Mkgmap/help/usage

From OpenStreetMap

Contents 1 Creating a map 1.1 Command line options 1.2 Label options 1.3 Style options 1.4 Product description options 1.5 Miscellaneous options

Creating a map

The simplest thing to do is create a map from a file saved from JOSM. This file can be called anything you like — I'm using data.osm in the example. Run the following command:

   java -jar mkgmap.jar data.osm

This creates a map with the default name of 63240001.img (Garmin maps have names that are 8 digit numbers, although of course you can rename the file afterwards if you wish). Various things about the map can be changed and for that you should see the next section.

Command line options

For larger maps you may want to alter some details of the default map there are options you can set. If you want to set several options it might be easier to put the options into a file and use the -c option.

--help

Show the list of help topics available

--help=options

Show a list of available options.

-c filename

The given file is opened and each line is an option setting of the form option=value, just like on the command line except that there is no leading '--'.

-n name

--mapname=name

Change the name of the map. Garmin maps are named by 8 digit numbers. The default is 63240001. It is best to change the name if you are going to be making a map for others to use so that it is unique and does not clash with others.

--description=text

Sets the descriptive text for the map. This may be displayed in QLandkarte, MapSource on on a GPS etc.

Label options

Garmin devices vary in their ability to display non-English characters and for this reason mkgmap goes to some length to convert characters in labels. By default all accented characters are transliterated into ascii characters where this is possible. This will give a map that is usable in the widest number of places.

Options exist to change this. Also see the Internationalisation page.

--latin1

This option allows the use of non-ascii characters in street names to be displayed.

It is shorthand for --charset=latin1

--charset=name

Use the specified character set.

--code-page=number

Use the given code page for the . This is

--lower-case

Allow labels to contain lower case letters. Note that this doesn't work on many (most?) Garmin devices.

Style options

--style=name

Specify a different style name, rather than the default.

--style-file=file

Specify an external file to obtain the style from. The file can be a directory or a zip file containing the style. It can also be a URL. If there is more than one style in the zip file, then the --style argument can be used to select which one.

For backward compatibility, you can also supply a map-features.csv file here. See the customisation help.

--name-tag-list=list

Changes the tag that will be used to supply the name, normally it is just 'name'. Useful for language variations. You can supply a list and the first one will be used. eg. --name-tag-list=name:en,int_name,name. This means that name:en will be used first, then int_name and finally if both of those don't exist then 'name'.

--levels=levels code

Change the way that the levels on the map correspond to the zoom levels in the device. See customisation help. The default is the equivalent of: "0=24, 1=22, 2=21, 3=19, 4=18, 5=16" although this may change.

--map-features=file

Use your own map features file. You can totally change which features are shown and at what levels. See customisation help.

Product description options

The following options set values that are used in the gmapsupp and TDB files to identify a product. None of these options are required to produce a simple map.

--family-id

This is an integer that identifies a family of products.

--product-id

--series-name

--family-name

--area-name

--overview-name

Miscellaneous options

--block-size=number

Changes the block size that is used in the generated map. There is no general reason why you would want to do this.