alanB
Grey Hound
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2010
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- 6,776
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- Location
- Johannesburg
- Bike
- Husqvarna (all models)
I finally got round to having a go at loading a custom (home made) map onto my GPS after seeing a few references to that functionality in the manual and on the net.
I found this site which explains what to do in nice easy steps.
https://garminmontanagpsr.wikispaces.com/Custom+Maps
Apparently most of the newer generation Garmins have this feature.
I didnt have any third party pdf or scanned maps (which are available from various sites), so all I did was use Google Earths "save as image" functionality to save a screen shot of Google Earth as a .jpg image file.
I then loaded that image back into Google Earth as explained in the steps listed on the site above, made it slightly transparent (so I could see the underlying Google Earth) and then aligned the image with Google Earth so that its was more or less accurate with regard to spatial referencing. Then all you do is save that as a KML file to the Custom Maps folder on your GPS.
And viola its then available as a map on the GPS. :ricky:
My first attempt was a bit grainy when you zoomed right in on the GPS, because I didnt zoom in enough when I saved the initial image so some trial and error is required to learn how far to zoom in initially in Google Earth before saving the screen shot as an image, to get the map to render fine enough detail when you zoom in on the GPS.
But overall its very neat!
You can also scan paper maps, line them up in Google Earth and then download them to your GPS in the same way - so for all those "paper and compass" die hards this may be the breakthrough you have been waiting for!
I'm thinking of buying that DVD of government 1:50,000 topgraphical maps, and start playing around.
Only limitation is that a single image cant be bigger than 1024 by 1024 pixels (so you may have to chop up a big map into tiles) and apparently the GPS slows down a bit when panning etc.
To me its probably going to be useful for taking screen shots from Google Earth of tricky looking bits of a track I'm planning to follow so I can see all the surrounding paths (to use as escape routes if the actual track turns out to be too difficult). So I will only use the feature occassionaly, but its still neat :thumleft:
I found this site which explains what to do in nice easy steps.
https://garminmontanagpsr.wikispaces.com/Custom+Maps
Apparently most of the newer generation Garmins have this feature.
I didnt have any third party pdf or scanned maps (which are available from various sites), so all I did was use Google Earths "save as image" functionality to save a screen shot of Google Earth as a .jpg image file.
I then loaded that image back into Google Earth as explained in the steps listed on the site above, made it slightly transparent (so I could see the underlying Google Earth) and then aligned the image with Google Earth so that its was more or less accurate with regard to spatial referencing. Then all you do is save that as a KML file to the Custom Maps folder on your GPS.
And viola its then available as a map on the GPS. :ricky:
My first attempt was a bit grainy when you zoomed right in on the GPS, because I didnt zoom in enough when I saved the initial image so some trial and error is required to learn how far to zoom in initially in Google Earth before saving the screen shot as an image, to get the map to render fine enough detail when you zoom in on the GPS.
But overall its very neat!
You can also scan paper maps, line them up in Google Earth and then download them to your GPS in the same way - so for all those "paper and compass" die hards this may be the breakthrough you have been waiting for!
I'm thinking of buying that DVD of government 1:50,000 topgraphical maps, and start playing around.
Only limitation is that a single image cant be bigger than 1024 by 1024 pixels (so you may have to chop up a big map into tiles) and apparently the GPS slows down a bit when panning etc.
To me its probably going to be useful for taking screen shots from Google Earth of tricky looking bits of a track I'm planning to follow so I can see all the surrounding paths (to use as escape routes if the actual track turns out to be too difficult). So I will only use the feature occassionaly, but its still neat :thumleft:
