Well, I can’t really follow your first argument. Including the SVN release would help people like me to see if you already use the latest one or if I have to test on my own. And it won’t disturb others who don’t understand what an SVN release is all about. Anyone out there should have a rough understanding about the concept of versions, so why should it confuse people? And if e.g. people using your maps will complain at the mkgmap people they can at least include some needed information. I don’t see why this hurts anyone.
If it’s too laborous for you, I can certainly understand, though…
About the limitations: that’s really great, thanks! I never tried entering the full city name. Now that works great for some cities - probably those ones which have the borders mapped in a correct fassion. However, I’m not able to search for cities with German Umlauts like München.
But I think I’ll check the missing bits with the mkgmap people directly.
Thanks for your quick answer and keep up the great work!!
Maybe not on the web site but you could add that somewhere in the dataset description, such as “OSM map (r991)”. This might help to find bugs in mkgmap when somebody identifies a special case in a specific map version.
This will be gone after 48 hours. I think it should be linked to the maps in a way that one can always identify the version information. Currently the automatically generated gmapsupp.img is listed as “family name” on my GPS. This string could for instance read “OSM (date) (version)”, giving both the date of the OSM data and the mkgmap version.
Hi Lambertus, very very good service!! I like it very much because my tries to create large routable maps failed due to less RAM…
From my opinion you could reduce the space problem, if you either give the user a button “Ready - maps can be deleted on server” or you could automatically remove the maps e.g. 3 hours after the first completed download.
(A nice improvement would be a selection of different typ files, e.g. one for cars, one for bicycles etc.)
I think it will ok just to reduce time from to 30hrs… 3 hours is too short as I download my file offpeak which is usually 5-8 hrs later.
I think having some “pre-generated” files would reduce the need for some request.
I now have a script that will automatically delete old directories. I use the map id’s to produce a MD5SUM so that I can reuse existing directories for multiple users. I’m still determining if this is really helpful and also which resource I need the most (e.g. disk space vs. CPU time). It is too early to say what is most important.
Yes, I’m also thinking about making a lot of the Garmin parameters configurable so that you can install multiple maps in MapSource and allow users to upload and use their own TYP files. This takes time however, and I also desperately need some time for myself and my GF so I’m going to let things be for a while.
First of all, a big ‘thank you’ for your efforts, and along with you, to all the contributors of OSM.
Now, the problems
I just downloaded a map for Romania (I received the link around 20:20, on April 8th), and the East-European fonts are displayed as question marks (e.g. instead of Orăştie I get Or??tie). I am quite new to all this, but I could use some suggestions. Should I compile the maps myself and add certain switches to include font support?
If you are willing to do some tests to find out which parameters are needed for the build process then that would be great!
For the current maps I used the Mkgmap parameters --utf8 and --code-page=1252. These last parameter is apparently needed to get it working on the Garmin Mobile XT. I added the first parameter just to avoid the problems you’re encountering…
I still have some questions: Would it be difficult to add some different style or type of the map to select?
I can hardly see buildings because they are brown, like the background of the map and therefore i would prefer grey buildings.
When mapping some points are not shown (i.e. traffic_signals) it would be great if I could see them on the map, because the live checking if the map is complete would be much easier.
Or if you could a special mapping map which emphasize thing which need an update (like unamed highways).
To see contour lines for the high (hiking maps) would be a nice option in the lowest zoom level.
I would like to have the diving spots shown on the map (sport=diving) because it would be easier to find them.
Now I’m going to install the latest map to my Garmin60CSx. Thanks a lot that this is now easy!
Hi Lambertus, I love the routable feature very much!
Today I noticed that phone cells are visible in a quite low resolution on my Garmin Oregon in which I don’t expect POIs to be displayed. I think that’s a mistake? Can you please check this?
And one more: Roundabouts are rendered with a higher level than usual streets, e.g. the roundabout and connected streets are highway=unclassified. The streets are rendered grey whereas the roundabout is orange.
Are the roadtrip versions working for everybody? I submitted a request yesterday, the MapSource and gmapsupp versions are approx. 280 MB, and the Roadtrip version is only 87 MB. It seems to contain only one of the tiles…
Good job Lambertus, it’s a very nice initiative and great alternative for maps!!!
I’ve been reading a lot of posts and I also tested some maps from http://garmin.na1400.info/routable.php during the last few weeks. I red that the routable maps are working now and that the feature of searching by address is supposed to work also. I tested that on my Nuvi 650 and the map is displayed on my unit very well.
The problem is that it’s impossible to search by address, although I can search by city. I have a North American Nuvi (US+Canada) and I have tried with the map tile from Rome, Italy. When I try searching an address in Rome, the Nuvi asks me to enter a State (from the US) so it is impossible to start searching.
I did not have that problem with the free maps from Argentina developped with a similar concept as OSM (www.proyectomapear.com.ar). In that case, the Nuvi was asking in what country I was and Argentina appeared as a choice for address search. I don’t know if they included an extra feature in their maps.
Is searching by addresses something that will be developped in the future or is there something I have done wrong? (I did the installation trough MapSource with the .exe file and I also tried to disable my North American maps on the unit but wihout success)
Let me know if you have a solution for that, on my part I will try other options and let you know if I find a way to make it work.
Both items are really things that should be fixed in the stylesheet of Mkgmap.
They should be functional and mostly the size of the RoadTrip installer is about equal to the other files.
One reason why yours doesn’t might be because the server disk was temporary full. It’s a constant struggle to keep enough space available for every service that’s running on it. The Garmin maps are in high demand but require a lot of disk space. A cleanup script is running but might not be able to keep enough space available.
Can you post the download URL so I can check it out?
Have you seen this post and tried the suggested solution in there?
Mkgmap is an OSM specific Garmin map compiler and must learn the find address function. Some parts of the Garmin map format are publicly known, other parts not. I guess the Argentina map makers have found out how the address search works.
As said earlier, the address search is a beta feature. It will become better in the future.
Well, it looks like the disk wasn’t full at the time your request was processed. It could be that the RoadTrip script is a bit too sensitive to errors like missing tiles (You included some missing tiles in your request) and simply gives up. I’ll look into that.
Excellent work, that page!
Already downloaded Germany and put the gmapsupp file on my Vista HCx,
looks fine, the only thing is that the sea has the same color as the land,
only the coastline is blue.
Well, I’ll see what I can do…