Awesome World Shaded Relief Map for Oregon, Dakota, & Colorado GPS

[+jeepdelfuego]

I came across a very nice custom map for Oregons, Dakotas, and Colorados at GPSFileDepot.com. It is the type of KMZ file that I have been waiting for. I believe it is viewable from 8 Miles out, and further.

 

You can download from: http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/download.php?map_id=277

 

More information about it can be found here: http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/view/277

 

As for all custom maps for Oregons, Dakotas, and Colorados, you must place the .kmz file in the /garmin/CustomMaps folder in order for it to be viewed. Make sure you have the latest firmware update for your unit.

 

I'll upload some screen shots later today.

[-Oz-]

I'll be happy to take those screenshots and post them on that map's page as well.

[+sduck]

I'd love to see screenshots - are these better than the built in topos on the oregon 550t for example?

[-Oz-]

sduck: many of the maps on that site are better than the 550t's built in maps; this is a raster map so its completely different than what is built in.

 

You can download any of the maps and try them out.

[+FollowMeChaps]

Nice find jeepdelfuego.

 

 

Before After

 

It's a large klm file. I'm therefore not sure how that will effect the Oregon performance. The garminoregon.wikispaces.com says "The limitation on the amount of map data which can be loaded on the Garmin is related to the total number of JPEG images supported across all KMZ files. Currently the unit is limited to 100 files." I'm not sure how many jpegs go into this klm file, does anyone know?

Edited January 13, 2010 by FollowMeChaps

[snowfleurys]

90 (6x15); the source data was resampled from 1 arc min to 1-1/2 arc min so it would fit within the 100 limit and have as much detail as possible with a minimum change to the data..

[+FollowMeChaps]

Thanks snowfleurys. I'm curious to know how one finds this out?

[+Red90]

KMZ files are just ZIP files. Open with any ZIP utility.

[+Red90]

On the comparison shot above, it would be better to compare to the built in shaded relief basemap....

[+Warriorrider]

I tried this one out last night. From a great distance it looks cool like the screenshot above but not so when zoomed in. When trying to use at a more appropriate zoom level for hiking or caching all you get is dark green/brown background to the maps without the relief shading that you would see on the Garmin Topo maps. I removed it from my Oregon as it is useless for me.

 

The best answer I have come up with is to use TopoFusion and upload a white backround (use the +/- keys to remove all the coloring and map info from the map) but with shaded relief highlighted to my Oregon with a 0 draw order. With a topo map active in the Oregon you now have an Oregon topo map with a white background and shaded relief. This is way, way easier to see than the greenish/brownish background that you normally see as the background when shaded relief is being used.

[+jeepdelfuego]

The shading from this kmz file is not very useful when you zoom in. But, very cool when you are zoomed out.

 

I tried uploading my screen shots last night, but they would only show up as links and not be imbedded in my message.

Edited January 13, 2010 by jeepdelfuego

[snowfleurys]

From a great distance it looks cool like the screenshot above but not so when zoomed in. When trying to use at a more appropriate zoom level for hiking or caching all you get is dark green/brown background to the maps without the relief shading that you would see on the Garmin Topo maps.

 

As the description says: 'Original data at one arc minute was resampled to 1-1/2 arc minute to fit within the limits of Garmin's custom raster maps. Detail is not quite as distinct as on their base map included with the units, however it does include data for the oceans.'

The dataset was not intended nor is it appropriate for hiking any more than the built-in basemap. Garmin's relief is built from DEM data in the mapset. So far only Garmin knows the format used to do this. This is just a display image using the new raster image capablilty of the units.

 

Would you use Garmin's world map or built-in world base map for hiking, etc?

 

With a grid spacing of 1-1/2 arc minutes, about 9000ft, why would you even expect it to be useful for hiking and other detailed needs?

 

Consider the size of coverage, most of the world (in 12Mb); Garmin's products with relief shading are in the 100's of Mb for as little area as a State or two.

 

Using USGS's 'standard' 10m NED data at full resolution, an 30x60 (100k quad) area can fit within Garmin's custom image map limits. This will display at zoom ranges from 2 miles to 120ft. Roughly 1800 quads at 10Mb per, could make a 18Gb dataset for the 48 States. Where available, USGS's 3m LIDAR would be 9 times that size - but the detail is ..... (almost too much for contouring).

 

The display zoom range is dependent on the pixel size. There seems to be no way for an author to control it.

To me the image is displayed 2 or 3, maybe even 4, zoomed-in values after the image quality limit is passed.

[+sduck]

I just gave it a shot. It looks very cool, to some extent, but is missing some pretty basic features such as major waterways (no rivers or lakes). And it has much less detail than the built in maps on my oregon 550t. And I don't ever use the thing at 8 miles or out resolutions, so I deleted it.

[+larryc43230]

I just gave it a shot. It looks very cool, to some extent, but is missing some pretty basic features such as major waterways (no rivers or lakes). And it has much less detail than the built in maps on my oregon 550t. And I don't ever use the thing at 8 miles or out resolutions, so I deleted it.

I loaded it into Google Earth, and it looks pretty cool there, but I decided not to load it in my 550t, for the reasons sduck mentioned.

 

--Larry

[snowfleurys]

I just gave it a shot. It looks very cool, to some extent, but is missing some pretty basic features such as major waterways (no rivers or lakes). And it has much less detail than the built in maps on my oregon 550t. And I don't ever use the thing at 8 miles or out resolutions, so I deleted it.

Correct. Garmin has the custom raster image data display after (over) the polygon data. I added some lake and large river polygon data, however when this was 'reduced' to a 90 arc sec grid I thought the results looked worse than not including it. If the hydro polygons are included as an overlay/transparent mapset, they display after the line, point and name data in the base map, which also is not very good.

[+DavidMac]

Here are some screenshots from the Colorado. I don't know about the other models, but the 400t sold in the US is a bit lacking when it comes to the world basemap outside of North America. Here's a view of the UK with only the default basemap enabled... the amount of detail is pitiful:

 

 

Here's the same view with the raster map. It gets a bit blurry below this zoom level but it still looks much nicer:

 

Some of Europe with the default basemap:

 

Europe with the awesome raster map:

 

[arash_no1]

I'm looking for the default Colorado 300 basemap (shaded relief). But I don't know where to download

[+splashy]

C 1st posting URL