Bushwalk Australia

Hi

I am new at dropbox and creating Garmin maps from OSM data so here goes. It will be a rough trip but hopefully worth the effort.

Background
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I brought a Garmin 62S with the Garmin Topo maps that were almost as expensive as the device. Great I thought I would be set but then found Garmin maps despite the hype were only suitable for road use as they did not even have the Overland Track on them! Somewhat cheesed off I found that the commercial maps I that looked at were rather shabby especially compared against their claims. The issue is the source data, and despite the claims most appear to draw it from a few sources that have their own issues.

Anyway I was MOTIVATED in true Ent style to do something about this and after one of my more epic vEnts was pointed to OSM by a forum member. What was this? It is a worldwide movement of people that believe that mapping data should be free and not restricted by commercial or political reasoning.

I then started mapping by first naming a few streets and then gradually building on this process until graduating to more elaborate tools. The last hurdle was getting maps on my Garmin for all my efforts. OSM Australia website provides some very good basic "img" files for Garmins but sadly they are designed for the likes of Europe where every blade of grass appears to be mapped. So time to create my own using the OSM tools.

Lets say after a few cultural difficulties with people that think MTB and bushwalking are the same thing and just cannot fathom that we can walk for days away from any man made features I finally due to the very kind efforts of a fellow Australian OSM mapper to started to crack the process. This whole process would not have happened with a massive team of volunteers that have developed free mapping tools, maintain servers that are being swamped by over 1.2 million registered user that are entering the mapping data worldwide. It must be getting to be the biggest worldwide volunteer driven project and I am in awe of their efforts.

Warning
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You all should be mature enough to understand that both the software and the people mapping are not of professional standard so there is no quality guarantee, in fact the reverse. The maps are only a guide and may actually misguide you so please do not throw out your normal mapping tools. And as quaint as they may seem a paper map from Tasmap and a trusted compass should be in your kit as that can save your life. Also, there may be a potential to scramble your Garmin. You have been warned so if you are not comfortable then click away now. I make no claim to the suitability and safety of the maps and install and you use at your own risk. Again I stress I make no claims. You have been warned.

Also I have only done a map for Tasmania so if you live elsewhere I can not help you yet.

Process
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I will write better instructions and put them on the drop box but here are some basic stater ones. Garmins come in many types and ages and do not respond all the same. So the basic guide has only been tested on Garmin 62S and Rino 650. The basic Extrex has had simpler maps installed but the link below is to contour maps that such a device will not support.

1. Copy from the Dropbox https://www.dropbox.com/sh/g7nxh1xwjrlxg5v/O9sBszLB0n the file Ent_World and place in a suitable directory or even the desktop if you are so inclined.
2. Plug your Garmin in by USB
3. Navigate to the Garmin directory (note for older Garmins you can not do this so that is where your journey stops)
4. Copy from the drop box the file Ent_World.img to the directory (note, you will need at least 30MBs of free space)
5. Unplug the Garmin and start it.
6. Go to the map screen or map set option depending on the model and navigate to the Map Information box - Select map. (Not older Garmins do not allow for extras maps so your journey stops there, well it can continue with a trick but it is beyond this basic set of instructions to deal with this, but do not give up)
7. Disable every map so you are starting clean (note you can re-enable the maps at your leisure) as having multiple maps open can result in strange behaviour.
8. Go to Ent_World 20M Contours and enable this.
9. Return to the map screen and start using the maps.

The maps should be routeable and have POI. So basically play around and post comments and question on this thread if you like.

Have fun and if people are interested I will update the maps periodically. And yes I encourage you all to look at OSM and become mappers.

Cheers

Fantastic to see more contributing! Thanks Ent!

A question. What's the source of your 20m contour? Also, have you tried the following OSM download site? It's regularly updated with the latest OSM entries.
http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/

Also, have you tried Contour Australia's 5m contour overlay in conjunction to OSM?
http://www.lizarddrinking.net/index.html

Hi

The source for contours is the space shuttle ones. They are the same source as the 5 metre Australia ones. Not one hundred percent sure but my understanding is the actual resolution data is thirty metres and the finer resolutions are extrapolated.

I started off using the Contour Australia 5m ones overlayed over OSM data but screen clutter was an issue. I do have the 10 metre data set to try out.

