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Oregon 450, waypoints, custom symbols & Basecamp


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I've had my Oregon 450 for about a month now and used it very little. But, so far, I am very impressed with the USB transfer speeds, the screen, the 5,000 geocache limit, and the wireless transfer. I've used (own) the Oregon 200 (wife's), Dakota 10 (lost), Oregon 300 (stolen), Nuvi (sold), a couple of Legends (long story), and a Pioneer DVD navigation system that I hate on my motorhome. So, I am no stranger to GPSr's and how they work. What I have noticed on the 450 is that everytime I create a waypoint, a new waypoint GPX file is created with the current date. When I received my Oregon 450, I transfered my saved waypoints that I have acquired over the years and transfered them to the unit. The Oregon 450, or Basecamp, created a waypoints.gpx file with all of them in the /garmin/gpx directory on the unit itself. This was fine because there was only one waypoint.gpx file initially. Now, weeks later, I have over 20 waypoint gpx files, with different dates in the name, in the /garmin/gpx directory and it seems a bit cluttered. So, I opened them up and saw that the files are easy to manipulate. I cut and pasted the waypoint info from all of those files and placed them in the original waypoint.gpx file, deleted the rest, and the waypoints show up just fine on the unit.

 

This means that if you want to de-clutter the /garmin/gpx directory, you can do one of two things:

1)You can do what I did above, or

2)You can use Basecamp to transfer all of the waypoints to your computer, then delete all of the waypoints

on your GPSr and finally transfer them back to your GPSr.

 

One of the recent software releases for the Oregon x50 units has allowed us to use custom symbols on our units. I forget how I did it, but I added about 20 symbols to my Oregon 450 and I am using one or two of them with my waypoints. My question is, how do you make Basecamp use these symbols? I noticed that when I transfer waypoints with custom symbols to Basecamp that it shows a dot in place of where the custom symbol should be.

 

I need a life because this is bugging me!

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You can't. Basecamp, at the moment, does not work with custom icons....

 

If you would like to see this feature, I would suggest posting over on the Garmin forums as the developer frequent them.

 

It seems kind of silly that their own software is not able to use the custom icons. But, I will definitely post this on their site.

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Given that this dates back to 2007, has there been any developments that I've missed. I get the custom icons on my Oregon 550 but not in Basecamp. Has there been any progress in this area?

 

I've had my Oregon 450 for about a month now and used it very little. But, so far, I am very impressed with the USB transfer speeds, the screen, the 5,000 geocache limit, and the wireless transfer. I've used (own) the Oregon 200 (wife's), Dakota 10 (lost), Oregon 300 (stolen), Nuvi (sold), a couple of Legends (long story), and a Pioneer DVD navigation system that I hate on my motorhome. So, I am no stranger to GPSr's and how they work. What I have noticed on the 450 is that everytime I create a waypoint, a new waypoint GPX file is created with the current date. When I received my Oregon 450, I transfered my saved waypoints that I have acquired over the years and transfered them to the unit. The Oregon 450, or Basecamp, created a waypoints.gpx file with all of them in the /garmin/gpx directory on the unit itself. This was fine because there was only one waypoint.gpx file initially. Now, weeks later, I have over 20 waypoint gpx files, with different dates in the name, in the /garmin/gpx directory and it seems a bit cluttered. So, I opened them up and saw that the files are easy to manipulate. I cut and pasted the waypoint info from all of those files and placed them in the original waypoint.gpx file, deleted the rest, and the waypoints show up just fine on the unit.

 

This means that if you want to de-clutter the /garmin/gpx directory, you can do one of two things:

1)You can do what I did above, or

2)You can use Basecamp to transfer all of the waypoints to your computer, then delete all of the waypoints

on your GPSr and finally transfer them back to your GPSr.

 

One of the recent software releases for the Oregon x50 units has allowed us to use custom symbols on our units. I forget how I did it, but I added about 20 symbols to my Oregon 450 and I am using one or two of them with my waypoints. My question is, how do you make Basecamp use these symbols? I noticed that when I transfer waypoints with custom symbols to Basecamp that it shows a dot in place of where the custom symbol should be.

 

I need a life because this is bugging me!

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Hi Sakidoo,

 

Two weeks ago I got a Garmin Oregon 450t, and I'm using BaseCamp with it. I can also match up custom waypoint icons between the Oregon and BaseCamp (on a Windows XP-SP3 computer). Here's the secret:

 

BaseCamp installs a folder called "My Garmin" inside of the My Documents folder on your computer. Inside "My Garmin" is a folder called "Custom Waypoint Symbols."

 

Contrary to what Garmin's official instructions say, custom waypoint icons must be saved as *.png files instead of *.bmp. The 32x32 size restriction still applies and magenta still is the color to use for a transparent background, but the 24-bit color restriction may not apply. I'm not given the choice of saving a PNG file as a 24-bit file, and I have more colors available in the PNG palette than I do with the 24-bit palette.

 

First, create your icons as 32x32 PNG files and give them the file names "000.png" through "063.png" (we are limited to 64 custom icons, and the names MUST be these numbers). Save these files in the "Custom Waypoints Symbols" folder in My Documents> My Garmin.

 

Second, start BaseCamp. Select a waypoint and use the drop-down menu for changing icons. At the bottom of the list you should see a section called "Custom" with your custom icons in it.

 

Third, close BaseCamp and connect your Oregon GPSr to your computer in Serial/USB mode.

 

Fourth, copy and paste the custom icon files from the "Custom Waypoints Symbols" folder to the Garmin> CustomSymbols folder on the Oregon.

 

Fifth, RENAME THE FILES ON THE OREGON after you get them copied to it. The "000.png" file you just copied over MUST be renamed to "custom 0.png" (use a lower case "c", and include a space in front of the zero - don't use quotation marks, of course). Continue this naming scheme for all of the icons you put on the Oregon ("001.png" = "custom 1.png", "002.png" = "custom 2.png", etc.).

 

Renaming the files on the Oregon makes it possible for the icon images to be synchronized between it and BaseCamp. DO NOT change the names of the PNG files on your computer.

 

Sixth, close all of the open windows/folders for your Oregon and restart BaseCamp. Create a new waypoint, select a custom icon from the drop-down menu, and then send the waypoint to the Oregon.

 

Seventh, disconnect the Oregon from your computer and fire it up. You should see the waypoint you sent with the custom icon showing.

 

I hope this helps. I fought with this for days and days until, in desperation, I tried changing the file format from *.bmp to *.png.

 

Also, I saw on Garmin's blog site that we are supposed to be able to use any name for our custom icons (e.g, "New Symbol.bmp"), but as far as I can tell we are required to use the numeric naming format - at least if we want to get the icons synchronized between BaseCamp and the Oregon.

 

I thought of one more thing: If you already have icons saved as Bitmaps (*.bmp), you do not have to remake them. Just open the *.bmp in a program like Windows Paint, and then select "Save as..." and give it the correct name, and select "PNG" from the format drop down menu. You will be warned that doing this will remove some information from the file, but it's okay. The icons will appear the same as they were when they were *.bmp files.

Edited by WVTopoFan
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