BaseCamp software version 3.1.1 as of October 19, 2010

[Moorheadbigj]

http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=4435

Changes made from version 3.0.6 to 3.1.1:

◦Added support for multiple new BirdsEye products.

◦Added support for sorting, searching, browsing and filtering user data.

◦Added support for ejecting devices from within BaseCamp.

◦Added support for filtering tracks.

◦Added support for display of track statistics and temperature.

◦Added support for time offsets while geotagging photos from tracks.

◦Added support for editing multiple waypoints, routes and tracks at a time.

◦Added support for importing geotagged photos.

◦Added support for full screen mode.

◦Added support for non-rectangular selection area for BirdsEye downloads.

◦Improved performance while importing, geotagging, autosaving and routing.

◦Improved support for various DPI settings.

◦Reduced memory required by BirdsEye imagery.

Jerry

Edited October 21, 2010 by Moorheadbigj

[+Highland Horde]

cool thanks for the info. Not being able to eject from within basecamp was such a pain but now its fixed

 

EDIT: here is the link to the mac os x update (cause the pc one doesnt work on my macbook )

http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=4449

Edited October 21, 2010 by Highland Horde

[+bcblues]

So now BirdsEye will actually WORK??

[+Avernar]

◦Added support for non-rectangular selection area for BirdsEye downloads.

Ugh. Tried this and I hate it. I wish they just let you select the individual tiles to build an irregular area.

[+ecanderson]

Apart from hiding all of the tile folders from BaseCamp, is there ANY way to fire up that application without Birdseye images so that it doesn't take 6 to 8 weeks to load? It would be nice to be able to shut off the Birdseye layer, but I have yet to find the button to do it.

 

FWIW, you can hide the Birdseye data from BaseCamp easily enough if you've got the time for the copying of a massive number of tiny files. All of the folders contained in C:\Documents and Settings\Chris Anderson\Application Data\GARMIN\BaseCamp\GcsOverlays are the raw data for Birdseye, one folder per area that you downloaded.

 

The 54 areas I selected (it would never let me go past about 71MB in a single area, so there were a lot of them) and downloaded to cover a good bit of the Front Range area here generated (as expected) 54 *.jnx files for my Garmin.

 

However, the GcsOverlays folder on my PC contains 54 folders containing an astounding 388,057 files of about 10KB each!!! Is it any wonder that BaseCamp comes to its knees with Birdseye images loaded?

 

The problem as I see it is the structure of the data being sent by Garmin, not so much BaseCamp (which is bad enough).

[+dfx]

The problem as I see it is the structure of the data being sent by Garmin, not so much BaseCamp (which is bad enough).

the data sent by garmin will always be tile-by-tile, but that's not the problem. the problem is how basecamp stores it on disk. the JNX files are a perfect example of how the tiles can be stored in an efficient manner while at the same time giving the application using it (the GPSr) good performance. however, basecamp stores every tile as individual file and so relies on the OS's filesystem for providing the necessary performance for handling such a vast amount of tiles, which is a very bad choice on basecamp's part.

 

FWIW i'm trying the new basecamp now to see if there's any improvement.

 

update: upon launch of the new basecamp, it seems to be migrating the existing installed birdseye maps to a new format. i see some JNX files being created on disk, while the old gcsoverlays directories are being deleted. looks like they did the right thing. it's a slow process though and it's gonna be a while till i can actually start using it, heh.

Edited October 21, 2010 by dfx

[+ecanderson]

the data sent by garmin will always be tile-by-tile, but that's not the problem. the problem is how basecamp stores it on disk.

One could have argued the point either way. Either Garmin needed to bundle the information, or BaseCamp needed to bundle the information. As things stood, the OS was having to juggle literally hundreds of thousands of files between disk and memory. Pretty awful. Can you imagine doing that on a FAT32 formatted device?!?!?

update: upon launch of the new basecamp, it seems to be migrating the existing installed birdseye maps to a new format. i see some JNX files being created on disk, while the old gcsoverlays directories are being deleted. looks like they did the right thing. it's a slow process though and it's gonna be a while till i can actually start using it, heh.

AHA! Sounds like someone back at Garmin finally got the message. I suspect I'm not the only one that has emailed about this silliness a few times. Look forward to seeing if what you're looking at is what we hope it is, and if it works here, too.

 

Still -- any way to shut off that image layer? Guess we'll see. At least "hiding" a few *.jnx files from BaseCamp will be a lot easier (if even necessary) than "hiding" thousands of little tiles.