The maps are generated by mkgmap using the data extract from the Australia file thanks to a OSM mapper that has done most of the leg work. I combine this with the contours he also provided using a style sheet from mkgmap site tweaked to match the typ from a Netherlands site. Just got a few things to work together so lot more neatening up to do. I have access to the daily updates so the map data is as yesterday. If people are interested I can update my Dropbox one every so often.

If required I can strip the contours out and provide the base OSM file for the Garmin itself to overlay the Contour Australia 5m set.

My understanding is LizardDrinking no longer has Contour Australia 5m for download but you can buy them on disc cheaply enough.

Cheers

Nice work Ent!

Correct that the contours Australia is also based off the Shuttle SRTM data and the 5M version is extrapolated. I think Dougan also cleaned up the contours for any areas that were reported horribly wrong. If there are people using CA then it might be worthwhile offerring a contour free version. I do it this way so I can use the same contours over both OSM and Shonky.

Is this all of Australia?

Thanks again Ent. Nice work! I'll check out your product when I get back.

Photohiker: I recently contacted Dooghan in relation to some serious fault in the 5m display of the southern side of Uluru. Unfortunately he is no longer supporting the product. The other supposedly good product is OzTopo. It's a significant cost and I dislike the fact that it's stuck on a dedicated memory card.

Hi

No it is just Tasmanian as I can avoid the use of a splitter (minimizing things to learn) and been on a mobile phone network I am rather constrained by data limits and huge penalties if I get it wrong and go over my limit. The idea is to get it "right" and then make the mkgmap process bat, styles, and typ sheets to those with fast connection to generate their maps. Bit of a balancing act putting data up on OSM and developing means to use it. I have a few plans to improve the data display on the Garmin but still a lot to learn as the process is rather confusingly documented plus a myriad of of programs to learn. Also a lot of the prepackage img generators as mentioned are optimized for European conditions and thought processes. It is rather typical that people will select and develop things that suit their way, and nothing wrong with that if it suits you, in fact that is exactly what I have done much to the annoyance of a certain "seller" of MTB maps.

I will have a bit more of a play and put up the non contour OSM img.

Cheers

The OSM Australia Tassie image is 1.5Mb yet this one is 30Mb+

Is that the included contours making the size larger, or have you included more detail?

Err?

The OSM Australia img files that I have been downloading are around 5mb for routable and 3.5 for non routable.

The reason for the greater size is two fold. The contour data is now included in the img file so that is the main reason. The second is my non contour file is 7mb as it is routable and includes addresses, that appear not to work so might have been stripped out.

You can strip various items out of an img file so not sure what OSM Australia puts in or keeps out. I am going for a boots and all approach to start with as Tassie is not that big.

Cheers

Ent wrote:The OSM Australia img files that I have been downloading are around 5mb for routable and 3.5 for non routable.

Just 5Mb for Australia? My downloads have been in the hundred...

Hi

Err? Maybe I should clarify. Ent_World by default means Tassie. Why Tassie? Well that is where the Ent walks. Also it is nice and small so compact downloads and a chance for me to ground truth the results. The problem with Australia wide maps using contours is the massive 2Gb or more img file so making it hard to share this over the internet plus the need to split up so it can fit on many older Garmins. The 62S and Rino 650 that I use have lots of memory plus the SDcard option but the Fenix relies on cunning to fit maps on it as does the Extrex 10 that I occasionally borrow to play with.

One thing I have experienced on my Garmin 62S was for some strange reason only the contours would show no matter what I did. Thought it was my failed attempts but an version that was sent through by my much appreciated OSM helper that had worked had the same problem. Err? Um? Take batteries out and throw 62S at the wall and walk away in a bad mood. No that did not fix it. Enable and disable every map and switch unit off and rename the gmapsupp.ing file back to it proper name and install Ent_World as Ent_World.img and switch on and select Ent_World 20M contours. Hey its works. No idea why but it does. Forget about the issue and then get a phone call from fellow user of Rino 650 with the exact same problem. Me thinks that buried in the Garmin is a hidden file that can get confused with img loaded not by Garmins Mapinstaller. Still need to work on that issue.

Anyway, I have enabled street addressing. Given the lack of OSM street addresses this will probably not be much use but hey anyone can become a OSM mapper so sign up and add your favourite street addresses. In fact you might find that the only street address showing are where Tassie's OSM mappers lurk. This will be my next upload in a few days time.

Cheers

Ent wrote:Err?

The OSM Australia img files that I have been downloading are around 5mb for routable and 3.5 for non routable.

