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  • Multiple Custom Maps on Garmin Edge SD Card ?
  • excitable1
    Free Member

    Can anyone share the knowledge please, if it’s possible ?

    I’ve got a number of Custom Maps (KMZ files) that I’ve down loaded/created for each area I ride, and I copy and paste the map I want for the day to the CustomMap folder on the internal memory of the Edge before every ride (Each KMZ file contains no more than 100 tiles/J-pegs).

    I wanted to put all my custom maps onto a memory card and have them there constantly so I don’t have to mess about deleting and swapping the maps about or even going into the device and swapping maps about IE like having one big map covering all the areas I ride.

    I’ve tried it a number of different ways through Google Earth and Basecamp but I keep getting messages about too many images, presumably because the number of images in all the files together (in fact more than 2, is more than 100 tiles).

    It seems you need to merge all the Custom Maps into one map and get the Garmin to think think that all the individual Jpegs are just one Jpeg… maybe ?

    Any help would be appreciated.

    excitable1
    Free Member

    Bump ?

    excitable1
    Free Member

    Bump for any IT experts in this morning ?

    Bit more research… the Edge is restricted to 100 images therefore can’t read a single custom map(KMZ file), or more than one map that consists of 100 Jpegs/tiles or more.

    So either the Edge needs to be derestricted somehow, or the all the KMZ files need to be merged into one so the Edge thinks it’s a single map, or the best I’m going to get is a series of Custom maps on an SD card that I can toggle between by enabling/disabling each custom map etc (but at the moment I can’t get that to work).

    There must be a way because I suspect the maps you can buy are made up of more than 100 tiles especially those for the whole of the UK, but presumably those are programmed to allow the Edge to allow more than 100 tiles and go from tile to tile as you move along.

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    Crell
    Free Member

    Have a look at this, though there was a big reduction in what it can do a few years ago as lots of sites withdrew compatibility, but it looks like it’ll still generate KMZs.

    http://mobac.sourceforge.net/

    excitable1
    Free Member

    Thanks Crell. That’s the programme that helps me create the custom maps (KMZ files).

    You can create a single Atlas and within that you can have as many custom maps as you like but each map can’t exceed 100 tiles and the Edge won’t read any of the maps if they exceed 100 tiles and you can only put one map at a time on either the internal memory or an SD card.

    100 tiles is a big custom map and easily covers any ride I do. You can get about 1/5th of the Peaks or Lakes on one map. It’s just a pain swapping maps over before every ride.

    nedrapier
    Full Member

    I suspect the maps you can buy are made up of more than 100 tiles

    I don’t think they are, I think they’re different kinds of files. Rather than photos/images, the map elements are stored as vectors/lines etc, they’re a lot easier to zoom and scale.

    Any reason why you need custom maps?

    I spent a long time scanning, stitching georeferencing and tiling a paper map of a slice of Northern Norway, researching, installing and learning all the software as I went along, then came up against the storage issue once I was finished.

    Then I found some very good OSM maps of the area, which did the job just as well as the map I was trying to scan! Quicker to “draw” and quicker to boot up on my Oregon 600 – well over a minute, maybe even 2, with the custom maps loaded. More like 20 – 30s without.

    excitable1
    Free Member

    nedraiper

    I know your pain with the paper map scanning etc, I tried doing that a few years ago when I got my first Garmin then gave up.

    I’ve been using a map creation web site ever since and that allows you to pick an area in different map formats and then it downloads them as a series of tiles (max 100) within a single KMZ file; or a series of adjacent maps in a series of KMZ files (that you then can’t link in your Garmin because they total more than 100 images).

    It works, you can use a single map or even a whole series of maps in Base Camp etc and trace a known footpath etc to create a route to follow and the Garmin displays a map and a route overlaid no probs’. It just won’t display more than 100 images (a single map) and it would be nice not to have to keep swapping maps over via the PC before every ride… at 6:30am when you’ve forgotten to do it the night before !

    nedrapier
    Full Member

    Does sound a bit faffy. What do those maps give you that OSM maps don’t? Are they the OS maps?

    nemesis
    Free Member

    I have an 800 but I couldn’t claim to be an expert as such but… I note that the maps I’m using – OS and OSM are both .IMG (GMAPSUP.IMG is the standard name IIRC) files.

    Do you need to pull your tiles together into a single .IMG file – basically as you’re suggesting – ie making one big tile.

    The OS map I have is clearly an image file, not vector as you can see when you zoom in beyond the natural resolution.

    excitable1
    Free Member

    Nedraiper – Its not a faff now, what I’m trying to do is a faff & yes they are very detailed maps and well worth having 😉

    Nemesis – You’re right. The KMZ file is basically a zip file for Garmin, the tiles within it are .img files. Can I ask what file types your OS map is in and how big is it.

    I think the map creator splits a map down into tiles that the Edge can read IE each tile being 1024, and then the Garmin is restricted to holding 100 of these in any one map. If you merge all your 100 tile maps into a single map the resolution might have to be reduced and will be crap for the display (?). I suspect the whole country OS maps you can buy sill use .img files for the display but the programming that accompanies it gets round the 100 tile restriction.

    nemesis
    Free Member

    It’s a single .img file – around 3.5Gb from memory

    Same for the OSM file I download from talkytoaster.

    phead
    Free Member

    KMZ is a total pain,and I found it real slow. I suggest you start researching jnx:

    http://whiter.brinkster.net/en/JNX.shtml

    It does need a “fixed” firmware loading to support unsigned jnx files, but the results are much better.

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