[yogazoo]

Has anyone figured out how to exit the FULL SCREEN mode (go to the VIEW drop down menu and select FULL SCREEN)? It appears as though they added the option to go to full screen mode, which is nice, but there is no way to exit that mode. You have to actually go to Windows Task Manager to manually stop Basecamp from running. It's a trap door!

[+ecanderson]

Has anyone figured out how to exit the FULL SCREEN mode (go to the VIEW drop down menu and select FULL SCREEN)? It appears as though they added the option to go to full screen mode, which is nice, but there is no way to exit that mode. You have to actually go to Windows Task Manager to manually stop Basecamp from running. It's a trap door!

Can't remember for certain, and my BaseCamp is right in the middle of the massive update/conversion process, so can't test, either -- but does the ESC key work?

[+Avernar]

Apart from hiding all of the tile folders from BaseCamp, is there ANY way to fire up that application without Birdseye images so that it doesn't take 6 to 8 weeks to load? It would be nice to be able to shut off the Birdseye layer, but I have yet to find the button to do it.

Are you using the new version? The new version for me is much faster.

[+dfx]

Has anyone figured out how to exit the FULL SCREEN mode (go to the VIEW drop down menu and select FULL SCREEN)? It appears as though they added the option to go to full screen mode, which is nice, but there is no way to exit that mode. You have to actually go to Windows Task Manager to manually stop Basecamp from running. It's a trap door!

Can't remember for certain, and my BaseCamp is right in the middle of the massive update/conversion process, so can't test, either -- but does the ESC key work?

or maybe F11 as in firefox? i can't check yet either

[+Avernar]

or maybe F11 as in firefox? i can't check yet either

It's F11

[yogazoo]

or maybe F11 as in firefox? i can't check yet either

It's F11

 

Oh right, of course, F11. Should have known. Why does Garmin have to be different? Couldn't they have used ESC? Or couldn't they have make the full screen map right clickable?

Edited October 21, 2010 by yogazoo

[+Avernar]

Oh right, of course, F11. Should have known. Why does Garmin have to be different? Couldn't they have used ESC like the rest of the world? Or couldn't they have make the full screen map right clickable? Rookies man, rookies.

Yeah! They should have made it ESC like other popular apps like Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome.... Oh. Wait. Nevermind.

[+larryc43230]

Oh right, of course, F11. Should have known. Why does Garmin have to be different? Couldn't they have used ESC like the rest of the world? Or couldn't they have make the full screen map right clickable? Rookies man, rookies.

Yeah! They should have made it ESC like other popular apps like Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome.... Oh. Wait. Nevermind.

 

I have Firefox (3.6.11) and Internet Explorer (8.0.6001.18702) on my machine. With both programs, F11 puts the browser in full-screen mode, and pressing F11 again takes it out of full-screen mode.

 

F11 looks pretty standard (at least for browsers) to me.

 

--Larry

[+dfx]

Are you using the new version? The new version for me is much faster.

i concur, big improvement there. this is actually usable now! let's see what other tricks this is capable of...

[yogazoo]

Yeah, I guess I'm unversed as to the ways of FULL SCREEN keyboard trickery. Apologies. I guess I'm just used to the YouTubes. The dogs saying "I Love You" videos keep me coming back! "Press escape to exit full screen" just sticks in my head.

 

My grandma would never figure on F11

Edited October 21, 2010 by yogazoo

[+Avernar]

Yeah! They should have made it ESC like other popular apps like Firefox, Internet Explorer and Chrome.... Oh. Wait. Nevermind.

I have Firefox (3.6.11) and Internet Explorer (8.0.6001.18702) on my machine. With both programs, F11 puts the browser in full-screen mode, and pressing F11 again takes it out of full-screen mode.

 

F11 looks pretty standard (at least for browsers) to me.

That sound you just heard was my joke flying over your head.

Edited October 21, 2010 by Avernar

[+ecanderson]

I'm still in the midst of the massive "Migrating". *.jnx files are being built per above comment. If I'd known, I could have probably killed off the small crap and just copied the *.jnx from my Garmin to the new folder.

[+dfx]

Yeah, I guess I'm unversed as to the ways of FULL SCREEN keyboard trickery. Apologies. I guess I'm just used to the YouTubes. The dogs saying "I Love You" videos keep me coming back! "Press escape to exit full screen" just sticks in my head.

that's because this kind of fullscreen comes from the content, and not from the application (firefox) but i agree, a note when you enter fullscreen would be helpful. you're not the first one to get trapped by something like that.

