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Documenting Trails With Tracks and Adding to Maps


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If you need more trails and you have the trail data, the best thing you can do is add them to openstreetmap and they will eventually be available on future versions of the maps for garmin. The downside is that you have to manually trace your tracks in the OSM editor. But that does give you the opportunity to smooth the trail where needed, or even follow the satellite image if your tracks are off by a few feet.  Hopefully Jon will come out with an updated map, but it seems that he's pretty busy these days between work and family life. But adding to OSM makes the data available to anyone, and it's routable.

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I have put tracks/traces on OSM, some as long as almost 1-1/2 years ago.  Those have not yet shown up on any maps I want on my 66, including Garmin maps, so that seems to take a very long time.  I think Jon works alone on his maps and his Switchback site is quiet for a long time so that may be off the table as an option for new trails.  But his existing maps are great and what I use every day on my 66.  I have a bunch more trails ready to send him so I will and maybe eventually he will have more time to work on it.  I don't oppose OSM, and have many more tracks ready to upload there also.  But I want all my tracks on my 66. 

 

Getting back to my previous post, do you have any idea why the GPS2IMG map tracks I made are not showing on the 66?

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Edited by Cheminer Will
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5 hours ago, Cheminer Will said:

Getting back to my previous post, do you have any idea why the GPS2IMG map tracks I made are not showing on the 66?

.

 

Visit GPSrChive > GPSMAP 66 > Software and download the JaVaWa Device Manager (don't you already have this?) and then run it with your GPSMAP 66 connected and see what map errors it give you. I suspect potentially you  may see a map ID conflict.

 

Actually, that map is really tiny. I sent you an email asking for some information....

 

 

Edited by Atlas Cached
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8 hours ago, Cheminer Will said:

I have put tracks/traces on OSM, some as long as almost 1-1/2 years ago.  Those have not yet shown up on any maps I want on my 66

 

As I mentioned upthread, "uploading a trace" to OSM means it goes into a holding area, not the main database.  It's then up to somebody to notice and put the trail onto the map proper (into the database), or to fine-tune an already-mapped trail with this new data.  OR, for much faster service, it's really up to you to then do that little task.

 

Once something is in the main map database - meaning you can see it on the OSM standard map - it'll then propagate to all the other maps that are built from it.  Most will take between days and weeks at the worst, although Groundspeak's maps seem to take many months (year?), and I don't know about the Garmin maps, but likely days to weeks.  Offline maps for Locus et al including OpenAndroMaps are in the few-months range, depending on luck of timing and continent.

 

Edited by Viajero Perdido
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8 hours ago, Cheminer Will said:

I have put tracks/traces on OSM, some as long as almost 1-1/2 years ago.  Those have not yet shown up on any maps I want on my 66, including Garmin maps, so that seems to take a very long time.

Would you mind pointing me to the trails that you added/modified? Some services may pull new data every 3-6 months (CalTopo for example), others weekly. But if a trail isn't displaying, it may be that it's missing key attributes that mark it as a hiking or biking trail. CalTopo's trails are pulled from OSM, but if you overlay their data on one of the OSM basemaps, you'll notice that some trails don't show up in the CalTopo data. I think they are pulling trails marked with specific attributes. Not all footpaths are the same, and marking the surface as unpaved rather than leaving it blank can make all the difference. 

But if you point me to the trails you added, I can look at or even modify the attributes and maybe they'll appear in the next compilation of the data. Also what service and map type do you use to grab the maps for your 66? New data shows up on the default OSM map sooner than it does on Opencycle map.

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12 hours ago, Mineral2 said:

Would you mind pointing me to the trails that you added/modified? Some services may pull new data every 3-6 months (CalTopo for example), others weekly. But if a trail isn't displaying, it may be that it's missing key attributes that mark it as a hiking or biking trail. CalTopo's trails are pulled from OSM, but if you overlay their data on one of the OSM basemaps, you'll notice that some trails don't show up in the CalTopo data. I think they are pulling trails marked with specific attributes. Not all footpaths are the same, and marking the surface as unpaved rather than leaving it blank can make all the difference. 

But if you point me to the trails you added, I can look at or even modify the attributes and maybe they'll appear in the next compilation of the data. Also what service and map type do you use to grab the maps for your 66? New data shows up on the default OSM map sooner than it does on Opencycle map.

 

I am not sure how to point you to the trail data itself, but the trails I added over a year ago are shown on the attached screen clip of the OSM website.  Those trails are just west of Jacksonville, Oregon in a park known as the Jacksonville Woodlands.

 

 

Capture2.JPG

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12 hours ago, Viajero Perdido said:

 

As I mentioned upthread, "uploading a trace" to OSM means it goes into a holding area, not the main database.  It's then up to somebody to notice and put the trail onto the map proper (into the database), or to fine-tune an already-mapped trail with this new data.  OR, for much faster service, it's really up to you to then do that little task.

 

 

It has been a while now, but I did do more than just upload them.  I fine tuned them, added attributes, names, etc.  I don't remember exactly now, but I spent quite a bit of time getting them done.  They show up great on the actual maps on the OSM site but I have just not found them on the few other maps I have looked at recently that supposedly use OSM data.  Wish I knew which maps those were but I did not keep track.  They were just maps online, not any that I downloaded or purchased.  My wife uses some common iPhone programs for trails so next time we are out, I will look at her programs when she is using them and see if I can find any of the trails I put on OSM.

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15 hours ago, Atlas Cached said:

 

Visit GPSrChive > GPSMAP 66 > Software and download the JaVaWa Device Manager (don't you already have this?) and then run it with your GPSMAP 66 connected and see what map errors it give you. I suspect potentially you  may see a map ID conflict.

 

Actually, that map is really tiny. I sent you an email asking for some information....

 

 

 

OK, thanks.  I will do that and also go check my email.

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56 minutes ago, Mineral2 said:

What service and which map type/style are you using to get maps for your Garmin?

 

The only maps I have have on the Garmin 66 are the Garmin basemap, the Garmin topo map, and a few maps available from Jon at Switchbacks.com.  Jon's maps I loaded to the 66 from Basecamp and they work fine on the 66.  They appear on the map setup list and you can turn them on or off. Some are overlays and some are stand alone maps.  They all work fine.  The map I am having trouble with now is a very simple test map with only a few tracks on it and no other information.  I created it using the GPS2IMG software recommended several posts back.  That test map is installed to Base Camp and displays fine in Base Camp.  I then used Base Camp to load it to the 66 in the same way that I load the maps from Jon.  I can see the file in the same directory on the 66 as all the other maps as shown in the screenshot above.  So Base Camp put it where it belongs on the 66, but something about the file is not allowing me to see it or choose it on the 66.

 

If by asking the above question you meant which maps that use OSM did I look at that did not show the traces I uploaded to OSM a year ago, then those were just some random websites that use OSM.  Maybe the ones I looked at have just not been updated in over a year.  Maybe tomorrow I will have time to go to some other sites that use OSM and see if I find my trails.  When I do that this time I will keep track of the maps/sites so I can post links here.

Edited by Cheminer Will
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All of the trails from that image appear for me on various OSM sites and map styles, including CalTopo. So if those are your trails, they are part of OSM now and should work with any of the options for downloading OSM maps compiled for Garmin devices.

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OK thanks so all seems to be good there.  Yes those trails, names, etc. are all from me.  Most were new and a couple were already there and I just updated them to make more accurate and add attributes and names.  I just now thought to look at the OSMaps on the geocaching site and yes they do show there and also on the Gaia maps.  Not sure of the sites I looked at before, but they were random Googled sites I came across when trying to find overlay maps to include OSM data to install to my 66.  Maybe they were not updated or maybe it was user, (me) error and they were not really using OSM. Should have looked at more mainstream sites first to verify that my trails had propagated out.   I am about to put another 20 or so trails from a different area in OSM. So once I do that I will monitor the Geocaching and Gaia sites and see how long it takes for them to show. I would suspect that those two sites update the maps as quickly as anywhere.

 

I do still want to figure out why the GPS2IMG did not work for me because if I get that to work, I don't need to wait for OSM to update, I can put all my trails on my 66 as soon as I record and fine tune them.

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4 hours ago, Cheminer Will said:

I do still want to figure out why the GPS2IMG did not work for me because if I get that to work, I don't need to wait for OSM to update, I can put all my trails on my 66 as soon as I record and fine tune them.

I use GPSMapEdit to create my custom trail map .imgs using track .gpx files (or GIS shapefiles) for my various Garmin devices (currently my 66i). The exported .img is then uploaded using IMG2GPS.

 

I'm just checking in on this thread so may not be on your exact subject, but the .img file must have the Unique integer number for a Garmin map. It needs the 8-digit decimal ID: (e.g. 05042020) within the map properties. 

 

image.png.1a5be9d8308f1e40db58a519e5071e52.png

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3 hours ago, Atlas Cached said:

Which software did you use to create the map? The Code Page and Scheme is wrong.

 

Quote

If you do not want to endure the learning curve, you can try some software titles that do all the hard work for you, like GPX2IMG.

 

I used the GPX2IMG program

 

4 hours ago, Timpat said:

I use GPSMapEdit to create my custom trail map .imgs using track .gpx files (or GIS shapefiles) for my various Garmin devices (currently my 66i). The exported .img is then uploaded using IMG2GPS.

 

Thanks, I think I may have done it wrong.  I just used GPX2IMG on my GPX file with the tracks in it.  It sounds like maybe I need to use a program GPSMapEdit or JaVaWa IMG first?  I think I may be unclear on the exact steps needed to take a bunch of gpx track files and turn then into an overlay map I can put on the 66.  Because I could see in Basecamp the trail tracks in the file outputted by GPX2IMG, I thought all was OK. Maybe not.

 

If someone could just list the 1, 2, 3, etc. software steps I need to take to get my existing .gpx track files into an overlay map and then in to Base Camp and on my 66, maybe I will do it correctly this time. ;)  Thanks again.

Edited by Cheminer Will
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On 12/9/2018 at 7:21 PM, Atlas Cached said:

Oh, I started to do some editing in OSM, thinking that I could then just download OSM updates with my trail data included, but then some knucklehead decided they didn't like my revisions, and changed them to be incorrect again.

 

I can not tell you how many mistakes or errors exist in OSM for my area, but they number in the 1000's. So, I continue to build my own maps that I have complete control over, so I know I can trust them.

 

Any time you let that many people work on the same open project, the errors and inconsistencies are going to be compounded greatly.

Its a shame had that experience.To this day I cache on trails I cataloged and added to OSM. Did the person that reverted you traces ever explain why? 

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