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Dear mavens of mapping,

So I'm thinking about making maps for my Garmin CO and OR, and by the looks of things, this is the place for helpful and encouraging words, tutorials and knowledgeable advice. For the time being, I'm thinking that the maps that might be made shouldn't be limited due to software constraints, that they could be in raster and/ or vector formats, routable, include POIs and any other functionality afforded through the GPSr.

With an ever-increasing plethora of free spatial data available from so many sources, the mapping possibilities are quite exciting while the pitfalls of getting those maps onto the little Garmin have yet to be explored by this neophyte.

After reading through many posts and skimming the tutorials, there forms a rather long list of mapping applications, some of which are geared for only one purpose while other programs can handle a lot more heavy lifting - but can one program do all of the lifting? Is there more than one choice for the same function and if so, which one shines above the others? What are your top picks and must haves?

• cGPSMapper - Authoring, editing and conversion - free/$30/$300
  
  Dem2Topo - DEM to vector contours - free
  
  FWTools - Open Source GDAL/OGR and other tools - free
  
  Global Mapper - Looks powerful & versatile - $350 (cheaper if bundled with cGPSMapper)
  
  GPS Babel - Conversion and transfer - free
  
  GPSMapEdit - Visual authoring - $65
  
  gpx2img - Coversion gpx to img - only available to beta testers
  
  G-Raster - Convert calibrated KMZ overlays - $5
  
  MapEdit - Image map editor - $15
  
  MapSetToolkit - Creates MapSource preview files - free
  
  Mapwel - Visual authoring - $90
  
  NSIS - Creates setup files - free
  
  PostGIS - Open Source spatial enabler - free
  
  Topo Process Beta - Tool that helps create maps fast - free

Thank you very much for your thoughts and comments!

Kelly

What is the best means of getting waypoints from my Garmin Colorado and Oregon into AutoCAD?

I've got AutoCAD version Land Desktop 2004, MapSource Version 6.15.7 and Terrain Navigator Pro version 7.5.

Thanks for any advice.

Does anybody know if it's possible to bring Tides to the forefront on the OR 550 and CO 400i?

In order to find the tides on the OR, you've to navigate from the Main Menu>Where To?>scroll nearly to the end of the list>Tides>choose from the list of nearby stations>go to the map view>touch the station> and then finally view the tide table.

At least on the CO, the tabular data is presented one step earlier with the graph as an option, but still there quite a drill before getting the answer.

Is there anyway to cut to the chase?

[feet]

Just curious - have any Garmin users ever successfully coaxed their receivers into displaying their state plane coordinate system?

I've been playing around with Maine State Plane Coordinate Systems on my CO 400i and OR 550; e.g., NAD27 East Zone and NAD83 East Zone.

Issues encountered along the way:

Despite having user defined units set to feet, the field Location (selected) insists on displaying meters.

Despite having user defined Latitude of Origin set to their respective NAD27 and NAD83 values with their corresponding False Northings at 0, the field Location (selected) insists on displaying meters from the Equator. Trying to trick it by supplying a negative number (for example -4834972.8m) resulted in unsatisfactory results.

In short, it appears from my experiments thus far that the Garmin units mentioned are incapable of properly displaying MSPCS values after having gone through the procedure of Setup>Position Format>Position Format User Grid>User Grid>selecting the only projection for Transverse Mercator that's offered; i.e, UTM>and then filling in the various fields with their appropriate values. Trying to tweak the UTM offering into compliance was a bust.

However, abandoning SPCS's settings for UTM Zone 19's (False E 500,000m, False N 0m, Long of Origin 69 and Lat of Origin 0), the field Location (selected) looks most agreeable (in meters), even though user defined units were still set to feet.

I noticed that Boyd and others have nifty screen shots from their receivers and was wondering: what programs enable this?

We've just purchased and are waiting for the arrival of the GPSMAP 76 for friends that do a lot of kayaking. I'd like to have some maps of where they frequently kayak already loaded onto it before we give it to them, but nowhere in the users manual does it discuss how to do that, although I've gathered that it requires a program called MapSource.

My first question, is MapSource the correct program to use in loading maps onto the GPSMAP 76?

Thanks for any reply.

I've just purchased the Garmin Oregon 550 and am wondering: Are there free alternatives to the City Navigator 2010 or is that product the best route to take?

Thank you for any reply.