Free maps for Garmin

[andygates]

All my other updates have appeared this morning - I suspect the server(s) was/were overloaded yesterday and queueing up updates (if that's how they work).

I've noticed in the past that recent edits have appeared on the map at different times, depending on zoom level. As if what you are seeing is pre-digested images rather than live data drawn at the time of display.

That is correct.  Map tiles are generated at all the zoom levels, and stashed on tile servers.  There are dedicated boxes plus a "tiles@home" distributed project for it.  Not all tiles are done all the time - when there are changes, tiles are tagged for change and put in the queue.  

That's just that map, though.  Other maps are rendered by other people -- Cloudmade do it about once a week, the OpenCycleMap people roughly the same, Osmarender much faster.  And once the data is in the database, extracts can work with it.  If you use, say, Groundtruth to slurp a small section of live data, then you'll get very fresh stuff.

An unusual error happened

I get this using Potlatch or JOSM. I think I broke it  .

Barbarian dog!  

[andygates]

Back in the update swing after the holiday hiccup.  Today's update fixes the "missing Wash" problem (typo in my scripts  ) and adds a new POI for "Mountain Passes".

Only six passes are actually tagged in the UK, but I guess that's because we don't have many mountains.  I've added it to the style anyway after seeing that the pass was tagged in the map, but didn't appear on my Garmin to Find or when I got there. 

[Tewdric]

I'm up and running!  After following this thread far a while and noting Charlotte's message about Etrex Legend HCx's going fro £130 on Amazon, I just had to have one..  It arrived yesterday and within ten minutes I had Andy's latest Munky build loaded and headed out to map the valley! 

The mapping is fabulous - take a bow Andy, it looks fantastic.

The lanes were more or less right here in the Angidy on OSM, but a couple of junctions were in the wrong places, one stretch of lane was shown the wrong side of a river, and one connecting lane round a small lake was missing completely.  More seriously, the rather good Cherry Tree Inn was missing!  I editied OSM last night and am just waiting for it to come back up from a maintenance break to see them uploaded to the live map.

The only thing I haven't managed to do yet is get Andy's munky tiles to display on the comuter - what software is best for this and is it possible to use it plan a route? 

The other hing I'm having difficulty with is loading a bikely generated gpx on to the unit as a route - it only showed the first section of my Tintern Abbey 200 ride and then only as a track, not a route.  Is there a size limit - I was thinking sendmap might be what I need?

Anyway, out to do some ore mapping, it's addictive..

[Panoramix]

The OSM coverage in Brittany used to be very poor, but it seems that people are now actively mapping,I just went to have a look and the map has improved greatly during the summer.I would say that it is now to a level where you can start using it

[andygates]

The UK gov public transport database - every station, stop and depot for bus, tram and train - has been given to OSM by the Dept of Transport and will be imported shortly.  Yay!

Map on computer - try downloading the "tiles" file and importing them into QLandkarteGT (free) or Mapsource.

[frankly frankie]

... loading a bikely generated gpx on to the unit as a route - it only showed the first section of my Tintern Abbey 200 ride and then only as a track, not a route.  Is there a size limit ...

Bikely generates a track, not a route (or did last I looked).  A track can be any size when viewed on the PC, but is limited to 500 points** when stored in a Garmin GPS.  A track of more than 500 will simply truncate when uploaded.
Various utilities can downsample a track to <500.
Various utilities can convert a track to a route, but then you have a limit (again in the GPS only) of 250 points.  Or, if you expect the GPS to autoroute, 50 points.

** there is one exception to this limit - see 'method 3' on this page

[robgul]

Not free, but trawling around ebay I found this outfit  Softsalez   selling Garmin mapping at about £12 for the UK ... I assume it's just pirate s/w that's there until ebay stops them?

Rob

[andygates]

Real software, but it's a reseller of OEM stuff.  That's against the licence conditions, so if a publisher notices, they may revoke the licence.

[andygates]

This week's update is up at Index of /andyg/maps .  Only a minor change: marinas and docks are now "water" coloured rather than the weird sandy colour they were before.  (Has mkgmap got coastlines sorted yet?) 

[The Mechanic]

Can you advise what the coverage is in Scotland at the mo.  I was temped to use the maps for my recent tour but was concerned that they would not cover some of the minor roads I would be using.  Apologies for now doing the update thing but I an not very good with computer stuff.

[andygates]

Big cities have great detail (more nerds live there; it's the geo equivalent of fandom); towns have variable detail, and major roads are all there.  You can definitely get from A to B, but if you take small roads then some will take you 'off piste'. 

Check the map before you take the plunge.  openstreetmap.org 

Topo coverage is from NASA and is ace.

[The Mechanic]

Thanks Andy.  I will try it out on hte Bealach na Ba Challenge next weekend.

[frankly frankie]

Not free, but trawling around ebay I found this outfit  Softsalez   selling Garmin mapping at about £12 for the UK ... I assume it's just pirate s/w that's there until ebay stops them?

Real software, but it's a reseller of OEM stuff.  That's against the licence conditions, so if a publisher notices, they may revoke the licence.