 

I'm still in the midst of the massive "Migrating". *.jnx files are being built per above comment. If I'd known, I could have probably killed off the small crap and just copied the *.jnx from my Garmin to the new folder.

i'm not so sure about that, as the GUIDs don't match up.

[+Avernar]

i concur, big improvement there. this is actually usable now! let's see what other tricks this is capable of...

I just want to know if there's a way to adjust the free form BirdsEye selection or if I missed something.

[+dfx]

I just want to know if there's a way to adjust the free form BirdsEye selection or if I missed something.

not once you've started downloading the images, not that i can see anyway. there's many more potentially useful functions that are missing, such as resizing existing birdseye segments (and downloading the missing pieces), adding a piece to an existing segment, cutting out/removing a piece, splitting a segment, etc etc. right now all you can do is download the stuff again.

[+Avernar]

not once you've started downloading the images

I meant before you start downloading. In the rectangle selection mode you can drag the sides to expand/shrink the rectangle.

 

In the free form selection mode I tried dragging the vertices but that didn't work.

[+dfx]

I meant before you start downloading. In the rectangle selection mode you can drag the sides to expand/shrink the rectangle.

 

In the free form selection mode I tried dragging the vertices but that didn't work.

ah... well, right-click clears the selection and you can start over. other than that, you can just keep drawing and overlapping parts of the selection will cancel each other out. so by first drawing a circle and then another circle (either inside or around it) you can create a donut shaped selection. awesome huh?

 

(yeah i know that doesn't help and is really useless )

[+Avernar]

(yeah i know that doesn't help and is really useless )

Yes, but now I'm curious if it would actually download the doughnut and leave out the timbit...

[+dfx]

Yes, but now I'm curious if it would actually download the doughnut and leave out the timbit...

yeah it does. it looks quite chunky, but there's definitely a hole in the middle.

[+ecanderson]

After BaseCamp completed, and had generated all of the *.jnx files, the bazllion files remained behind in GCSOverlays. I renamed the entire GCSOverlays folder to "hide" it from BaseCamp. Had no ill effect - it's operating from the *.jnx now. Deleted all 388,057 of the stupid little tiles and their folders. BaseCamp still happy, and now loads quickly. No burning desire to figure out how to turn off the Birdseye layer now -- but might want to in the future to avoid clutter of the map with the raster data.

 

1) So if you want to recover some space, and they don't get deleted during the update as seems to have been the case for dfx, just nuke 'em yourself.

2) Still don't know how to turn off the Birdseye layer except to (now) hide the *.jnx files. At least that's easy.

[+dfx]

1) So if you want to recover some space, and they don't get deleted during the update as seems to have been the case for dfx, just nuke 'em yourself.

i had a few leftovers too, about 2 or 3 directories with a handful of files in there, which i now deleted too. everything else got deleting during the conversion. odd.

[+Bullygoat29]

Well I think I found the first error. If you hit the ESC key while selecting birdseye imagery, Basecamp crashes every time for me. Anyone else willing to verify?

 

Other than that one little error, Basecamp is a 1000% better than it was. This is the way it should have been from the beginning.

[+ecanderson]

Well I think I found the first error. If you hit the ESC key while selecting birdseye imagery, Basecamp crashes every time for me. Anyone else willing to verify?

No change at all, here. No function, but no crash, either.

[+Avernar]

No burning desire to figure out how to turn off the Birdseye layer now -- but might want to in the future to avoid clutter of the map with the raster data.

Create an folder/list under "My Collection" and move all your BirdsEye files to there (you do this in BaseCamp, not Windows). Then create an empty folder/list and click on that to hide the raster stuff.

[+ecanderson]

Create an folder/list under "My Collection" and move all your BirdsEye files to there (you do this in BaseCamp, not Windows). Then create an empty folder/list and click on that to hide the raster stuff.

Created a new folder under My Collection (called Birdseye Images) and moved all of the Birdseye stuff there originally in hopes that would allow me to deselect it (a "move" was painful with the old file structure!). Didn't change anything except the 'location' of the Birdseye data in the structure - still all visible on the map.

 

After watching my disk drive thrash for half an hour, I never went the second step to create an "empty" new subcategory under My Collection. Didn't appreciate how that worked. You don't "deselect" a subfolder or whatever they call it - you select a new one. Got it.

 

So thanks for the tip. Had previously wanted to "hide" it just so that the time to open BaseCamp in the default view didn't take (literally) 20+ minutes. Now with the *.jnx, the app loads quickly, and with your assist, I can now make the BE data disappear if needed.

