Garmin maps (for the Netherlands)

General talk
49

use any hex-editor and look word at address 0x0003

50

Thanks, Liosha! I should have thought of that…

The answer is 2A = 42 for the cycle version, identical ProductID as the normal version.

This means you cannot have both installed simultaneously in MapSource.

51

of course you CAN :slight_smile:

you can change PID in tdb (using hex-editor for tdb version 3 or TDBchanger for version 4)
you also can create new tdb with gmaptool+cgpsmapper

52

Hi all,

I can’t get the maps to work with QLandkarte. I’ve asked the author of QLandkarte, and he
found a problem with the .tdb file in nl-normal_tinymaps.zip:

There is a section “0x42” to define the basemap, and
multiple sections “0x4C” to define the high detail tiles. The basemap tile
must not be part of the high detail tile list like in this case.

Any chance this can be fixed in your maps?

Thanks,

Jan-Pascal

On Saturday, 1. November 2008 22:48:16 Jan-Pascal van Best wrote:

Hi all,

I’ve been trying to use the Garmin maps generated from OSM data for the
Netherlands from http://garmin.na1400.info/,
especially the tdb+img files in
http://tile.openstreetmap.nl/~lambertus/garmin/nl/normal/nl-normal_tinymaps
.zip

When I start QLandkarte (svn rev 513), choose “import map” and choose
the directory containing the tdb and img files, then select
“11000000.img” as the base map, I get a view showing what looks like the
outlines (rectangles) of the .img files. Nothing in them. Zooming in or
out doesn’t help.

Hi Jan-Pascal,

the *.tdb is broken. There is a section “0x42” to define the basemap, and
multiple sections “0x4C” to define the high detail tiles. The basemap tile
must not be part of the high detail tile list like in this case. Tell the map
maker to fix it.

Oliver

53

I downloaded the Netherlands map and I have a few suggestions regarding the layout:

  • I think natural=wood could better be coloured green instead of horizontal brown lines.
  • Can building=yes areas be included?
54

I have finally spent some time on updating my scripts to incorporate the changes suggested by Liosha. The TDBChanger tool was very helpful during this process.

  • Installed the latest Mkgmap version (r830).
  • Mkgmap now uses a correct product-id parameter (also changed installer script accordingly).
  • Added a ‘series name’ parameter to Mkmgap to show nice map names in MapSource map selector pull-down menu.

The result is:
A) The maps now fully work with the latest MapSource version (6.14.1).
B) You can now install and use multiple OSM maps in MapSource also.

Thanks all for the help, feedback and tests :slight_smile:

PS. I suggest to uninstall any existing OSM map installation before installing the new ones.

55

With major help from Berteun (who wrote the Python script for translating images to Roadtrip Mac OSX format) there are now also daily updates for Roadtrip users.

Note 1: Sometimes the MapInstall application crashes during installation. If that happens you need to perform the following: Delete ~/Library/Application Support/Garmin/MapInstall/lastSelected.gdb and ~/Library/Preferences/com.garmin.MapInstall.plist. Then restart MapInstall and try again.

Note 2: For some reason the overview map does not reveal the entire map. Zooming in will show the map though.

56

Hi Lambertus,

Thanks for the cyclemap! I use it on a Garmin CSx60 and it is very nice. It
replaced the commercial NL map on my device.

As a user, I have some suggestions for improvement. Mostly the readability of
roads/cycle paths on the device. Normal roads are almost invisible, so when
riding outside cycle paths I have to look really hard - and often stop. On the
other hand, cycle paths could be more accented - I would love the blue dotted
line, as on the standard OSM display. Likewise footpaths and ‘unpaved’
roads/paths should be visible as such (maybe the red dotted line). Where these
markers are always drawn on top of whatever there is.

I don’t know how doable this is, but it would make the maps a lot more
usable on the road.

57

Well, you cannot tell the Garmin to draw a red dotted line. You can only tell it to use a certain pre-defined line it knows about, like highway, primary road, etc. So the cyclemap is a map that abuses these pre-defined lines to make cycleways more prominent by pre-processing the data going into the map maker. So a cycleway is pre-processed into a highway and the map making application then just draws a highway on your GPS where the cycleway is.

The only thing I can do to make the maps more readable is to select the best pre-defined line for each type of road and save this into a Mkgmap style file.

58

OK, I’ll start playing with the tools soon. I am planning a round the Netherlands trip in April. Would be nice to have readable material (it is still usable now).

BTW I mapped our overland trip to Mali in December - the coastal route through Mauretania and passed Nioro to Bamako. It is all on the openstreetmap.org now!

What viewer do you use before rendering on the Garmin? The mapnik viewer?

Pj.

59

Cool!

I don’t quite understand your question here. But in general I prepare my journeys by looking at some good readable map first, like the slippymap on www.openstreetmap.org. Then I create the route using waypoints in MapSource and load the resulting route to the Garmin device.

