I put together a VBA script in Excel a while back. The CSV database export needs to be imported into this workbook. It exports selection into GPX so you can create files according to your current needs. You can import GPX into basecamp and upload data to your Garmin device. It is for my personal use, but I am happy to share if someone interested.
I have just found some information about adding / replacing POIās on the Garmin GPS Devices. It seems that instead of loading Summits as WayPoints is should be possible to load them as POIās and use a suitable custom Icon too.
;Longitude,Latitude,Name,Details
-2.005800,51.919900,G/CE-001,Cleeve Hill 330m 1pt
-2.086700,52.416100,G/CE-002,Walton Hill 316m 1pt
-2.062700,52.060100,G/CE-003,Bredon Hill 299m 1pt
-1.320500,52.714500,G/CE-004,Bardon Hill 278m 1pt
-0.711500,51.771700,G/CE-005,Wendover Woods 267m 1pt
Loading that via the Garmin POI Loader (Install new custom POIās onto your device), this adds a Poi Folder and a Poi.gpi file to the Mirco SD card so I guess the only limit is the space on the SD Card.
After further experimentation (and reading the help) I have found that the Garmin PoiLoader even processes .gpx files so you can load Martynās complete uk-summits.gpx (it will create a 220Kb poi.gpi file).
Note: You may have to turn the GPS off/on for it to notice the new POI file.
To see them from the āFindā menu go to the āCustom Points of Interestā and they will be listed in order of distance.
I have downloaded 110107-GB+Contours-Routable-MapSource.zip and got Mapsource to write them to a new SD Card and added the converted uk-summits.gpx using Garmin PoiLoader.
I have had a look around several local summits and the maps seem to have enough detail to be useful and not too much clutter, although not all of the available paths are show for some summits (i.e. G/CE-003).
I have just found some information about adding / replacing POIās on
the Garmin GPS Devices. It seems that instead of loading Summits as
WayPoints is should be possible to load them as POIās and use a
suitable custom Icon too.
Second that on using POIsāhad to do that for the HL file over here, much easier on the device.
By the by, has anyone come up with a sexy little SOTA POI icon yet?
I whipped up a 24 pix icon a while back but itās a bit ghetto and when those free moments do pop up Iāve preferred to go outside and play in the cold instead of sitting in front of photoshop or imovieā¦
I think the one I came up with, while allowable in size, is a bit big, and 18 pix is more preferable, maybe with white border to make it visibleā¦
In reply to G0LGS:
How can I assign the icon to POI? I always get only a small circle. I use GPX file, and named icon to have same name, but still no effect.
I would go with the standard summit icon. There is one drawback with POI approach for me. They not get displayed on the map, only the destination one.
There is a problem with my delivery of the Garmin Topo maps, which appears to have become lost in the delivery system so in the meantime I downloaded the contour map from your link, currently the file size is about 167Mb
I installed a blank 2Gb micro SD card in my Garmin Extrex Vista HCx then ran the āUSB Mass storageā routine from my GPS once connected to my PC. My PC found the card & recognised it as a USB storage device. I created a folder on the card called GARMIN then after renaming the downloaded & unzipped IMG file as intructed on the website, I copied this file across to the Garmin folder I had created on the SD card.
The GPS saw this map file straight away & after hiding the basemap & setting the display mode to āDaytimeā I now have a quite detailed road & contour map of most of the UK, I am sure there are gaps but I have not found any major ones yet.
The contour lines do not show up clearly with the display in āNighttimeā or āAutoā mode if it is after sunset, due to the colours used, but in Daytime mode they are quite clear.
So far I have found no errors after checking a few local roads & summits so that does look like a very good free download
In reply to G0VOF:
Hi mark, im in need of a memory upgrade as i only have the stock 64mb card. SO i couldnt download the contour version. However i have tried the other one today and pretty much all of the roads round here are blank. Itās based on the openstreetmap which i think stewart g0lgsā link to velomap is based on the same maps too. I only realised this after i posted my link.
Itās not bad at all for free! If Iād have known how slow the USB downloader was Iād have pulled the memory card and stuffed it in the high-speed reader. As it was it took 3x longer to transfer over USB to the GPS than it did to download over the net.
In reply to MM0TAI:
I should add that the roads that are missing could be considered minor roads, but Iāll see what I can do with updating the map using my gps routes that Iāve made so far just trying it in the car.
In reply to G0LGS:
Thanks Stewart,
I was using JPG, not BMP. It works now. Now I have problem with the map TYPs and cgpsmapper keeps crashing, but itās another topic.
In reply to HG1DUL:
Ok so after a few problems with my new SD card i now have a map im happy with. I went for a 4GB micro SDHC card for the Garmin 60csx not realising that they dont support FAT32. After trying to re-format unsucessfully to FAT16 i found a 1GB card in an old phone.
Also discovered that the maps from ukgeocachers website is over 2 years old i opted for one of stewarts links to talkytoaster. The owner of the website claims to be updating these maps on a weekly basis!!!
Heres the latest Full GB with contours map @342Mb, so far its the best map ive tried.
In reply to G0CQK:
Hi jim, Iāll check what version Iām on tommorow but Iām pretty sure it said no updates available, but I canāt remember was that for the firmware or the basemapā¦ I will report the findings either way.
After a bit of an anxious wait my Garmin Topo North of England & Midlands Micro SD card arrived the day before I activated G/SP-008 Boulsworth Hill with Tony 2E0LAE.
I had downloaded the free GB Countour map from an earlier link on this thread which is pretty good, & I would have used it if my Garmin map had not arrived. I do have to say though that the Garmin Micro SD card is somewhat better (in the areas it covers)IMHO.
Countour wise they appear pretty much the same, which if they both use the same orginal source (OS data?) they should be, but the Garmin did everything I would expect & more, with some very minor tracks & paths being available.
I have not tried the latest version of the free routable contour map from toastytalker, but I doubt it could be better in this area than the Garmin map.
I am still very new to GPS, but was very impressed with my experiences last weekend.
It does appear though that you have to be a little crafty in order to view the Garmin topo map in Mapsource, as āimport mapsā does not seem to work. A Little renaming of certain files did the trick though.