[+Bullygoat29]

Well I think I found the first error. If you hit the ESC key while selecting birdseye imagery, Basecamp crashes every time for me. Anyone else willing to verify?

No change at all, here. No function, but no crash, either.

 

Well I narrowed the error down. I have to have and area selected with the free form tool. It crashes every time when I hit ESC. If I've got an area selected with the box tool it does nothing.

[+Avernar]

Well I narrowed the error down. I have to have and area selected with the free form tool. It crashes every time when I hit ESC. If I've got an area selected with the box tool it does nothing.

This happened to me the first time I tried the free form tool. Didn't bother to investigate and forgot about it because I didn't like the free form tool.

[+dfx]

i love the freeform tool, but it seems that there's a bug in how the tiles selected (not really related to the freeform tool, it also happens with rectangular selection).

 

if you choose to download in "high" detail level, but select an area of which some parts aren't available in high-res, then the whole selected area gets download only in "standard" detail, even though the properties tab will still say "high" detail level. if you do the same thing again but leave out the areas which don't have high-res images, then suddenly you get the "high" detail level.

Edited October 22, 2010 by dfx

[+Avernar]

i love the freeform tool, but it seems that there's a bug in how the tiles selected (not really related to the freeform tool, it also happens with rectangular selection).

It wouldn't be that bad if I could edit the shape after drawing it but before downloading. I'm not that good of a perfectionist that I can get it right on the first attempt.

 

if you choose to download in "high" detail level, but select an area of which some parts aren't available in high-res, then the whole selected area gets download only in "standard" detail, even though the properties tab will still say "high" detail level. if you do the same thing again but leave out the areas which don't have high-res images, then suddenly you get the "high" detail level.

Ugh. That's a major annoyance. Looks like I'll have to split some selections.

 

Have you noticed any black pieces in the downloaded imagery?

[+dfx]

Have you noticed any black pieces in the downloaded imagery?

hm no, nothing like that yet. any place in particular i should be looking at?

[+Avernar]

hm no, nothing like that yet. any place in particular i should be looking at?

I'll post coords for a couple of spots when I get home later on tonight.

[+GeekBoy.from.Illinois]

Well I think I found the first error. If you hit the ESC key while selecting birdseye imagery, Basecamp crashes every time for me. Anyone else willing to verify?

 

Other than that one little error, Basecamp is a 1000% better than it was. This is the way it should have been from the beginning.

I run the Mac version here and it seems quite stable for me... That is as long as I don't try to have more than 2 downloads queued at the same time. Using the older version, I could select 7-8 regions, and queue them all up to download. Now, if I have more than 2 regions selected at once, then it will crash. If I keep it down to the region actively downloading, and one more in the queue, it is very stable.

 

I also noticed that I can no longer select large regions. I used to select areas that would download to 150-225MB JNX files, but now, they seem to max out around 100MB. Oh well, that just means I need to load more segments to cover the area I want.

[+ecanderson]

Interesting that your max (and others) are consistently larger than what I was allowed. I kept hitting the limit at about 73~75M with every 'highest' res block that I attempted to define in a rectangle - all 54 of them. How are you guys getting bigger blocks?

[+GeekBoy.from.Illinois]

Interesting that your max (and others) are consistently larger than what I was allowed. I kept hitting the limit at about 73~75M with every 'highest' res block that I attempted to define in a rectangle - all 54 of them. How are you guys getting bigger blocks?

I don't generally download the "Highest" resolution, I generally work with the "Higher" (medium level) resolution. With that, I was selecting regions on the map that claimed to be ~400MB, but would download to ~180MB. Now I can only select regions that report ~100MB and download to ~50MB.

 

I have covered all of Lake County IL (with a little extra to cover areas I'm in often) in 7 download files at "Highest" resolution ranging from 145MB-200MB JNX file sizes plus 1 JNX file of about 35MB.

 

I don't know if it matters, but I am running on a Mac. With version 3.02 I could select many regions and have them all queued up to download. I know that I had as many as 5-6 in the queue at one time. Now with version 3.11, I can only have 2 files in that queue or the app will crash when I try to select another region.

[+coggins]

Changes made from version 3.0.6 to 3.1.1:

◦Added support for multiple new BirdsEye products.

That must be these: LINK

[+GeekBoy.from.Illinois]

Interesting that your max (and others) are consistently larger than what I was allowed. I kept hitting the limit at about 73~75M with every 'highest' res block that I attempted to define in a rectangle - all 54 of them. How are you guys getting bigger blocks?

