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Garmin Oregon, Dakota, Colorado -- Custom Raster Map support!


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I've been dieing to get this one out. Garmin releases a beta to support custom raster maps on newer Garmin models.

 

Details are here:

 

http://www.gpsfix.net/custom-raster-maps-g...akota-colorado/

 

Beta links

 

* Oregon 300/400 (can't find this one yet!)

* Oregon 550/550t (beta 2.51) http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=4671

* Dakota 10/20 (beta 2.2) http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=4669

* Colorado 300/400 (beta 3.02) http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=4667

 

Release notes for all are the same:

 

* Added support for Garmin Custom Maps. See our blog post about this new feature at

http://garmin.blogs.com/softwareupdates/trail-tech/.

* Report problems with this beta to TrailTech@garmin.com

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This is great news!!! Opens up a whole new area for custom maps and appears that Garmin is ok with those of us that want to use our own custom maps. This may even lead to limited support for custom maps, now there's a can of worms I don't think they want to open. Thnaks for the info.

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wasn't someone just railing against raster maps? What was it that user said?
What Red90 said--stripped of nastiness and sarcasm--is that raster topo maps are a very poor option if/when higher quality vector topo maps are available.

 

Raster imagery for other purposes (e.g. Aerial photos, or maps/charts that aren't available as vector data), can be a very good thing indeed.

Edited by Summer Walks
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Wow, they couldn't have made it easier for me! I already have about 45 park maps in google earth, so I should just be able to save them off to the Colorado. I think I'll wait until after geocoinfest to try this out. If my Colorado got borked while away from home, I don't think I would be a happy camper.

 

--Marky

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What Red90 said--stripped of nastiness and sarcasm--is that raster topo maps are a very poor option if/when higher quality vector topo maps are available.

 

Raster imagery for other purposes (e.g. Aerial photos, or maps/charts that aren't available as vector data), can be a very good thing indeed.

 

Yes, exactly!!!

 

Looks, like you just calibrate the image in Google Earth and copy it to the unit. Simple.

Edited by Red90
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The application for this is almost limitless. I can see how it will be great for conjested harbor approaches with landmarks, hiking peaks, will save a hugh amount of time in custom map mapping where exisiting paper trail maps are available, or even going to an unfamiliar residence/business where the street level panoramic view is available online and georeference the front view of the building. Anyone else with some good unique uses?

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This may be a double post.

 

So, what's the big deal. Does that mean that I can get the Disneyland map on my unit?

 

Yep, with everything on it being georeferenced. Can now do the same with any other paper map you can come up with or any picture (with a known location), Basically, if you can view it, you can now put that image on your GPS georeferenced now.

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Here are a few images:

 

USGS topo:

 

topo_map1.JPGtopo_map2.JPGtopo_map4.JPG

 

Trail map from PDF:

trail_map1.JPGtrail_map3.JPGtrail_map5.JPG

 

I'm working on a calculator that will tell you at what zoom level you'll start seeing pixelization based on the resolution of the JPEG and the area it covers. These maps above have a width of 2000 pixels and cover a a span of 1-2miles and they look okay down to about the 300' level, 200' is okay and 120' starts to look bad.

 

Next we'll see how they perform!

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Unfortunately you can only enable all custom maps or none - no ability to enable individual custom maps.

 

My first feature enhancement request to Garmin (I'm never happy).

 

Even if the custom maps are given different .img names? Sounds like it should be a fairly simple change since Garmin has already implemented the same thing not to long ago.

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Will you post your "calculator" to determine when pixelization becomes a significant issue when you get it completed? Sounds like a very handy tool.

Yes. It is just an excel spreadsheet.

Even if the custom maps are given different .img names? Sounds like it should be a fairly simple change since Garmin has already implemented the same thing not to long ago.

They are KMZ files not .img files. No idea how hard it is to separate these but it seems doable.

 

Historically, one release has worked for all Oregon x00's:?

Yes. All x00's use the same image.

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Even if the custom maps are given different .img names? Sounds like it should be a fairly simple change since Garmin has already implemented the same thing not to long ago.

 

They are not IMG files.... Please read the instructions. :P

 

Thanks Red for reminding me of that. I had read the instructions a couple of times and got in a hurry hoping for a simple remedy, forgetting that they are .kmz files

Edited by eaparks
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Depending on how much KML they _really_ support and how ambitious you are with the creation, it's possible that you'll see no pixelation at all at high zooms and not make the GPS parse multi-GB pixmaps at low zooms.

 

http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentat...l#superoverlays

 

If your head hurt from reading that, there are tools that'll do it for you. It'd be interesting to see if regionated images are supported.

 

Edit: I guess the post referenced above answered that. No superoverlays, but multiple GroundOverlays are OK.

Edited by robertlipe
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PLEASE tell me, that there might be a mistake in understanding this technical info.

 

There is a limit of 100 pictures (each with max. 1024x1024)

https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?t=2646

 

:P

 

I tested a larger file ~2850x5607 pixels and it seems to work.

