Talk:OSM Map On Garmin/Cycle map

Script problems

Hi, I am having a problem with the OSM extracts which you reference. Each time I attempt to compile using the described method I hit a block with an invalid file in the temp directory. I have tried several versions of the UK extract.

I have manually worked around by deleting the file causing grief (usually 11Mb), and then manually running the final compile to Garmin format; this works and generates the relevant IMG and upload file. That works fine on my Garmin Vista Cx.

In addition, using cgpsmapper, I was able to compile my own TDB file, so, with a well documented registry change, I could load the created IMG tiles into MapSource. That allows easy swapping between maps, such as UK Contour/trig data plus OSM. ( A few minor cosmetic problems means that some lines look mis-drawn in MapSource, but are fine on the GPS).

At a minor level, the script you provided uses the "rm" command to remove old files. This fails in XP, though substituting appropriate "del" equivalents should fix it; alternatively manual deletion also works fine.

( all the above on a machine running XP Service Pack 2).

Add Contours?

Hi does someone know how to add contours on the Garmin maps? Thanks --Zapfen 11:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I found somethin here Talk:Mkgmap/dev#Contours

There is also a windows tool for generating osm files with contour data that than can be converted to img files using mkmap: http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Srtm2Osm

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jhodgdon says:

I managed to sort of get contours working... It isn't totally working, but I thought I would post the steps here as at least a starting point, because it kind of works and someone might be able to figure out the rest.

[EDIT: I got this working. I'm going to add my steps as an actual wiki page and link on the main page instead of hiding it in the discussion.]

Oversized

Is it possible to provide a split map. The current size is too large to fit into my GPS (Etrex Vista Mono = 24MByte memory). --Mungewell 17:24, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes check Mkgmap#Creating_a_map you can get your own .osm file with wget http://www.informationfreeway.org/api/0.5/*[bbox=-3.5,51.5,-1.0,53.5] -O data.osm --Zapfen 20:23, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I am playing with Mkgmap to make my own maps, but this will probably be too complicated to your average consumer. Just to note most of the low end/older Garmins are space limited (Legend & 76 = 8MByte, Vista & Venture & Summit = 24MByte). --Mungewell 15:45, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I have written OSM Composer, a simple GUI for creating maps for sets of smaller regions. The results should fit your memory nicely. --Nop 20:10, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Problem with Script - highlighting non bycicle routes like tramways

Hi, Just discovered one more bug. Every route gets highlighted for me. Some time ago people in Vienna started tagging all public transport lines as "routes". Which is correct according to route definition. This however gets really distracting having a city full of routes. There'ld need to be a check wheter a route is made for cycling/mtb or whether it's just any type of route.--Extremecarver 00:23, 12 October 2008 (UTC) It's easy to trace this error. Either just download the .osm.bz2 of Austria from Geofabrik or export Vienna from Josm and create the map. afterwards recheck with Josm whether it's a tram or a bicycle route. About 2/3 of highlighted ways are non bicycle routes.

MTB_map

Hi Richard, I've made pretty big progress using osm_composer to create garmin mtb map. I've linked to it on the front page. You may continue on that approach making the map more cycle-specific if you want. I will concentrate on mtb specific things only. The most important thing would be mkgmap supporting 3byte .typfile for making it even better. I'm badly hitting the limit of available polylines shown in Mapsource. --Extremecarver 15:50, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Improvements to Garmin Find function on GPS

The Garmin "Find" function is pretty useful when out cycling. There are a few issues though:

• Find->Transportation just literally copies the "name" field and does not show the transportation type. ie if you're heading to townX it will just show ("TownX", "TownX") if there is both a bus station and a train station in the town. It would be more useful to map the names to ("TownX train station", "TownX bus station") depending on the type.

This is true for the old cycle map script. For the instructions on this page (or the latest cycle style, I haven't checked what exactly is different), I now see "TownX Bus Station" in find. However, I do not see train stations at all anymore! I also see a lot of "unnamed ground transport", not sure what that is, but it would be useful to have a more descriptive name. ChrisB 09:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• Find->Cities - does this actually use the OSM data or the builtin basemap? I think it is ignoring the OSM data, which is annoying since when searching for a place name I end up getting suggestions of towns in France and other parts of Europe rather than a town 20km away.

