from the data used to make paper maps. So you end up with vector stuff.

OK. Now I get it, thanks. I guess I am spoiled with the custom maps I use. These high-res maps are nothing new to me.

[+Red90]

As I understand it...

 

For the most part, the government map topography was created using stereoscopic methods on aerial photographs. These produced the paper maps. Later on this maps were scanned and vectorized to produce the topographic vector data that you use today.

[Travelmore]

Alright I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I started by following the directions found here http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...155835&st=0

So I now have the custom contour lines. My question is does anyone know what to down load to get the info found on a typical topo map for naming places, parks, etc Also a typical topo map has power lines etc. I know the data is out there its just data over load at this point. I am working in Oregon.

[+myotis]

http://www.topografix.com/data.asp is what I have used. It has all the POI points on USGS maps. There are some other sites that you can get data from but it is very time consuming and there were conversion problems I could not get around. I take these files open in ExpertGPS (with the GIS pack), sort by types, then save them as shape files, then import into a map. I make a POI file for the whole state.

[+JanniCash]

Alright I have been thinking about this a lot lately. I started by following the directions found here http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php...155835&st=0

So I now have the custom contour lines. My question is does anyone know what to down load to get the info found on a typical topo map for naming places, parks, etc Also a typical topo map has power lines etc. I know the data is out there its just data over load at this point. I am working in Oregon.

 

The problem is getting the data, accurate and reasonably up to date. I have actually started doing some work on that and created the first 20 map segments containing a 2.5 x 2 degree area of Pennsylvania. I intend to expand that area bit by bit.

 

The maps currently contain contour lines generated from the Seamless USGS 1/3 Arc Second raster DEM combined with the NHD High Resolution Subbasin Hydrography information. So it contains elevation contours plus streams, rivers, lakes, dams, shorelines and pipelines, with names where the NHD data has them.

 

I did not add any roads, trails or other features to those maps (yet), because the only data that would make sense to add to this would be the Tiger Line data from the US Census Bureau. This data has traditionally been available in a proprietary (but well documented) format. However, the Census Bureau plans to publish the data in shapefile format by Fall 2007. So I am basically waiting for that instead of contributing needless to global warming (by wasting brazillions of CPU cycles).

 

Now indeed, as someone else said, if people want to work together on a distributed project, we would have to agree on common definitions. The NHD data for example contains cleartext feature types like "SwampMarsh", "Lake", "River" etc. When creating Garmin compatible maps, these have to be converted into numeric object type codes. And of course, there are some object types missing, so a 1:1 translation isn't possible. I expect the same to be true for the Tiger shapefile data when it will be released this Fall.

 

I started generating those map segments as 30x30 minute tiles, which would result in about 5300 tiles for the entire US. One out of the 20 segments I've done so far currently hits a compile time limit on MapCenter, and the site administrator has not responded to my request to increase the timeout yet. It does however compile just fine on my system and I have all 20 segments available in MapSource and on my 60CSx. They are transparent maps with a draw priority set so that they display on top of CitySelect. This means that on the 60CSx, I actually can see a combination of CitySelect with my custom TOPO maps drawn over it and can use the map setup menu to enable/disable either of them as needed.

 

Jan

Edited May 3, 2007 by JanniCash

[+Bus36]

I would like to see people work together on this but the question is who will head it, what common definitions would be used, site to put everything together, etc. I think it would be a great task but once orginized properlty it wouldn't take that long and would be a great benefit.

Edited May 3, 2007 by Bus36

[Travelmore]

Soon after posting I found these sites. http://home.pacbell.net/lgalvin/drgnotes.htm#Oregon

http://www.gis.state.or.us/data/alphalist.html

 

It looks like Oregon has a lot of good info. I downloaded the line "Digital Raster Graphics (DRG) - 1:24,000 DRGs are in TIF image format with corresponding world files. Complete statewide coverage, by quadrangle."

I now need to convert it and see what we have. If that does not work Oregon seems to have enough available to make things interesting. Any information I find and like I plan on making another layer so that it can be turned on and off. Anyone found limits to what there GPS can hold as far as file size or number of layers?

 

I will be posting all of this to http://mapcenter.cgpsmapper.com/maplist.php

Using 15x15 minute tiles. I think 30x30 is too large for the terrain here in Oregon.

[+JanniCash]

I will be posting all of this to http://mapcenter.cgpsmapper.com/maplist.php

Using 15x15 minute tiles. I think 30x30 is too large for the terrain here in Oregon.

 

Yes, mountainous regions will require smaller tiles due to the far denser contour lines. There still is a 2025 map segment limit on current Garmin GPSr's however. So the goal should be to make the tiles as large as possible. Why not start with 30'x30' and split into 30'x15', 15'x15' or combinations of that where it really leads to problems?

 

BTW, I had done one test with 60'x60'. cGPSmapper 0093 did compile it, but it wasn't able to import the segment into the preview. Aside from that, my system only has 1GB of RAM and started paging quite heavily half way into the compile, so that size really doesn't work well.

 

Jan

[alpamayo]

...

The NHD data for example contains cleartext feature types like "SwampMarsh", "Lake", "River" etc. When creating Garmin compatible maps, these have to be converted into numeric object type codes. And of course, there are some object types missing, so a 1:1 translation isn't possible.

....

Jan

 

I use my own typ file to customize Garmin objects and to add/create new ones by using type codes not in use by Garmin. It works pretty well.

I uploaded a tutorial by Ross Spoonland here that details (with a video) how to create typ files.

Just my 2 cents

[+coyot21]

Hey all,

After our last go around with custom maps, I created a few topos for my 60CSx and they work fine. I was looking for more data to add including bathymetric data for the area around Spokane, WA. I finally found that and now I see this thread. How much detail do you all use? Has anyone made their maps to include bathymetric data for lakes and coast lines? Oh yeah, I was also able to get training in ArcGIS 1 & 2 (9.2) for free other than the cost of the course materials which I was able to convince my company to pay for. I did find the bathymetric data for all of the Washington State lakes (almost all) if anyone else is interested.

 

Coyot21

[-Oz-]

the map product mentioned in the beginning is out now for ~$80. That's not a bad price really esp for Colorado.

[+myotis]

Has anyone tried them? I emailed them and aksed them what their upgrade policy was and no one responded. So I am a hesitant to try them. I go to CO at least once a year, so I would get them if I knew it was not a rip off.