 

Bathymetric chart. Great help for a colleague that sails this lake as no vector data is available anywhere. Note that Topo Canada is turned on as well and is visible through the raster map.

564.jpg

Edited by Red90
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I first noticed that thick purple line for the last track I generated when last using my CO 300. I cleared the track data and it went away, and haven't had the chance to get outside to see what happens when it lays down a new one.

 

I successfully loaded two of my scanned State Park trail maps with no troubles! The resolution down to a zoom of 800 ft is still Ok and it looks pretty cool I must say. I also took one of our GIS Clearinghouse aerial orthophotos (12 in res, true color) and loaded it. Zoomed down to 80 ft and can see parking space paint striping. Wow, this IS cool!

 

I can see lots of nice applications for this. Thanks Garmin!

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No, I meant automatically, not manually.

 

The images used in Google Maps are already georeferenced by the file name. Someone just needs to write some code to yank them into a KMZ.... A little program, you specify the area and it yanks all the GE images into a single KMZ. Should be a very easy thing to code....

 

Maybe I'll bug Mr. GPSTurbo... I know there are many around here who could whip this up in an evening.

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So which of the keen coders out there is going to make an app to turn aerial imagery (Google...) directly into KMZs for us?? :P

 

Yeah, there doesn't seem to be any easy way to do this that I've found. However this overlay tool works very well for USGS Topos and the B/W orthos (I know this probably doesn't help our friends in Canada!).

 

http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/kml_overlay

 

You need to save the file locally first but it is a pretty easy way to get topo tiles on the unit. I'll post instructions on how I'm using it tonight/tomorrow.

 

In the meantime I've posted some more on gpsfix.net here with some guidelines around file sizes based on Garmin's recommendations.

 

http://www.gpsfix.net/garmin-custom-maps-getting-started/

 

The 100 jpeg limit worries me -- is that per KMZ or total limit across all KMZ's? I'll ask.

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The 100 jpeg limit worries me -- is that per KMZ or total limit across all KMZ's? I'll ask.

 

This appears to be a system wide limit.

 

If I do the math using the 1 megapixel limit and assume you want good quality rendering down to the 200'-300' zoom level you can only map about 10 square miles.

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Well this is definately an interesting development. When making a jpeg image of a .pdf map am I supposed to copy the most zoomed in level, zoomed out level, or somewhere in between?

 

Here's a map of what I want to put in my Oregon 300 (when suppored).

http://www.sccgov.org/SCC/docs%2FParks%20a...verGuideMap.pdf

 

I would extract the image at the highest resolution possible and then use a photo editor to get it down to the 1 megapixel resolution Garmin recommends for a single image. If you want better resolution you'll need to look at splitting the image up.

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How's performance, screen refresh? Any differences between color depth (24 bit vs 8 bit)? This looks really interesting. I already have a few projects in mind.

IMO, it's horrible. I loaded a small area (less than 1 sq mile) and regardless if I had the raster map enabled or disabled, or if it was even being displayed on my screen, the refresh of my vector maps was affected...nothing I had ever seen before on my Colorado. :P

 

Of course, it was really cool to see actual terrain (trees, roads, trails) for the area I had mapped! :P

 

I'm downgrading from 3.02 back to 3.00 tonight...let's see what the next beta looks like. Just my $0.02, YMMV.

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I won't look up the legalese that you agreed to by using Maps or Earth (or pretty much any such program) but using the imagery outside the program and removing the copyright/attribution information is prohibited.

 

If you screen grab a local park and tweak it for your own GPS, would I expect to get my knees capped for it? No. Would I expect the publisher of a program that made it easy to do this in bulk or that was redistributing that imagery to arouse attention? Definitely. There are freely usable sources of referenced maps out there. Imagery is rather more rare to find free to reuse.

Edited by robertlipe
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I won't look up the legalese that you agreed to by using Maps or Earth (or pretty much any such program) but using the imagery outside the program and removing the copyright/attribution information is prohibited.

 

If you screen grab a local park and tweak it for your own GPS, would I expect to get my knees capped for it? No. Would I expect the publisher of a program that made it easy to do this in bulk or that was redistributing that imagery to arouse attention? Definitely. There are freely usable sources of referenced maps out there. Imagery is rather more rare to find free to reuse.

 

Imagery maybe easier than you think (at least in the US). The NAIP program by the Dept of Agriculture has 1:12,000 Color Imagery for most of the US. You just need to find it.

 

Here's for Nevada.

 

Nevada NAIP

 

Here's California.

 

California NAIP

 

These are very large files.

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There are freely usable sources of referenced maps out there. Imagery is rather more rare to find free to reuse.

 

Imagery maybe easier than you think (at least in the US). The NAIP program by the Dept of Agriculture has 1:12,000 Color Imagery for most of the US. You just need to find it.

You may be wise to not want to challenge what I think.

 

There's imagery out there. There's even free images and maps out there. My point is that copy/pasting/screen-capturing it from Google's products (largely licensed from third parties with arm-length legalese) isn't really available.

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