Running Garmin Mapsource from the Hard drive

[Rick]

This was a topic that was discussed before and I learned to set my National Geographic Topos up on my hard drive to avoid loading CD by CD.

I am trying to do the same with my Garmin Mapsource Topo, however, I cannot seem to load the maps once I have copied the CDs to my Garmin Subdirectory. I cannot remember the exact steps in Windows and I cannot find a help topic on it.
Can anybody provide the setup steps?

Thank you in advance for any help

 

[GlennS]

Alright Kevin, I give up. I copied the map directory from the CD to my c: drive but the program is still asking for the CD. I'm using version 6.0 and it makes no reference to resetting the default directory. I'm thinking that we might be using different versions. Please set me straight!

While you're answering Mapsource questions.....How did you/do you save screen captures to a JPEG file? I'm trying to save a GPS track similar to the one you sent out showing the Owl's Head bushwhack.

You must be quite taken with your new locale. An Avatar without Brutus in evidence? He must be in the shadows

 

[Rick]

Rick -

Check under Edit, Preferences, File Location. You should be able to Browse to the subdirectory where you've copied the CDs, and reset the defaults.

Kevin

Kevin, I played with mine as well. I think that feature only changes the default location of where files can be saved (as well as the becoming the default location when opening a saved topo file.

I hinought there was a windows run edit command I had to go into....

 

[Brownie]

GlennS wrote: I copied the map directory from the CD to my c: drive
 but the program is still asking for the CD.
  
While you're answering Mapsource questions.....
How did you/do you save screen captures to a JPEG file?

I hope its not rude to offer help here.

I have both Garmin 6.5 and NG Topo software and have loaded CD map data direct to local hard drive.
This is a bit tricky sometimes and different for each application.

Garmin:
Copy CD file directoires "East" & "West" into local PC directory C:/Garmin
When you launch Garmin program you should be visually centered over US with a generic overview map.
My default overview map is actually Trip & Waypoint Manager.
I zoom into the eastern region and reload the East map detial.
The upper left has a pull down menu display for different segments, click on US-Topo-EAST
Then it should work to zoom in the region and display detailed topo map.

I have found that if you don't first launch the Garmin software with Overview map, and then you continued to zoom in on detailed area of East (or west) the display shows nothing detailed or prompts for CD.

Sometimes I get an error and the whole mess shuts down.
Its not a clean operation, at least the way I am running it. But it works.
Hopefully this will work for you, but I don't know.

Also, when you shut down application, it should remember last map target display and relaunch to the same view.

To make a copy of map to a .jpeg, there are a few ways.
Here is a simple one.
Use "Print Screen" key stroke on top of keyboard upper right.
Display is copied to clipboard.
Open a photo editor program like Photoshop or even Micrsoft Paint.
Paste from pull down menu, toolbar or
use "ctrl V"for keystroke paste.

Clipboard contents will paste into image file.
Save as: xxx.jpeg

You can crop image like you want, which will include the computer display at time of printscreen command.

Brownie

 

[GlennS]

Thanks for the help. I'll loved the print screen tip. For some reason, I was looking for some embedded function and over looked the simplest solution.

 

[Papa Bear]

Positive experience - it works

I got my garmin 60CS about a month ago and installed the basic CD that came with it to create waypoints, routes, etc and transfer them to and from the GPS (no maps included). I figured out how to get the UTM coordinates off of Topozone and cut and paste them into the dialog box for creating way points and I actually used the way points as help when we climbed Cold Hollow last week in Vermont. Luckily my GPS, being a newer model, has a USP connection and cable so the serial adapter problem is non-existant.

But the GPS unit had only the simple base map it comes with (which did not even include some of the smaller state roads in Vermont) so it was time to think of buying some real maps. I'm going to Baxter next week so I ordered both the US Topo 100k and the 24k East set (which includes Baxter) and they came yesterday. Here's what I did;

1) downloaded new firmware for my GPS (version 4.0) and loaded it onto the unit.

2) downloaded new software for MapSoource - version 6.8.0 - from the internet Garmin download for v. 6.8.0 of Mapsource. Note that this is not maps, it's the underlying software that sits on your computer.

3) loaded the 24k maps from the CD. Straightforward install a'la Windows. It took a while to figure out how to select portions of a map and load them onto the GPS (as a last resort, I read the directions ), but I finally managed to load the Baxter State Park quads onto the GPS.

Now, having previously read this thread, I removed the CD, restarted MapSource and voila, the 24K East maps were there ready to play with. I came back this morning and turned on the computer after a good night's rest and yes, the maps are still there, all nice and available, no CD involved.

So .... maybe it's luck, maybe it's the new MapSource version, maybe it's the order of the things I did, but it works fine. I have not yet loaded the 100k maps onto the computer; I need to get ready for my trip, so that will wait till I get back.

BTW: thanks to Doug Paul for suggesting the software and firmware updates and for providing the links.

Regards

 

[DougPaul]

The simplest method for having Garmin Mapsource or NG TOPO! run from hard disk is to copy the CDROMs onto the disk and install from the disk copy.

IIRC, Mapsource has an option for a full (or some such term) install. Perhaps it might install the maps on disk. Mapsource uses the registry to locate the datafiles, so changing an exsiting installation also requires changing the registry entry (by reinstallation or hand editing).

NG TOPO appears to check the disk for a directory (folder for you PC people...) and/or datafile and if it doesn't see it, checks the CDROM or asks for a CDROM. IIRC, you can copy selected directories from the CDROM into an an appropriate location in an existing installation to get it to use the disk copies.

And yes, when you load maps into a Garmin GPS, you lose the old ones.

To get an image of a map with a track on it, I print to a file. This gives me a postscript (.ps) file which I can then convert into other formats as desired. One could also do a screen capture, but this might reduce the resolution of the image to that of the screen.

Topo map quality:
The best digital topos (DRGs=Digital Raster Graphiics) were scanned for the USGS (http://www.topowest.com/FAQ/findex.html) at 250 DPI or greater. A number of them are freely available on the web. (Can't find a link right now.) These maps are good for viewing and printing, but cannot be loaded into most GPSes. NG TOPO! appears to use a resampled version of these maps (lower resolution).

Garmin uses DLGs (= Digital line graphics) to load into its GPSes. Originals of these are available online from the USGS. They have to be processed to produce an image.

I think these comments address most of the issues from earlier posts.

Doug

 

[Rick]

DougPaul (and everyone else) Thanks. I copied the CDs directly to my hard drive under the Garmin Subdirectory and launched it from the hard drive for East West and Alaska. Works perfectly - no more disk switching. Thanks
Rick

 

[DougPaul]

LIng to free DRGs

In my previous post, I talked about DRGs (Digital Raster Graphics = digital images of topo maps), but didn't have any links available to find them. Ran across a link to free DRGs and GIS sources: http://edu-observatory.org/gis/gis.html

The DRG files are generally tiff images.

Doug