Yes, it's an Error

3.5Mb is the OSM Australia download for Tasmania


Didn't know they offered routable?

Thanks for the explanation, makes sense.

Just installed and it looked very nice! It's certainly very useful to have all the peaks marked out. Obviously it's still work in progress, but I wondered why there's no coastal margin and the lakes aren't coloured?

Hi

The Photohiker trademark question mark. On the OSM Australia website on the top bar is a Garmin download tab. It will take you to a page with multiple links to downloadable img files. For people with basic Garmins the 2km set is probably the best as foot ways hang in up to and including the 2km zoom level. And not been routable are smaller.

The routable ones are the best for newer higher specified Garmins. If tracks exist you can navigate them as per car roads. Handy for keeping a running distance how far to go but they tend to be ten to twenty percent shorter than actual distance depending on how many nodes the track is marked with.

All sets on the OSM Australia website appear to be basic exacts using default styles and no typ file. This means European zoom levels for detail. Also do not appear to have street addressing enabled.

Cheers

I thought the lakes came up blue on mine? Trouble is I am using mismatched style and typ files in an attempt to render in huts. Lot of work to match then unless I can extract from the OSM community the matched style and typ files. OSM is getting a growing number of quasi commercial contributors that like people to contribute mapping data but then want to "sell" you your data back. In away a good thing if this funds the servers but for areas with limited data it is the chicken and egg situation.

Also I think Garmin model might play a part. What is yours?

When home I will have a look at mine.

Yes very much a work on progress but hopefully enough to encourage more OSM mappers as Tassie along with Australia is rather blank.

Cheers

Ok, I've doubled checked in BaseCamp (Mac) and my Oregon 650 (latest firmware 2.80) and have the following points for your reference.

1) No blue lakes/coastal boundaries either when viewed on BaseCamp or Oregon.
2) Using Cradle Mtn area as reference, I could only see the topo contained in your mapset. No trail, no roads, no other land features. This is with all the other maps turned off on my Oregon. No such problem when viewed in BaseCamp.

Again, hope this helps. It's a challenging task based on my observation of others' experiences with building these maps. It's worth it in the end.

Ent wrote:Hi

The Photohiker trademark question mark.

Lets leave the personal out of it, ok? It goes nowhere. I'm happy to co-operate but not combat with you, it's no good for either of us so lets agree to let it be.

On the OSM Australia website on the top bar is a Garmin download tab. It will take you to a page with multiple links to downloadable img files. For people with basic Garmins the 2km set is probably the best as foot ways hang in up to and including the 2km zoom level. And not been routable are smaller.

Have you got a link for this? When I go to OSM Australia, then click on the Garmin Downloads, I get a choice of one set of img files (an overview and one img file per state + NT) with no mention of routable/non-routable. Are looking at the same website?

Hi

First what hopefully you should see screendumps thanks to "advice" from the resident wit on Garmin functions that are really neat if you have the patience to go through a really long menu structure and convert from bitmap to jpg. The joys of so many standards that you have no standards

First the sea



Second the lake



So yes the maps do work on a Garmin Rino 650 and 62S. But there is a strange glitch that happened to me on my Garmin 62S and another person on his Garmin Rino 650. That being only the contour data appearing. As said I have no idea what causes it but on my Garmin 62S I disabled all maps, renamed the gmapsupp to ogmapsupp and restarted the unit. Disable the map and shut the unit down and renamed the ogmapsupp back to gmapsupp and start the unit and disable gmappsup. That is assuming you have a gmapsupp file on the unit. This got the maps working on the Garmin 62S. I am not sure but I think the transperency issue might be the reason. I will research more. A fellow user with a Garmin Vista has not had this problem. I did read that there is some issue with transparency levels.

As for Basecamp. Yes I see exactly what you see. mkgmap can make full maps for Basecamp and they are the ones to install rather than direct access to the Garmin. I have not gone down that path as yet as still a lot to learn. But maybe to get the Basecamp ones working that is what I need to do.

Cheers

photohiker wrote:Didn't know they offered routable?

Sorry photohiker but the above sentence does not make sense with a question mark as it is a statement of fact so maybe full-stop. If it was "Where do you find these elusive files?" then the question mark makes sense. Just being a mirror

So you have found out that OSM website need a GPS to navigate around. Yeap, they are rather confusing so here it is in pictures.


