custom maps for GPS receivers

Cartography, maps, navigation, GPS and more.
Adventure Mapper
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custom maps for GPS receivers

Post by Adventure Mapper » December 24th, 2012, 11:38 am

... starting a new thread so that tips and tricks at the end of "access to public information ..." do not get lost.

There is a lot to know about loading your own custom maps into GPS receivers. Just looking it up on the web can be overwhelming. Personal experience and advice from Portland Hikers is a big help. I hope tips and tricks will show up on this thread so it can be sort of like a reference.

Making custom maps is fun and interesting in its own right even if you don't really need them for familiar areas. It's a way of experiencing the wilderness from warmth and comfort that leaves you super prepared for those cold and clear days when the waterfalls will be running. It also allows you to hike like a local in a place you've never been before.

The map in a GPS receiver is dynamic, it can be zoomed and panned, layers can be turned off and on, place names and other information can be inspected, fresh information about your track is added, etc. In this environment some ways of storing the information in the GPS receiver work better than others. I've found that some information such as high points is best kept as vectors. This way you can set a target peak while you can see it and your GPS receiver will keep you on track to it while you descend through the brush where the target peak can't be seen. Other information such as slope shading (darker red for steeper slopes) is better as a raster background. It is possible to load vector and raster information into newer GPS receivers. Once the tricks for this are known the creative experience of making a dynamic map and testing it in the field can begin.

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Eric Peterson
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Re: custom maps for GPS receivers

Post by Eric Peterson » January 1st, 2013, 4:30 pm

Put the Hoyt Arboretum into a .kmz and uploaded it into my GPS earlier this morning
and checked to see how close I was and how close Green Trails was with those
little Hoyt trails. Ended up looking closer than I thought at the time while hiking through
it this morning, and nothing like holding a big 'ol GPS and looking super nerdy
while doing a in town stroll :mrgreen:

My track is red -
hoyt.jpg

Adventure Mapper
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Re: custom maps for GPS receivers

Post by Adventure Mapper » January 4th, 2013, 10:11 am

How did you get the Forest Park trails into .kmz?

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kepPNW
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Re: custom maps for GPS receivers

Post by kepPNW » January 4th, 2013, 11:48 am

Adventure Mapper wrote:How did you get the Forest Park trails into .kmz?
Scan it, then in GE "Add - Image Overlay", register the image, Save As.
Karl
Back on the trail, again...

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Guy
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Re: custom maps for GPS receivers

Post by Guy » January 4th, 2013, 12:58 pm

Put the Hoyt Arboretum into a .kmz and uploaded it into my GPS earlier this morning
That's very cool Eric, can that be done with the Garmin 60 CSx or do you need a newer model?
hiking log & photos.
Ad monte summa aut mors

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Eric Peterson
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Re: custom maps for GPS receivers

Post by Eric Peterson » January 4th, 2013, 3:45 pm

Sorry Guy, the 60 doesn't support Cusom Maps :(

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Guy
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Re: custom maps for GPS receivers

Post by Guy » January 4th, 2013, 4:12 pm

Sorry Guy, the 60 doesn't support Cusom Maps
Thats what I thought but oh well, at least I have the EP custom mapset - Gorge + :^)..
hiking log & photos.
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Adventure Mapper
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Re: custom maps for GPS receivers

Post by Adventure Mapper » January 4th, 2013, 4:50 pm

It is possible to load custom vector maps into Garmin GPS receivers of that generation. It is done using cGPSmapper. It is also possible to use Base Camp and .img files that have been made by various people. You may find that vector maps are better than raster maps for a small screen.

For trails it is also possible to geo-reference the scanned map (this is also called registering the image) and then hand digitize the trail line to make a .gpx that can be loaded into a GPS receiver.

All the Washington Park and Forest Park trails seem to be in Open Street Map. Has anyone found a way to convert these to .gpx?

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Eric Peterson
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Re: custom maps for GPS receivers

Post by Eric Peterson » January 4th, 2013, 6:36 pm

It is possible to load custom vector maps into Garmin GPS receivers of that generation. It is done using cGPSmapper. It is also possible to use Base Camp and .img files that have been made by various people.
AM, yes, the Gorge Mapset is a vector based mapset and can be loaded in almost
all of the Garmin models using cgpsMapper and GpsMapEdit.

Guy was asking about a .jpg or raster image which can be put into newer units like the 62, which I have.

Have you tried loading the Gorge + Mapset into your unit yet?

It's on my server in the signature line in the Maps section. I could be mis understanding
you though...

Adventure Mapper
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Re: custom maps for GPS receivers

Post by Adventure Mapper » January 6th, 2013, 10:44 am

I just got a new GPS receiver, RINO650. The receiver is much better than my old RINO130. Also, it looks like external memory on my computer so I load .img maps directly rather than with sendmap20. I have used BaseCamp a bit but I'm sort of confused by it. Is there a way to see both my custom map and a Garmin map? I make a custom map of a small area. It would be nice if all the roads and stuff from the large area Garmin map were visable when I'm off the edge of my custom map. As far as I can tell there is only one gpsmapsupp.img.

I'm checking with some of my GIS buddies who know OSM to see if there is a way to get OSM tracks such as Forest Park trails into .gpx or .img. I think that would be preferable to a raster image since lines on a raster image don't look clear over a wide zoom range.

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