• The naming of petrol stations, hotels, shops etc. is inconsistent - sometimes the town name is appended, sometimes not. This is a problem with the underlying data rather than the Garmin map itself. (e.g. should a petrol station have metadata {name:"Shell TownX", operator:"Shell"}, obviously Shell is redundant in the name, but pretty useful in the Garmin map. Same with hotels etc. - it would be useful to append the location to the name for the Garmin map e.g. "Best Hotel, TownA" rather than just "Best Hotel". And sometimes you get "ASDA TownX" sometimes just "ASDA".

• Find->Auto Services is kind of useful since it lists bike shops. However, it is pretty useless to have to wade through hundreds of car parks all labelled as "Unnamed Parking". Would suggest filtering out this data since it's useless for cycle maps.

• Find->Food & Drink does not list pubs!!! :-( Just cafes and restaurants.

• Okay, so there's a Garmin point type for bar-pub in garmin_feature_list.csv - so pubs are rendered on the map, but not listed under "Food & Drink"? Is this just hardcoded in the Garmin, or is it possible to set a subtype or something to make pubs appear? ChrisB 15:42, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

• Find->Accommodation lists camp sites that don't allow tents. I'm not sure of the best way to solve this, but twice in the last 2 weeks I've turned up at a camp site late in the evening by following the OSM data on my Garmin GPS and been turned away because the name is listed as "X camping" or similar but they don't allow tents! Very frustrating. I've set tents=no and changed the name to "X caravan park" in the OSM data, but it would be useful if caravan_site/camp_site and caravans=yes/no, tents=yes/no were mapped to a name more intelligently so it is possible to figure this stuff out whilst travelling.

ChrisB 11:51, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Dealing with motorways etc.

Does anyone else find the fact that cycle routes and primary roads/motorways are both depicted with red lines confusing? Especially where they cross or run alongside each other. It would be nice if there were an obvious visual difference between them. I was also wondering if there was a better way to display motorways and other roads were cycling is prohibited? It seems odd to have such roads highlighted in a cyclemap when you aren't legally allowed to cycle on them. I wonder if it would make more sense to depict it as some kind of waterway so that it appears visually different (blue) and it should be obvious that you can't cross except by a mapped point like a bridge or tunnel. There's a note in the style file "Downgrade tracks where bicycles are banned (ignore motorway/trunk as this'll look stupid)", I don't think I agree with this - highlighting a road so that it looks like a cycle route when it is illegal to cycle seems more stupid. Comments/ideas? ChrisB 15:42, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

They're not meant to look the same, but somehow if the build goes wrong, they do show up in the same red. I had this with my most recent build (which is why I haven't uploaded it). Am on deadline with the day job at the moment but will look when I have a minute, maybe at the weekend. --Richard 20:33, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't realise - in every map I have built so far the motorways have been rendered as red lines on the Garmin. I do not get any error messages and in all other respects the map appears to be as expected. ChrisB 13:18, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, have finally got round to looking into this. My mistake - sorry. The file needs to be called cyclemap.TYP with upper-case TYP. If it's lower-case it won't get included. Try rebuilding this way, and you'll see the motorways appear blue as intended (and a lot of other stuff!). cheers --Richard 15:11, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Zoom levels

The maximum zoom levels in the cyclemap style from svn seem a little low - all of the secondary roads disappear when zooming out too quickly. In the 'lines' file I changed the resolution for all highway types to 16 except for residential which I left at 22. Interestingly this shows up a lot of misclassified roads where the road is actually a through route but someone has classified part of it as residential because it goes through a town. It seems to work reasonably well in the country. I was wondering if there are any limitations on this on the Garmin side though? ChrisB 14:04, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

mkgmap -c option / store more options in external file template.args

Trying to follow the instructions (but skipped the splitting operation because the map I want is really really tiny), I am stuck at the last mkgmap command in "Creating Garmin .img files" because mkgmap says "Failed to read option file". Can that option file be downloaded somewhere, is it created in the process, oder do I have to create it myself?

Ok, I have learned that the template.args is created by the tile splitter, which means you would not need the -c option for mkgmap at all if you don't use the splitter, you'd rather input the filename directly.