Hookey.
Seeing this exchange, I was interested enough to buy 2 items.
I got what I paid for - functional software burnt onto DVD-R.

[andygates]

Pop quiz!

There are a bunch of roads in OSM that have been sketched in from old 1970s maps and not updated since, because they're in rural areas where nobody goes.  A good example is the Somerset Levels: the grey roads on this map are sketched-in roads:

OpenStreetMap

At present I don't include those roads because they're old and skeezy and may not be what we think they are -- some of the Levels roads are more like farm tracks, some are decent country roads.  But in deep rural areas there's often very little coverage. 

So: Shall I add them?  There's not a huge number of roads like this - they're all sub-B-road stuff.  They'll mean fewer instances of going off-piste, but maybe some more mental routing.  Opinions please...

[Tewdric]

I don't think they'll have changed much so I say put them in.

I'm going to redraw the A466 in the lower Wye Valley this week  - the current version has big gaps in it where it's confused with the woodland boundaries.  Good excuse for three or four runs up and down to get a good squad average trace of both sides of the road too.  

The Wye is shown as a lake around the Wyndcliffe bends too - that won't be so easy to sort out, but I'm planning to enlist the help of the Severn area rescue association, to whom this sort of thing will probably appeal.

[ed_o_brain]

I started looking at OSM earlier this week and I'm hooked!

I've been adding features like a loon and hopefully at some point I will get out and record some GPS traces for some unmapped roads near me!

I had some issues getting them onto my Garmin - I'll add to the thread at some point with some info on how I worked around them.

[andygates]

Been out doing the Village of the Damned this weekend: Bow, in mid Devon.  It's the kind of place with a closed pub, a closed filling station, and three churches.  The main street is a depressing, derelict drag, and all the residential areas follow that awful property-developer tradition of naming the estate after the thing you just bulldozed to build it: Goss Meadow, Rectory Gardens and so on unto despair.  The town's in the Twilight Zone between the Exeter commuter belt and places with coastal access, and isn't pretty enough to be one of the Zeal Monachorums of the world.

Still, it's now mapped like a good 'un, and the startled burghers won't have to watch me capering down footpaths waving the GPS like a talisman any more...

[Richard Fairhurst]

We headed off to Herefordshire/Shropshire this weekend, and captured a biggish chunk (Leominster-Craven Arms) of the National Byway for OSM. There is still, amazingly, no Internet mapping of the National Byway available - hello, this is 2009 calling - so getting it on OSM could be pretty useful. Especially as a few of the signs appear to have gone AWOL...

[andygates]

See here:  National Byway - OpenStreetMap -- maybe word should be had with the opencyclemap folks to get it rendered as it doesn't seem to appear...

Meanwhile I need some aesthetic input.  There's a longstanding problem (because it is difficult) that the OSM Garmin maps have lousy coastlines.  Most have a simple line; mine inherits the blockwise chunky one from the contour maps I blagged from SMC.  The simple line is ugly and vague; the blocky one is just plain wrong.

So, until the boffins work it out, how about this as a styling alternative:

[andygates]

Actually, ignore all that, as the sea polygons patch is under heavy development even as we speak.  Mmm, zeitgeisty.  I'm in the mood for much tarting-up, watch this space.

[sbseven]

Actually, ignore all that, as the sea polygons patch is under heavy development even as we speak.  Mmm, zeitgeisty.  I'm in the mood for much tarting-up, watch this space.

I was just going to tell you that! I assume you know of the mkgmap development list: http://www.mkgmap.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/mkgmap-dev

Useful for monitoring upcoming enhancements such as sea polygons...

Recent enhancements now implemented that have interested me: r1073 - shield symbols for highways, r1079 - direct contour generation, r1140 - support for extended (3-byte) types.

Also, Splitter is in the process of being overhauled. The latest test version is now capable of splitting the whole of Europe on an 'ordinary machine'.

Shaun

[andygates]

Australia and Oceania, for our jetset folk, is up in the usual location.  You get the whole, er, continent.  It was easier than chopping it up!  No topo, because that takes some fussing, but it's routable and it's got my sexy new coastline too. 

(And if you do some mapping of your unspoilt island, all to the good!)

----

sbseven, I've only just subbed up to the list.  At some point when I have the brain, I'll slurp down these updates with utter glee!  Sheilds are teh sex.  Sea is teh sex too.  And at some point I want to get some UK contours from the latest DEM instead of SRTM.  Splitter development would be welcome too, though my feak and weeble machine is by far the limiting factor in any performance down here. 

[alexnugget]

Hello.

How do you actually get the maps that are linked to on the first page of this thread onto a Garmin Oregon 300? There does not seem to be an obvious way.


Thanks

[andygates]

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Garmin/Oregon_series suggests that it ought to work.  Does the Oregon have a Mass Storage Mode?  It's usually in Setup > Interface.

[alexnugget]

Hi there.

Sorry I haven't made myself very clear.
I already have an open street map on my Oregon 300. What I am really after is a map that also has similar deatil of France (if there is one). The map that I have has loads of detail in the U.K but only main roads in France.

Thanks for your help.