Notice the tab on the top called downloads. Click on that and resist the temptation to follow the links on the right.


You should be presented with a list of available sets so here is what you should see if you scroll down.


And if you select the routeable set you should see


It is easier to naviagate the website than for me to post numerous links but here is the one to the routeable sets.

http://www.osmaustralia.org/garminroute.php

Helpful?

Cheers.

Looks good on my Rino 650
I too had the issue of nothing but contours showing up. I removed the other maps (except the base map) from the GPS and now it is fine.
P.s. Now re-installed Shonky and Contours Australia and Ent_World works fine as well. Weird.

If I have a couple of suggestions I'd say make minor roads hang in at higher zooms (the walking tracks do, but they appear to start nowhere as the road it is on disappears). Also it seems too keen to reduce the contour resolution, I'd like the 20m spacing to stick around at a little higher zooms.

Good work, you've got more patience than I at this techno crap.

Ent wrote:Helpful?

Aha. Yes, thanks. I was clicking the 'Garmin Downloads' in the 'Quick Menu' which doesn't offer any of those options apart from the standard sets.

photohiker wrote:
Aha. Yes, thanks. I was clicking the 'Garmin Downloads' in the 'Quick Menu' which doesn't offer any of those options apart from the standard sets.

Yep, I got caught out by that as well

Ok after a lot of "discussion" on an OSM forum I getting a better understanding of the mkgmap process and the relationship between styles and typ. Will be trying a few things out.

Yes sthughes I agree. The trouble is the default style line zoom levels are set up for Europe where displaying minor roads results in screen clutter. If you want to start a flame war just suggest that they are not right and bloke from Germany riding a MTB will come screaming in and start a very emotional "debate" as he tries to flog you his maps I have a vision of him somewhere in the Southwest trying to ride his bike through the mud or better still the Western Arthurs. One rather nice guy from Europe is working on hiking trails that you can walk on without getting your shoes muddy in winter It is a different world out there

Anyway, I will work on matching the style and typ sheets and post another update in a few days. Meantime, if anyone is finding this useful have a look at becoming a OSM mapper as there is a lot of Tassie to be mapped no to mention Australia.

Cheers

Hi All

Well after the usual computer battles, most of my making, I have now updated Ent_World with the latest OSM data. Also I have standardized to a style sheet that matches OSM website layout with the occasional use of Garmin's own inbuilt icons as nothing can beat a professional artist. So I have played with numerous settings to optimize the OSM map base data to bushwalking. Below is a summary.

1. Pushed minor roads up a couple of zoom levels.

2. Walking tracks stop at 12km zoom level now rather than 50km plus zoom level

3. Added a style for scree. Could not find any scree data to test but if you do please let me know what my rendering style looks like.

4. Bumped the contours to hang in at higher levels and soften their colour to reduce the screen clutter. I struck the level that means that you can workout if it is better to go around one side or another of a mountain. Some may find this overkill. If you like you cab set your Garmin level of detail to change this.

5. Worked on mountains and have split them into three levels, <1000 appear at 3km zoom, 1000-1399 appear to 5km zoom, and 1400> rock through to 8km but that is it as Garmin will not allow any higher level. This works on the principle that 1400 peaks are the ones you normally see when up on the high country for the longest distance. I needed to reduce screen clutter from mountains. Each level has a different icon. So peak baggers go for it.

6. Added waterfalls icon but found that tagging issues with OSM needa to be corrected, so they will come through as I remove the redundant tourism=attraction.

7. Probably most importantly I put in place the recommended syntax for adding contours so hopefully this will eliminate the issue some have struck with only contour data appearing.

8. As promised I started a Read_me document,

And remember all the above is very much a work in progress but getting to the stage of being a useful addition to your current navigation equipment and maps. And as I said before the public side of this project will depend on interest. And yes like a broken record (CD?) think about becoming an OSM mapper as the more data in OSM and the better it is "ground truthed" the more the useful the Garmin.img will be.

Cheers

Hi

Updated the Readme pdf file for Ent_World. As usual feedback is appreciated.