I don't generally download the "Highest" resolution, I generally work with the "Higher" (medium level) resolution. With that, I was selecting regions on the map that claimed to be ~400MB, but would download to ~180MB. Now I can only select regions that report ~100MB and download to ~50MB.

 

I have covered all of Lake County IL (with a little extra to cover areas I'm in often) in 7 download files at "Highest" resolution ranging from 145MB-200MB JNX file sizes plus 1 JNX file of about 35MB.

 

I don't know if it matters, but I am running on a Mac. With version 3.02 I could select many regions and have them all queued up to download. I know that I had as many as 5-6 in the queue at one time. Now with version 3.11, I can only have 2 files in that queue or the app will crash when I try to select another region.

[+myotis]

Yes, but now I'm curious if it would actually download the doughnut and leave out the timbit...

yeah it does. it looks quite chunky, but there's definitely a hole in the middle.

 

Was this after upgrading to the latest version of BaseCamp? What version of Windows?

 

I have runing Vista and after upgrading to the newest version, I could not find the files where you said. I found them in Appdata\local\garmin\basecamp.

 

But there are not hundreds of thousands but rather MILLIONS!!!!!!!!

 

Delete has been running for a couple of hours now and I will end up having deleted several million files. I just hope after this I do not have to delete all the files from the recycle bin.

 

It is no wonder this was such a horrible program. It also really irriates me that they would have released a program like this. I am also not pleased that I have to mannually delete this many files from my computer!

[+myotis]

Well, I overestimated how many files I had in my temp directory from BaseCamp. There ended up being about 11 gigs in about 1,364,000 files!!!!!!!! Most of the files were about 5K. It is no wonder this was such a slow program and it took so long to download.

 

Has anyone else who had lots of birdseye on their computer checked to see how many files they have? Has anyone determined if Birdseye still loads so many files on your computer?

 

If you have this many files, try to find a way to not have them be sent to the recycle bin. When I got up today Windows said it was going to take another 18 hours to finish emptying the recycle bin! I had anther window locked up so I shut it down and it also shut down the recycling process. When I checked the recycle bin was empty and I had nothing in my BaseCamp temp folder. But my 11 gigs was not recovered. I tried running diskcheck and it was stuck at 64% after two hours, so I powered down and restarted Windows and skipped the disk check. I guess I will have to leave it run over night. Anyone know where my 11 gigs could have gone? Do I still have those files somewhere on the computer?

 

I have to say BaseCamp opens much faster now. Has anyone tried it with lots of BirdsEye loaded?

 

I removed all my Birdseye from baseCamp so it would operate. Is there anyone to transfer it from my GPS back into BaseCamp?

[+ecanderson]

Has anyone else who had lots of birdseye on their computer checked to see how many files they have?

Sure. I noted above (see post #27, this thread) that after the new BaseCamp had converted all of the individual 388,055 tiles I had to *.jnx, it still left behind all of those individual tiles. I also had to delete them manually from my 54 directories worth of Birdseye stuff. Of interest - even after the conversion to *.jnx, BaseCamp was seeing those files, reviewing them on startup, and the startup was slowed down considerably by those. After deleting them, all was good. I haven't loaded any new Birdseye data since then, so do not know if there's going to be a repeat experience of any kind.

[+g-o-cashers]

I'm noticing on my 62 that Geocaches are recognized as waypoints and cannot be filtered out as geocaches. Anyone else?

[+user13371]

......If you have this many files, try to find a way to not have them be sent to the recycle bin.

Easy. Open a command window and type these lines at the command prompt:

 

CD <whatever directory you want to empty>

RD . /q/s

 

This will delete everything in the current directory (including sub-directories) but leave the directory itself -- it'll spit up an error message right at the end complaining that it can't delete the current directory. That's a feature, not a bug

 

If it's a fairly long path name you don't really have to type it in -- you can drag the folder icon to the command prompt window, and it'll type the name in for you, properly quoted.

[+Avernar]

I'm noticing on my 62 that Geocaches are recognized as waypoints and cannot be filtered out as geocaches. Anyone else?

Yes. Basecamp thinks they're waypoints for some reason. Very annoying.

[+myotis]

Well, maybe they have now got BaseCamp working how it should have from the start. Now that I have deleted the 1,364,000 files BaseCamp had in my temp directory, it opens much faster.

 

The new version also now recognizes the birdseye I have on my card and it allowed me to transfer it from my card into Basecamp. Only took a few minutes! And it still opens quickly with all the birdseye in it. More importantly you can move the map without waiting an hour for every small bit you move the map.