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Downloading usgs 24K quad maps to garmin oregon

Started by pounder67, February 22, 2011, 08:54:20 PM

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pounder67

I recently purchased a garmin oregon 450.  I downloaded mapsource and gpsmapper from your site.  I then downloaded NE USA Topo part 1 to mapsource and loaded it into my GPS.  It worked great.  Now I wanted to see if there's a way to get some actual scanned usga  maps to mapsource.  Those are the most detailed maps I can find.  I've been using paper maps printed at home for years.  Is there a way to get these on my GPS?  Or, are there other maps available that are as detailed as the quad maps?

Boyd

You can make "custom maps" like this - I have some examples here (the ones with a check mark in the "raster" column): http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/byuser/282/

But this format is very limited, so you can only cover a relatively small area. My own experiments showed that 10 feet per pixel was the lowest resolution that was usable. This will allow you to cover an area approximately 20 miles x 20 miles.

This is not done with cgpsmapper. There are some other programs that can help with this, such as Mobile Atlas Creator, g-raster and mapc2mapc. For simple projects, you can use Garmin's tutorial here: http://www.garmin.com/garmin/cms/site/us/onthetrail/custommaps

pounder67

Thanks Boyd.  I looked at your map.  It's exactly what I'm looking for.  I'm fairly new at this; I didn't know a "raster" and  "usgs quad" were the same thing.  It's unfortunate those rasters can't be loaded into mapsource; that's what I've been using to manage my data.  So, can I find those types of maps for Northern Wisconsin and the UP of Michigan?

Boyd

"Raster" is actually an old term that was used to describe the way an image is displayed on an analog TV screen, using a series of scan lines and dots. In this context, it refers to any kind of image that is used as a map.

Mapsource can't use raster imagery, but Basecamp can. Since it's google earth's format (.kml/.kmz) you can also use these maps in google earth.

You will have to make your own unless you can find some here or elsewhere to download. The data is freely available from a number of places, including: http://seamless.usgs.gov/

Indrid Cold


foresterscott01


G-Raster is what I use most often for quickly getting referenced tiff's into KMZ format for the Oregon.  If you need download sources there's a link on G-Raster's menu to free raster downloads.  If you register the program for $5 you will gain access to the "map cropper" tool so you can cut down on the number of tiles going into the Oregon (limited to 100 total).  There's also an option for rescaling to further reduce the number of tiles.

Scott

pounder67

Ingrid, that worked.  The resolution is pretty bad, though.  Foresterscott,  that worked out great.  The resolution is much better.  Is the 100 tile limit only for images stored in the GPS, or can you store more on the micro SD?  Thanks for everyone's help!

Boyd

The format can only handle 100 individual JPEG's, and each JPEG should be no larger than 1024x1024 (you can use larger, but Garmin says quality will not be good). You may only have one custom map on the whole device (card and/or internal memory). The only way to switch maps is to physically change data cards.

See: https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?t=10396

foresterscott01

#8
"You may only have one custom map on the whole device" is not entirely accurate, as you can have as many custom maps as you want, up to the 100 tile limit.  They are recognized by only one tab in the Oregon, however, so they turn on and off together.  They don't have to be adjacent, or be of the same type (contour map, aerial map, scanned paper map).  An SD card will have its own "CustomMaps" folder, but the unit will read both the SD folder and the internal folder together and still group all maps into the same tab.

Scott

Seldom

On my OR300 "CustomMaps" is one word, no whitespace.

pounder67

Thanks for all the input.  I got a bunch of maps drawn up, now.  Yes, 1 custom map folder in the unit.  That got me 5 custom maps to fill the tab.  So, the only way around that is to get microSD cards and put 100 tiles worth of maps on multiple cards and carry them along?  It's very simple to pick 5 maps off my computer and load them into the unit, but sometimes I'm away from a computer for 2-3 weeks. 

jbensman

Did you try My Trails in combination with NE TOPO?  I've beleive the trail and POI data should be more accurate than the USGS where My Trails has coverage-but I have good FS and NPS data.  The trail data on the USGS 24K tends to be quite a bit off.  Your best source of data is GPSed or traced from aerial photos.