Cheers

Given there are a few forum members who are on OSM, let us know if there is an area of interest and we can all get stuck in and add data

tastrax wrote:Given there are a few forum members who are on OSM, let us know if there is an area of interest and we can all get stuck in and add data

I am relatively new at contributing to OSM. Have been adding bits and pieces for my area. Still learning its editing interface. A sub-forum perhaps? Maybe not just OSM, but mapping in general.

tastrax wrote:Given there are a few forum members who are on OSM, let us know if there is an area of interest and we can all get stuck in and add data

How about Tasmania? Soo much to map, so little time!
Lately I've been working a fair bit on Ulverstone (my home town) to get that looking good, if everyone could get their home town mapped it would be great! On the more bushwalking front I've been doing the Black Bluff to Cradle area a bit, as well as the Meander falls area, Pine River swampy bits and earlier in the year the Mt Anne and Western Arthurs areas. In August Ent and I will be doing Cradle Link Road to Gunns Plains in order to get a GPX of the PCT in that area. If someone has a GPX of the Mt Anne/Lake Judd circuit that would be a worthwhile addition too. Otherwise we'll probably go and do it in the spring/summer to get one. Also the Eastern Arthurs.
I know Ent has been working tirelessly on getting the hundreds of peaks into the database and still has a way to go on the lower ones. A pretty slow job manually adding the co-ordinates of each.

But yeah, if anyone is heading to a specific area and would like it to be mapped sooner rather than later just yell out.

If anyone has access to any digital (non-copyright) data of watercourses in Tassie it would be enormously handy as many creeks are hard to accurately map using satellite images.

Great work Ent. Thanks for sharing it.

I have been very frustrated with OSM (probably because of my ignorance). Using it online there are a great number of tracks, but all the Gramin downloads I found showed virtually nothing.

Your map of Tas is very good. I can view it in Bascamp from a USB drive as well.

I would like to get involved in OSM, but don't know where to start. Can you start me off with some good pointers?

Regards
Andrew

andrewp wrote:I have been very frustrated with OSM (probably because of my ignorance). Using it online there are a great number of tracks, but all the Gramin downloads I found showed virtually nothing.

That's definitely not right. Are you using this site <http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl> for your downloads? No problem for me in seeing all the tracks. You also need to go up in magnification to see them.

Otherwise the best way is to learn to edit in OSM. Not that hard. If you have GPS track logs, it's easy to add tracks.

andrewp wrote:Great work Ent. Thanks for sharing it.

I have been very frustrated with OSM (probably because of my ignorance). Using it online there are a great number of tracks, but all the Gramin downloads I found showed virtually nothing.

I might agree with you and not GPSguided on this point. OSM is heavily a programmer driven project so most sites and information can be geek and ancient geek. As GPSguided has pointed out the http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ is a good base for img files but even then it has cryptic things like typ and mapnik. What does that mean? Well mapnik is a typ format that matches the website line and icon type. Without that option the img file will rely on your Garmin's standard icons and line types. They are very limited so run with the mapnik type. However, you still will not have contours.

The maps creation starts with an OSM data file, then it is feed through a style file that governs what data appears or not appears. This can be loaded onto a Garmin but it relies on your Garmin rendering (drawing) the map. But if a line type or icon does not exist then it is not drawn on your Garmin. Garmin worked out this was not going to work so developed a type (typ) file that can have custom icons and lines. Every commercial seller of maps then went mad developing their own icons, but fortunately Garmins tools had many standard ones so complete chaos did not happen. Then arrive OSM and mkgmap and as Garmin would not share its data on the files and structure they were reversed engineered. So naturally the OSM community decided to use its mapnik style but even then it was like herding cats so the standard style never was established. Remember OSM is much bigger than maps for Garmins. Probably the main users of OSM data are smart phone users.

andrewp wrote:
Your map of Tas is very good. I can view it in Bascamp from a USB drive as well.

I would like to get involved in OSM, but don't know where to start. Can you start me off with some good pointers?

Regards
Andrew

The best thing is to first re-look at the OSM website and zoom to a small level and edit. Then click and poke around. When you exit edit mode you will be asked to save. If you have mucked things up them do not save your changes. Start off small and find a few streets that need naming or better still follow a river and extend it, as most rivers stop way short of their head waters.

You then can upload GPS traces as GPX files and convert them to ways (OSM speak for roads and tracks). If you like PM an I will send you my email address and you can send back a GPX file and I will work with you loading it. Once you have done things a few times it gets easier. Then I can introduce you the more powerful editor that I use, JOSM. Some people love it and other people love to hate it. I have reached ambivalence with it. The standard web-based editor Polatch 2 has far more users and very powerful so no need to change from that for some considerable time as you learn the ropes.

Cheers