Garmin maps

[+A.T.Hiker]

does anyone know if there are any available garmin mapsets that will draw county borders? Or, how to make the current ones display county borders? That would have some useful applications for me. Thanks!

[MtnHermit]

Import the USGS county shapefiles into GPSMapEdit > Export as a transparent MP file > compile in the free cGPSmapper compiler > transparent county border overlay for any existing Garmin map.

 

How will you use county borders?

[+Klatch]

does anyone know if there are any available garmin mapsets that will draw county borders? Or, how to make the current ones display county borders? That would have some useful applications for me. Thanks!

The old Roads and Recreation maps have county borders, but you probably would have to look for a used copy, it has been discontinued for a few years.

[+A.T.Hiker]

Thanks, but that sounds complicated. Or, is it easier than I think? Can you give me some guidance?

 

I will mostly use the county overlays for my own map making purposes, including helping folks map out their properties.

[-Oz-]

I have a set but its hard to tell which county you're in because the lines overlap so say Pima county and Pinal couny are the same line so you have to play with zoom to find out.

 

If that would work for you I can post it. It is all done.

[+ibycus]

does anyone know if there are any available garmin mapsets that will draw county borders? Or, how to make the current ones display county borders? That would have some useful applications for me. Thanks!

 

My USA Mapset shows county borders, although they aren't all loadable to the GPS (only ones where I have detail are loadable).

 

http://www.ibycus.com/ibycususa/IbycusUSA.exe

[-Oz-]

My USA Mapset shows county borders, although they aren't all loadable to the GPS (only ones where I have detail are loadable).

 

http://www.ibycus.com/ibycususa/IbycusUSA.exe

Does your have the same issue that i mentioned above? Where the lines overlap so its hard to tell which county is which? If not how did you do that?

[+ibycus]

My USA Mapset shows county borders, although they aren't all loadable to the GPS (only ones where I have detail are loadable).

 

http://www.ibycus.com/ibycususa/IbycusUSA.exe

Does your have the same issue that i mentioned above? Where the lines overlap so its hard to tell which county is which? If not how did you do that?

 

Yeah I have the same issue on my set. One way to 'resolve' the issue would be to look at two different borders. If they share the same name, then that's the county you're in. (I think that made sense).

 

Anyways, I'm currently uploading a new version of my mapset, so mine is offline at the moment anyways. (should be done in about 2.5 hours)

 

Dale

[-Oz-]

Team R2: http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/view/10/

 

That is a quick county/state map for the entire U.S. Just download, run, and send to your GPS receiver. It has an issue where mapsource won't show the county lines but the GPS does. I'm working on figuring out why.

[+A.T.Hiker]

Thanks OZ. I'm going to give this link a shot and see what happens, then check back for updates. The fact that it overlays with maps already installed is a nice feature, and may work well for me.

 

Team R2

[-Oz-]

Uploaded a new version that doesn't have the mapsource glitch. I would get it.

[+DavidMac]

I tried the maps in the link -Oz- provided above. They install fine into Mapsource, but I am unable to select them for upload into the GPS (the highlight tool doesn't highlight them). Is there something I'm missing?

 

Eventually, I got frustrated and decided to make a few maps myself. I downloaded county boundary files from this page and used a demo version of Xtools in ArcGIS to convert them from polygon shapefiles to line shapefiles (otherwise I couldn't figure out how to make them transparent). When I convert them into .img format, I get numerous "element spans more than 10 degrees" (or something like that) errors, but they installed into Mapsource and can be viewed on the computer with no problems. They are slightly higher resolution than the maps that -Oz- posted (accurate down to the 0.5 mile zoom level as opposed to the 5 mile level), but still have the overlap problem. I think xtools has a feature to combine overlapping lines into one, so I'll play with it.

 

The problem I have with the maps I created is that while I can select them for upload into the GPS, they don't work properly. The pink (shaded) box when I select maps only overlaps half of the data, and although they show up in the map selection list on my 60csx and Colorado, I cannot get them to draw on the screen.

 

Is anybody still interested in this? I know my way around ArcGIS, but am still fumbling through the steps needed to get the data to GPSMapEdit and beyond. If anybody who knows more than I do about creating maps wants to help, please let me know.

[PerryB2]

If you don’t get the help you need here, you might try posting your problem in the Yahoo map_authors forum. How are you registering your maps with MapSource? Have you tried MapSetToolKit?

[-Oz-]

David,

 

Can you email your maps to me so I can look at them? I loaded mine to my GPSr once but now am having a problem selecting them in mapsource so I need to recompile it I believe.

 

Email: dan @ oztheory.com (remove the spaces).

[+DavidMac]

Thanks, I sent you an email.

 

PerryB2, yes, I messed around with MapSetToolKit and cgpsmapper (the latter of which created a .reg file). I've mostly been going by the tutorial here:

 

http://home.cinci.rr.com/creek/garmin.htm