60

Hi Lambertus,

Last week I did 1000 km’s by bike - in a pink Mango - riding from Zoutkamp to
Domburg, adding coastal paths in Zeeland, for one. I read you are near
Apeldoorn. One thing that caught me out (again) is there is no real north-south
cycle path route on the Veluwe. Plowing through sand with a three-wheeler is no
fun ;-).

Your cycle map on the Garmin 60CSx is marvellous!! It is a new way of cycling
and the quality of the experience - mostly riding cycle paths - has gone up. I
am very enthusiastic about these developments and hope other countries will get
up to speed too with cycle path mapping (in particular France appears to be
lagging). At the current rate NL will be complete in a year, I think. I notice
the road tracks now also render on the web site. Nice.

With regard to my earlier question ‘What viewer do you use before rendering on
the Garmin? The mapnik viewer?’ I meant an emulator on the computer for Garmin.
Rather than uploading to the device it may be easier to toy around with ideas
on an emulator. I was wondering if there is some tool that emulates rendering
on a PC for Garmin. But I am probably asking too much.

Pj.

61

Down here, in the bottom left hand part of the world, there is a country called New Zealand. We Australians think it is a bit of a joke, but it really does exist. Unfortunately, it does not exist in the relevant map of http://garmin.na1400.info/routable.php .

Any chance of having New Zealand added? The same applies to Fiji and a number of other places in the Pacific Ocean that aren’t so much of a joke.

62

Recumbent bikes are cool. I adore the Flevobike Versatile and are gathering information about the Greenmachine as I would like to buy one :smiley: Unfortunately I live only a few km from my work and have therefore no compelling reason to spend 3.5k Euro on such a bike :stuck_out_tongue:

MapSource is an offline Garmin map viewer from Garmin, there is also GPSMapedit and many more.

Honestly, I have no clue what you’re talking about. If I donwload tile 63240003.img I can clearly see data from New Sealand in there. Tile 63240020.img contains most of Fiji.

There is a problem with rendering the oceans though, so you might not see the boundary between land and sea very well (it’s a thin blue line).

63

Back on 2009-05-08 11:31:45 I raised a problem regarding the apparent disappearance of New Zealand and some Pacific Islands. It has taken a while to get back to it but here is the detail of the problem and what I have uncovered.

  1. The tiles 63240003.img, 63240013.img, 63240020.img can be downloaded individually or as one of your built map sets (e.g. as I did today at <http://planetosm.oxilion.nl/~lambertus/garmin/routable/13-05-2009/349694e57c5f6ade506337d569678141>).

  2. No matter what I do I cannot get these to be visible in MapSource. I have updated it to the latest MapSource version, (6.15.6), tried the executable (osm_routable_MapSource.exe), tried building sets from the individual times with MapSet ToolKit and joining tiles with GMap Tool.

  3. I can, however, build a gmapsupp.img with GMap Tool using the same tiles and upload it to my Garmin 300 where the maps are visible.

  4. The problems I have are
    a) I cannot view the maps in MapSource and
    b) I cannot use MapSource to transfer them to the handheld.

  5. I don’t have these problems with any of the adjacent tiles e.g. 63240009.img 63240010.img 63240011.img 63240012.img 63240019.img

  6. The only explanation I can offer is that there is a line at about longitude E152.51, west of which detail is visible, even in tile 3240003.img, but east of which nothing is visible in MapSource. This blank space runs at least from latitude N64 to S49.

Any help would be appreciated.

64

It seems that the generation of the img files is broken. The MapSource normal executable is only 66k in size.

65

That is correct, more info here.

66

Hello Lambertus,

I’ve been admiring and using your work on the Dutch Garmin maps for a while now and I like it a lot, so I want to thank you for your efforts.
But now I’d like to offer my assistance.
I have an Oregon 400t with the onroute bicycle map, but even with the latest update I’m none too impressed with it (I use it for navigating long distances in my quest velomobile).
So now I’d like to be able to use the openstreetmap data to generate a route on my Garmin.
I have quite a few years of experience as a C programmer, and some C++ as well, but I don’t have access to any windows or MAC OS systems. I am Linux-only computer user.
If you can point me to some info on the internal structure of the garmin map files, I could try to figure out how routable maps are made and write a tool to create them.

NoKey.

67

When i try to download for instance the cycle map, I get an error:

While trying to retrieve the URL: http://dev.openstreetmap.nl/~lambertus/garmin/nl/normal/OpenStreetMap%20Garmin%20maps%20NL(normal).exe

The following error was encountered:

Unable to determine IP address from host name for dev.openstreetmap.nl
The dnsserver returned:

Name Error: The domain name does not exist.

Can someone tell me what the problem is???

Thanks, Peter

68

To generate a route?

Why would you? Lambertus’ routable maps are made by mkgmap. See http://www.mkgmap.org.uk/page/contact

You could better join them to make it better. (for instance ist lacks good transliteration ) :wink: