Send map image to serial Garmin

[Brek]

Hello
I have a prebuilt gpsmapsupp.img file (if I got that right) that I built some time ago for a 60csx.
It contains CityNavigator with routing data, and also a custom topographic map, all in one image.

For the 60csx, I could just write that to the SD card, and that’s the end of the story.

Now I have an older GPS that I’d like to load the same image to if that’s possible.
It’s a StreetPilot III with Garmin data card, and only a serial interface.
Is there a tool that will bypass Mapsource, and just serially send the prebuilt file?

I do own license for all of this. The image was originally done with my own CityNavigator,
and I can’t actually remember how I got the extra custom map into the same image (maybe MapSource supported that).

Cheers, Brek.

[Brek]

Well kind of... This deleted the City Navigator product.

[Boyd]

City Navigator is licensed to a specific GPS device, so I don’t think the gmapsupp.img from your 60csx will work on the other unit anyway. Typically you get a “unable to unlock map” error. Now (IIRC) some of the very old versions of City Navigator allowed installation on two GPS units, so look at the original disk if you have it. I think you would have to use Mapsource to send it to the second GPS, and not sure if this would depend on connecting to Garmin servers that no longer exist.

[Brek]

Hi Boyd,
Yes it’s a hassle. IIRC, there was an unlocker, and I’m sure I’d have had the forethought to do that for the compiled gmapsupp.img files that I backed up.
I’ve found the MetroGuide CD but that doesn’t autoroute, and I’ve found the City Navigator case without the CD itself lol.

I had a fiddle last night with an img file splitter, and another tool to install that to MapSource,
which is how I got this topographic on the device that I made myself.
For the City Navigator maps though, everything appears to work until I select that map set in MapSource, and it tells me something is wrong with the map.
Maybe these tools had issues with auto routing map sets?

Funny now that even if I wanted to install MetroGuide from my CD (which I don’t),
that would probably not work now as you said, and I’d need hack tools to do it.

As a last resort I might buy this Garmin Data Card USB reader and hope that the file on it
is the same old gmapsupp.img file that can simply be written from the file I have.
If not, I guess I’m boned.

[Brek]

It works! D

I used gmaptool to slit the gmapsupp.img file into it’s components,
then ran the bat file it produced to install to MapSource.

Funny, the map set didn’t show up to be selected in my old version MapSource,
but Garmin’s other program to send maps did see it, and it’s all go from there!

So in theory, it should be possible to stick fully updated maps on there.

[Boyd]

Cool!  . Old versions of Mapsource do not recognize .gmap files (garmin's new map format), so maybe that was the problem?

[Brek]

I think maybe becoming familiar with old tools again is the hard part.
I have MetroGuide and City Navigator CDs both for Australia, and both the same year,
but for City Navigator, lost the CD and just have the CD case, and image from an SD card.

I still wonder, without routing data, what the MetroGuide product was even good for!
I got that with a Legend which probably couldn’t do routing,
but then forget why I wanted road maps on it at all... got a 60csx very shortly after.

I figure for those two, they’d both install the same version of MapSource on a PC that doesn’t have it.

The latest routing map I have came out of a Nuvi after it broke, but still a few years old.
I might get adventurous and try that, but this is mainly for outback driving where roads don’t
change much over time anyway... I just have a phone app for the usual city driving.